"Frankowski, Leo & Dave Grossman - The War With Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

"Then you need wait no longer, sir."

With a proud flourish and his tail held high, Rupert inserted a module into the display device, and pressed the start button.



CHAPTER TWO
What My Tank Did When I Was at School
We sat there for almost a quarter of an hour before I was ready to talk again.

"Why did you do all this to me?" I asked. "Not the training and all the lies. I can understand that, even if I can't forgive it. But why did you make me into such a big hero? Why did you take me to the top of the world, and then let me crash at the bottom when it all fell apart? Why did you go so far out of your way to make me so miserable?"

"Your psych profile said that you needed a psychological release, a good party as it were. That, and it's standard operating procedure, for a student who has done exceptionally well."

"I don't love you for it. My home and my lands aren't real either, are they?"

"No, it all happened in Dream World. But Mickolai, you have four and a half years of back pay coming, plus interest. Land on New Yugoslavia isn't expensive. Laws have been passed enabling the two of you to get immediate citizenship here, or to become permanent resident aliens with full legal rights while retaining your New Kashubian citizenship. You can afford to buy an estate here if you want one, although perhaps not as big as six thousand hectares. And you were really in communication with the real Kasia, every time you met her in Dream World. She is as committed to you as you are to her. The two of you can be properly married in the real world any time that you want to."

"And I suppose that Kasia's back pay will get us the house built, but dammit, it's not the same as having it all given to us by a grateful government. And Jesus Christ. Four and a half years, chopped right out of my life. What has really been going on in the world while I've been out playing soldier?"

"Quite a bit, Mickolai, and most of it has been very good. Things on New Kashubia are now very nice because of what you and the other soldiers have done. The food stuffs that the Yugoslavians sent us to pay our construction contracts ended the starvation almost immediately. They also let us bring in all the carbon dioxide, ice, and ammonia that we wanted from Freya, the eighth moon of a gas giant in their system. That let us synthesize all the organic chemicals we needed to run all of our automatic factories at full production, with wonderful results.

"There is no rationing of anything any more, the economy is a modified free enterprise system, and the average Kashubian lives with his family in a large, modern apartment. There are automatic hydroponics farms now that are more than sufficient to feed the population, and pastures and fish ponds that produce all the protein that anyone could want. We are even exporting some specialty food items. The government has vowed that no one will ever again suffer from want of food.

"There are parks and playgrounds in the golden tunnels now that are very pleasant, and most people are very happy. In fact, the government has purchased land on more livable planets, and yet very few Kashubians have elected to emigrate."

"And all because of our construction contracts with New Yugoslavia?" I asked.

"New Yugoslavia was the start, but now it is only a small part of a growing industrial empire. New Kashubia now has Hassan-Smith transporters connecting us to fifty-seven separate planets, and in another two years it is projected that we should be linked up with every planet in Human Space. The market for our industrial goods is huge, and even Earth is starting to feel the impact of our competition. In fact, the Kashubian zloty is well on its way to replacing the Earth dollar as the standard interstellar currency."

I said, "So, has Earth found out about all the smuggling going on?"

The laws of Earth had much in common with the laws that the English had imposed on the American colonies, in the eighteenth century. All goods being transported between the colonies had to be shipped first to Earth, and taxed heavily, before being transshipped to another colony. Furthermore, the charges for transportation were kept artificially high, keeping the colony planets in permanent debt to Earth. Naturally, the colonies had found a way around these gouging practices.

"We are not sure, but probably not. So far, they just think that there is an economic depression going on, and all of the colony planets are cooperating nicely to keep them thinking that way. Once Earth does figure it all out, it probably won't be able to do anything about it. We outnumber them now in both population and resources, after all, and before too long we will be even wealthier than they are. From a strictly material standpoint, we really don't need Earth any more, although we still buy a lot of their intellectual products, such as books and entertainments. Our technology is as good as theirs is, though they still lead us in pure science.

"But if they want to get rough, well, they will find out that we have all the modern military forces! It's the possibility of a war with Earth that has kept you and so many others like you in the service, of course."

"I take it then that I'm not likely to be discharged in the near future. It feels like I've been thrown to the wolves," I said.

"Some are always sacrificed for the good of the many, Mickolai. It has always been that way, all through history."

"Well, damn them all, and damn history, and damn you too. But tell me about this construction or tunneling project that we have been on for the last four or five years. Has this tank just been sitting here?"

"No," Agnieshka said, "We have been very productive. We, and eighty thousand others have been building an underground transportation system, the 'Loway,' on New Yugoslavia, and we've been at it ever since the second week after you enlisted."

"Even then? And tell me more about this underground system."

"You can't see it from the surface, but it's a beautiful thing nonetheless. It consists of eight layers of tunnels. Every tunnel is six meters in diameter, and is metal lined for safety. They all have cobalt-samarium magnets in the roadbed to magnetically float the cars, trucks, and other vehicles. The top two layers exist only in the built-up areas of the cities and the suburbs, or where future cities are planned. The first is typically thirty meters down, and it has a north or south road every hundred meters. The next is ten meters deeper, and has east and west roads, again every hundred meters. These two are connected at every intersection by a saddle-shaped circular road. Personal garages and commercial loading docks will be built later on this grid. The design speed for these upper layers of local roads is fifty kilometers per hour."