"Jack C. Haldeman II & Jack Dann - High Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Jack C)

small signs of his own work as well as those of others. It was strangely comforting. There was pride
involved here, satisfaction at a job well done. That was one of the few rewards of his situation. It could
almost make up for the static he caught from the BossesтАФTrans-United BrassтАФclowns, every one of
them. It could never make up for the time they'd stolen from him, the years lost, away from the ways of
his people. He felt the bitterness rise. He felt cheated.

The geodesic had docked and the party had been in full swing for over an hour. John had no intention
of going. He sat with Sam on a large skid that had been used to haul material around during the
construction of the station. Since the job was, for all practical purposes, finished, the skid had been
moved well away from the station. A large collection of equipment hung in space around them, ready to
be moved to the next job.
"Stranger and Woquini, get your respective butts over here. Time to make an appearance." Mike
Elliot's voice came through scratchy and loud on the voicebox inside John's helmet. Elliot, the bellman,
always seemed to be shouting. He knew the floaters kept their volume controls at the lowest setting.
"We're not going to make an appearance," said John. Wasicun always have to make noise, he
thought. Only Sam knows how to be quiet.
"You're coming, and right now!" shouted Elliot. "There's brass over here that wants to meet you. If
you no-show, it's an automatic extension at my option. You know the rules. Right now I'm of a mind to
tack a few years on. Might teach you a lesson."
That was always the kicker. They had draftees by the short hairs and could extend their tour for
nearly any reason at all. When the corporations had worked out the conscription agreement with the
government, they had held all the power, all the cards. Most of the land, too.
"I can make things hard for your friend." Elliot was getting frantic. His voice cracked. Must be getting
a lot of pressure. John would have stalled on general principles, but there was Sam.
 "Don't do it on my account," Sam said. "How hard can they make it for me? I've got a contract."
John knew about contracts; they were no better than the treaties of the past. They could be bent,
broken, twisted in a thousand ways. He shook his head.
"We'd better go," he said. He looked at the Earth below him. The horizon seemed to be made of
rainbows. It shifted as he watched. An erupting volcano traced a lazy finger of smoke. He'd been
watching it for a month. A storm, one of the great ones, twisted and flickered in the ocean. All this
beauty, and he had to go into a crowded geodesic and make small talk with the Trans-United brass, fat
cats who had never been alone a moment in their lives and were driven to turn Earth and space into
frogskin dollars.
There was a small cycle tethered to a docking adapter on the skid. John moved toward it. "Give me a
hand," he said to Sam, and they swung the cobbled-up cycle into position.
The cycle was the usual floater variety, simple, made out of parts lying around. It was just a collection
of spare struts joined together and a tiny thruster that powered it with bursts of nitrogen. Several other
cycles of similar design were scattered around the construction site. Floaters used them to get wherever
they were going and left them there for the next person.
John gripped one of the struts and aimed the thruster. "Hop on," he said to Sam.
"No, thanks," Sam said. "I'm going the fun way."
Sam grabbed a whipper and swung it over his head, catching it on the edge of the skid with a perfect
motion that was a combination of long practice and an innate skill that could never be taught. He let it pull
his body up in an arc and let loose of the whipper at the precise moment that would allow his angular
momentum to carry him to the geodesic docked at one of the swollen ends of the manufacturing station.
His body spun end over end with a beautiful symmetrical motion. He let out a loud whoop that rattled
John's voice-box even with the volume turned all the way down. John smiled at his friend, then laughed.
Sometimes Sam did crazy things just for the fun of it. On the reservation he would have become an
upside-down man, a joker, the holy trickster. Up here he had respect: he was very large and good with
his hands, sometimes with his fists. Sam's whoop rose and fell. It was full of joy, the joy of living.