"Gordon, Steve - Insectoid 03 - Death to the Insectoids!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Steve)

appeared normal sized.
The man continued to smile. "I'm afraid you've been taken
prisoner."
"What do you want with Mongo?" said Mongo, getting up. He felt a
bit light headed, but otherwise all right.
"Want with Mongo?" the man asked, his smile turning slightly
puzzled.
"Why have you captured Mongo?"
"I haven't captured you," said the man.
Suddenly, an antique bell rang. All the humans groaned and
struggled to get up. Armed guards entered the compound and used blows
to get the prisoners on their feet.
"They're the ones who have captured you," said the man, smiling
again.
"Get a move on, Smiley," one of their captors growled, giving the
man an offhanded blow to the back of the head.
Smiley, if that was his name, barely flinched. "Yes, my friend."
He turned to Mongo. "Come on, it's time for work."
"Work?"
"We're agricultural workers. Isn't that exciting?"

Ten hours of back breaking labor later, Mongo didn't find it so
exciting. Smiley, who could talk a mile a minute, made it clear what
had happened. He had been captured by slavers, and brought or sold here
to work in back breaking agricultural labor.
Slavery, on August? When the Insectoids had invaded August, some
of the humans had managed to flee to the periphery of the western
continent, which still hadn't been developed and even had open land in
some areas. The Insectoids apparently hadn't gotten this far out yet,
and so the humans were free of molestation, at least for the time
being. When Mongo had been kidnapped, he had been drugged and brought
to western August.
But food supplies were limited, and when the government
collapsed, roving bands of gangs raided each other for what was
available. When the food was almost gone, the bands turned to farming,
but found it easier to use others to do the back breaking labor. So
gangs that had formerly raided each other for food now raided each
other for workers. Over time the raids yielded fewer and fewer results,
so the gangs probed deeper into August, looking for labor they could
co-opt. It was there that they "recruited" Mongo.
So they didn't know about his special abilities; he hadn't been
targeted for any special reason, and wasn't under any special guard.
That means he should be able to escape.
As Mongo worked he let the flashes of the possible future leak
in, one by one. Climb over the fence over there? No, he would be shot.
Cut through the fence at that point? No, he would be caught. What about
over there? Mongo processed the possibilities, but didn't see any easy
avenues of escapes. That was all right, sooner or later, he would spot
a promising potential future and take advantage of it.
If he survived.