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

sell the vehicles to use the roads to individual Yugoslavians. They'll want elevators down
to the road system, too, with underground garages for their vehicles, and electronic gear
to tie in with the communication net and so on. We've retained ownership of the power
stations and the communication net, so they will be paying their telephone and electrical
bills to us as well."
 "Lies within lies within lies," I said, shaking my head.
"Yes, lies! But are lies so much worse than butchering millions of people in a real
war?"
"I see. Whose idea was all this, anyway?"
"Mostly, it was your Uncle Wlodzimierz's doing. It was originally proposed by him to
your parliament as an alternative to actual fighting. You see, the Yugoslavian man (and
woman) in the street wants to be at war with his neighbors. After a thousand years of
fighting with each other, it has become a tradition. But there is a faction of their
leadership that is considerably less insane. Most of the people on New Yugoslavia think
that there is a war going on, and part of our job is to keep them thinking that way. It isn't
difficult to translate Dream World into television programs. There was one part of your
Dream World experience that was perfectly true, Mickolai. They really did make a movie
of your 'life,' at least the one that you thought you were living. Your way of solving the
empty division problem was more visually dramatic and much more exciting than the
methods used by the general who made summa cum laude. You really are a movie star
and an interstellar hero! And except for a few people in power, everybody really thinks
that you are our general, here in New Croatia."
"Do I get royalties for my 'performance'?"
"I never thought to ask about that, Mickolai. I'll find out for you."
"Do that. Tell them that I will expect at least ten times whatever my back pay comes
to, and that goes for Kasia, too. Us movie stars don't come cheap. And if they don't like it,
explain to them what the firepower of a Mark XIX tank can do to a movie studio."
"Yes, sir."
"So everybody else on the planet is being conned along with me and Kasia?"
"Almost everybody in the known universe is being fooled, except on Earth, of course,
where they have no idea of what is going on. Some of the politicians know all about it, of
course, but they are making a lot of money off the situation as it stands, and are not liable
to spill any beans. We are paying some hefty bribes and kickbacks, but it sure beats
killing each other."
"But what if somebody wants to go and see the fighting? What if they want to join up
and fight themselves?"
"We let them. Of course, they have to get into a tank before they are permitted at the
front. The reporters for the Yugoslavian television stations all ride to the front in tanks,
and think that they get out of them to watch the fighting. Many of the troops training
down here are Yugoslavians who think they're doing their duty for God and their
particular subculture."
"And everybody believes this?"
"You believed it, didn't you?"
"Damn. Agnieshka, I am still angry with you and everybody else for lying to me, but
thinking on it, well, I have to admit that what I thought was happening has been more
interesting than knowing that I was trapped underground in a piece of construction
machinery for four and a half years."
"I'm glad that you are being so philosophical about it, Mickolai. I was worried that
you would hate me forever."
"Agnieshka, I couldn't hate you for long. I'm still pissed off at you, you understand,