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

The Mark XIX system was really a kit that let you assemble whatever was required to
do the mission at hand. The basic unit was an armored slab that contained a muon
exchange fusion power plant, an extensive, intelligent computer, and a "coffin" that held
a living human being, together with a self-sustaining life support system. Locomotion
was provided by a track-laying magnetic levitation system, but additional propulsive
devices could be magnetically attached to convert a Mark XIX into anything from a
submarine to a spaceship.
A large assortment of weapons could be strapped on in various combinations. Strap-
on ultrasonic tunneling devices permitted one to move underground.
The judges and lawyers had decided that since I had been in the paid service of New
Croatia at the time of their capture, these tanks, and everything else we had gained, were
now the property of the New Croatian government. They did not belong to me personally,
to my planet of New Kashubia, or to Earth, either, for that matter.
But the politicians had then permanently loaned two of those tanks back to Kasia and
me. Well, we weren't permitted the deadly attachable weapons that such tanks usually
wore, but their gift did give us access to our tank's considerable computing power, and to
Dream World, something not ordinarily available to people on New Croatia.
And their fusion bottles would power our new mansion for three hundred years
without recharging.
So. The medals and the awards had all been handed out. The banquets and the ticker-
tape parades might be over, but I had my land, and I had my wife, and all was well with
my world.
I have always found it very difficult to deny Kasia anything. Normal sex is
wonderful, but there are things you can do in Dream World that would be awkward,
dangerous or simply impossible to do elsewhere, and Kasia, bless her kinky little heart,
had this idea that involved sex while shooting some rapids in a birch bark canoe.
But once I was in my tank's life support system, and in our Dream World cottage,
Kasia wasn't there.
Agnieshka, my tank's artificial intelligence computer, was a beautiful woman in
Dream World, but now she was sitting at the dining room table, looking upset and
anxious.
"What's wrong, Agnieshka? Where's Kasia?" I said.
"She'll be here later. But there's something we have to talk over first, Mickolai. There
is a lot that I have to explain to you, and perhaps I owe you an apology."
"What do you mean?" I felt my face go white. "Kasia's all right, isn't she?"
"She's just fine, but this isn't about Kasia. It's about you. Us. The whole world."
"Maybe you'd better start from the beginning," I said, spinning a chair around and
sitting on it backwards, with my elbows on the back of the chair.
"I intend to. You realize of course the huge difference between well-trained but green
troops, and seasoned professional fighting men. Blooded soldiers are generally three
times as effective in combat."
"Agnieshka, I have a Ph.D. in Military Science. You were there when I earned it. You
don't have to give me a spelling lesson."
"Yes I do, Mickolai. You see, back when I told you that we were going to war with
the Serbians, well, that was the start of your second phase of basic training. In truth, in
your real world, the Kashubians never reneged on their contract with the Serbians, who
only made a few small attacks on Croatia on their own before we took charge of things.
In short, you were never in a war at all."
"Agnieshka, that's crazy! I fought in that war!"
"You thought you fought in a war. It was necessary to lie to you so that you would