"Joe Haldeman - The Forever War (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

the faces that had singed eyebrows and a pink rectangle of sunburn framing their eyes.
"Mandella."
"Sir?"
"You are far and away the worst-burned casualty. Was your image converter set on normal?"
Oh, shit. "No, sir. Log two."
~su
Joe Ilaftieman
"I see. Who was your team leader for the exercises?"
"Acting Corporal Potter, sir."
"Private Potter, did you order him to use image intensification?"
"Sir, I. . . I don't remember."
"You don't Well, as a memory exercise you may join the dead people. Is that satisfactory?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Dead people get one last meal tonight and go on no rations starting tomorrow. Are there any
questions?" He must have been kidding. "All right Dismissed."
I selected the meal that looked as if it had the most calories and took my tray over to sit by
Potter.
"That was a quixotic damn thing to do. But thanks."
"Nothing. I've been wanting to lose a few pounds anyway." I couldn't see where she was carrying
any extra.
"I know a good exercise," I said. She smiled without looking up from her tray. "Have anybody for
tonight?"
"Kind of thought I'd ask Jeff.. . ."
"Better hurry, then. He's lusting after Macjima." Well, that was mostly true. Everybody did.
"I don't know. Maybe we ought to save our strength.
That third day . .
"Come on." I scratched the back of her hand lightly with a fingernail. "We haven't sacked since
Missouri. Maybe I've learned something new."
"Maybe you have." She tilted her head up at me in a sly way. "Okay."
Actually, she was the one with the new trick. The French corkscrew, she called it. She wouldn't
tell me who taught it to her though. I'd like to shake his hand. Once I got my strength back.
8
The two weeks' training around Miami Base eventually cost us eleven lives. Twelve, if you count
Dahiquist. I guess having to spend the rest of your life on Charon with a hand and both legs
missing is close enough to dying.
Foster was crushed in a landslide and Freeland had a suit malfunction that froze him solid before
we could carry him inside. Most of the other deaders were people I didn't know all that well. But
they all hurt. And they seemed to make us more scared rather than more cautious.
Now darkside. A flyer brought us over in groups of twenty and set us down beside a pile of
building materials thoughtfully immersed in a pool of helium H.


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We used grapples to haul the stuff out of the pool. It's not safe to go wading, since the stuff
crawls all over you and it's hard to tell what's underneath; you could walk out onto a slab of
hydrogen and be out of luck.
I'd suggested that we try to boil away the pool with our lasers, but ten minutes of concentrated
fire didn't drop the helium level appreciably. It didn't boil, either; helium II is a