"Gordon Eklund - Serving in Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eklund Gordon)

He felt he got along with them all equally well.

There was one exception to this.

The exception presently sat, as squad leader, at the end of
Jan's second row. Her name was Gail Conrad and he was
beginning to believe he actually hated her. As leader of his
squad, she was in the perfect position to pay him back for what
she apparently considered his lack of loyalty. In the last two
months, she had done her best to make life utterly miserable for
Jan. Evenings he should have spent studying with the others
were instead devoted, at Gail's direction, to scrubbing pots and
cleaning sinks and washing clothes and dishes. Out of this had
come Jan's favorite dream. Every night when he fell asleep, he
wished for it to come. In this dream, it was graduation day. The
class rankings were announced and there at the very top stood
Jan Jeroux. Gail, poor Gail, there she was at the bottomтАФa
certified failure doomed to awful extinction in the nothingness of
the timevoid. Unfortunately, the whole dream was pure fantasy.
If in the cold reality of today Gail failed to attain top ranking, it
would be an event rivaling in remarkability the original
invention of the time traveling process by Lackland. Gail had
known more than enough before ever reaching the Academy to
pass the course.

In fact, this was one point which struck Jan as most unfair.
Nearly all of his classmates seemed to be the sons and daughters
or brothers and nephews of men and women already enrolled in
the corps. One of Whitlow's daughters had graduated in the class
just ahead of Jan's. The best he could manage was the long
forgotten Cousin Norton. The others had learned firsthand about
history in their parents' laps. They were as familiar with
Napoleon and Einstein and John Hancock as he was with how to
hoe weeds or pick corn. One thing it wasn't and that was fair.

The boy sitting to Jan's rightтАФhis name was Kirk
RayburnтАФsuddenly muttered aloud, "If I don't make it, I'm going
to fight."

Jan glanced around to make sure no one was watching them,
then whispered: "Me, too."

"In fact," said Kirk, "if they try, they'll just have to kill me to
my face. I'm not going out there of my own will."

"Me, either," said Jan.
 "If I have to, I'll take a couple of them with me. Mallory, for
instance. Wouldn't you love to take care of him, Jan?"