"Eric Flint & Marilyn Kosmatka - Time Spike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

The Ring of Fire series:
1632by Eric Flint
1633by Eric Flint & David Weber
1634: The Baltic Warby Eric Flint & David Weber
Ring of Fire ed. by Eric Flint
1634: The Galileo Affairby Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
Grantville Gazetteed. by Eric Flint
Grantville Gazette IIed. by Eric Flint
1634: The Ram Rebellionby Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce et al.
1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce
1635: The Cannon Lawwith Andrew Dennis
Grantville Gazette IIIed. by Eric Flint
Ring of Fire IIed. by Eric Flint (forthcoming)
Grantville Gazette IVed. by Eric Flint (forthcoming)



For a complete list of Baen Books by Eric Flint,
please go to www.baen.com.




Chapter 1
"Sorry about the rotation list, Andy." Lieutenant Joseph Schuler shrugged and shot the captain a look
halfway between pity and resignation. "We're just too short of people to staff any shift the way we
should. As for midnights . . . You know how it is."

Captain Andrew Blacklock knew how it was. The same way it had been since the day he started
working at the state of Illinois' maximum-security prison just across the road from the Mississippi River.
But tonight's numbers were worse than usual. The coverage was nowhere nearly adequate. He looked at
the men and women ready to punch out and squelched the thought of asking them to work over. They
had worked short. They were beat. He knew over half of them had worked a double shift. Probably the
third one this week, the sixth this pay-period.
 Andy forced a wry grin.Some things never change. Pay everyone overtime, but keep the other
costs low. Don't hire anyone new. The state can't afford the bennies. Health, dental, vision. Nope,
overtime's cheaper.

"We'll make it, Joe," he said. "We always do." Andy looked away from the man he was relieving and
toward the metal detectors. Three guards were lined up in front of the machines at the prison entrance
waiting to process the oncoming shift. Andy wasn't worried. Just irritated.

He hated taking shortcuts, and that's exactly what had to be done when working a skeleton crew. One
set of rounds for every two that should be done. Everyone locked down come morning. Day-shift was
going to start out behind, and he knew they could no more afford it than he could afford to send the
prisoners to the cafeteria for breakfast. Or to the infirmary for their meds. He stifled a curse. The nurses
were always ticked when they had to hand-deliver the morning meds to the cellblocks. They were even
more short-staffed than he was.

There was no department within the prison system with enough people. Not even at the top end, the