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

they were supposed to be for, but I guessed that they were a part of the disguise, and I
didn't question my right to wear them.
The attendant told me that I was being issued a full set of uniforms, and I figured,
what the heck, I might as well get it over with. Besides six sets of tailored,
supercamouflaged Squid Skins, two of which were armored, I picked up four sets each of
work fatigues, garrison uniforms, and class A Uniforms, in both summer and winter
varieties. Then there were two sets each of formal dinner uniforms, dress uniforms, which
came with a fancy ceremonial dagger, and full dress uniforms, which had an inordinate
amount of real gold embroidery, knee-high boots, and a stupidly ornate sword. I soon had
nine pairs of various footgear, lots of socks, shirts, ties, belts, and underwear, plus eight
increasingly garish hats, a fatigue jacket, a dress overcoat, and a full-dress cape.
It took five big military suitcases to hold it all, plus two big boxes for the armor.
Somebody somewhere had had a lot of fun designing all that stuff. Personally, I
thought it was silly. Especially the cape and the sword, which looked like they came out
of the Napoleonic Era.
I mean, in the kind of warfare that I had trained for, even a shoulder-held rocket
launcher was too lightweight to be worth worrying about. I'd once abandoned an assault
rifle because it was not worth carrying, and now I was being issued a sword?
A much larger room held civilian clothing. With the attendant to tell me what was in
style in New Croatia, I bought a selection of civilian clothes, as well.
I really don't know much about clothes. On Earth, I'd been a Bohemian student type,
and owned little more than hiking boots, blue jeans, and flannel shirts. In New Kashubia,
everybody had been so poor that we couldn't afford clothing. In fact, back when we were
growing up it had been illegal to wear any, and the sexes had been segregated, to
eliminate the possibility of making more babies.
That's how Kasia and I had gotten into trouble and drafted in the first place.
And in a modern tank, you were floating in a coffin, and simply couldn't wear
clothes. If you tried it, the bioactive liquid would eat them right off you.
Having the attendant there to advise me on clothing was a big help. I just hoped that
he didn't have a streak of practical joker in him. I mean, were lederhosen and Tyrolean
hats really in style out there? To be on the safe side, I elected to wear a class A uniform
on my first outing into the real world.
"It's all mostly imported from New Ireland, sir, although some of the cotton things
were made right here on New Yugoslavia, in some of the automatic factories that we
bought from you Kashubians," the attendant told me. Then he sold me a set of hand-
tooled leather suitcases from New Mexico. The planet, not the state.
Eventually, before we were through, I had six big suitcases full of civilian stuff, way
more than I'd ever owned before. Like most men, I've never liked shopping, and figured it
would be best to get it all over and done with.
"I'll have it all sent to your hotel room, sir," the attendant said in Kashubian, with a
Croatian accent.
"Uh, yeah. Say, how do I pay you for all of this stuff?"
"You don't, sir. This is all the gift of the grateful New Croatian Government."
"Thank you. I'm impressed. But, do they pay you to say that?"
"In fact, yes, sir. I mean, I'm a government employee, and it's my job, but it's still
true. We all appreciate the help that all of you have given to our cause. I'm just here to
express it personally. Actually, I volunteered to serve in the army, but since I happened to
speak Kashubian, I was assigned this duty, rather than being sent to the front, as I had
requested. In time of war, you can't always get what you want."
"Yes, that is too terribly true. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Is Kasia