"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 01 - Hammer's Slammers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

iment shifted employers while he was on furlough,
but the civilian sources available on Miesel when
he got his movement orders were about all he
needed anyway.

Captain Tyi Koopman wasn't coming to the planet
Bamberia; he was returning to Hammer's Stam-
mers. After five years in the regiment and six
months back with his family, he had to agree with


the veterans who'd warned him before he went on
furlough that he wasn't going home.

He had left home, because the Slammers were
the only home he'd got.

The shelter was a low archway, translucent green
from the outside and so unobtrusive that Tyi might
have overlooked it if there had been any other
structure on the island. He circled to one end,
apprehensive of the rumbling he heard in the
skyтАФand more than a little nervous about the pair
of star freighters already grounded in the port.

The ships were quiescent. They steamed and
gave off pings of differential cooling, but for the
next few days they weren't going to move any
more than would buildings of the same size. Nev-
ertheless, learned reflex told Tyi that big metal
objects were tanks . . . and no infantryman lived
very long around tanks without developing a healthy
respect for them.

The door opened automatically as Tyi reached
for it, wondering where the latch was. Dim shad-
ows swirled inside the shelter, behind a second
panel that rotated aside only when the outside
door had closed again.

There were a dozen figures spaced within a
shelter that had room for hundreds. All those
waiting were human; all were male; and all but
one were in civilian garb.

Tyi walked toward the man in uniformтАФalmost
toward him, while almost meeting the other man's
eyes so that he could stop and find a clear spot at
the long window if the fellow glared or turned his
head as the Slammers officer approached.