"David Gerrold - Chtorr 2 - A Day for Damnation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

"Something else?" He looked concerned.
"Um, not really. Just a question-"
"Yes, what?"
"Um ... Duke-who do you clear with?"
He looked startled. He turned away from me while he picked up his phone and his traveling kit. Then he
turned back to me and said, "I check in with the boss from time to time." He jerked a thumb toward the
ceiling-and beyond. "The man upstairs." And then he was out the door.
I followed him, shaking my head in wonderment. The universe was full of surprises.
? TWO

I WAS wrong.
A machine that big could get off the ground.
It lumbered through the air like a drunken cow, but it flewand it carried enough troops and gear to
overthrow a small government. We had three of the best-trained teams in the Special Forces-Duke and I
had trained them ourselves-a complete scientific squad, and enough firepower to barbecue Texas (well, a
large part of Texas anyway).
I hoped we wouldn't need to use it.
I climbed into the back and sat down with the "enlisted men." Draftees, all of them. Except they weren't
called draftees any more. The Universal Service Obligation had been rewritten-twice-by the New
Military Congress of the United States. Four years of uniformed service. No exceptions. No deferments.
No "needed skill" civilian classifications. And this means you. You were eligible on the day you turned
sixteen. You had to be in uniform before your eighteenth birthday. Very simple.
To get into the Special Forces, though, you had to ask. In fact, you almost had to demand the
opportunity. You couldn't end up in the Special Forces any more unless you wanted to be here.
And then, you have to prove you could handle the job.
I didn't know how rigorous the training was-I'd fallen into the Special Forces by accident, before the
standards were tightened, and I'd been spending most of my career playing catch-up-but I could tell by
looking at this team that it produced the result. I'd also heard that three-quarters of those who started the
training dropped out before it was halfway over.
These were the survivors. The winners.
There wasn't one of them old enough to vote. And two of the girls didn't even look old enough to be
wearing brassieres. But they weren't kids. They were combat-hardened troops. That these soldiers still
counted their ages in the teens was incidental; they were as dangerous a bunch as the United States Army
could put togetber. And it showed on their faces. They all had that same coiled look behind their eyes.
They were passing a cigarette back and forth between them. When it came to me, I took a puff-not
because I wanted one, but because I wanted to make sure it wasn't "dusted" before I passed it on. I
didn't think any of my troops would be that stupid, but it had been known to happen-on other teams, not
mine. The army had a technical term for officers who let their troops go into combat situations stoned; we
called them statistics.
The team wasn't talking much, and I knew why. It was my presence. I wasn't much more than three
years older than the oldest of them, but I was the Lieutenant and that made me "the old man."
Besides-they were afraid of me. Rumor had it I'd once burned a man alive on a worm hunt.
I felt old looking at them. And a little wistful too. These kids would be the last ones on the planet for a
long time who would be able to remember what a "normal" childhood was like.
They should have been in high school or their first year in college. They should have been putting up
balloons in the gymnasium for some school dance, or worrying about their Global Ethics reports, or even
just hanging out down at the mall.
They knew this was not the way the world was supposed to work. And this was definitely not the future
they had planned on. But this was the way it had turned out; there was a job that had to be done and
they were the ones who had to do it.