"Joe Haldeman - You Can Never Go Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK
1

I was scared enough.
Sub-major Stott was pacing back and forth behind the small podium in the assembly
room/chop hall/gymnasium of the Anniversary. We had just made our final collapsar jump,
from Tet-38 to Yod-4. We were decelerating at 1 1/2 gravities and our velocity relative to
that collapsar was a respectable .90c. We were being chased.
"I wish you people would relax for a while and just trust the ship's computer. The Tauran
vessel at any rate will not be within strike range for another two weeks. Mandella!"
He was always very careful to call me "Sergeant" Mandella in front of the company. But
everybody at this particular briefing was either a sergeant or a corporal: squad leaders. "Yes,
sir."
"You're responsible for the psychological as well as the physical well-being of the men
and women in your squad. Assuming that you are aware that there is a morale problem
aboard this vessel, what have you done about it?"
"As far as my squad is concerned, sir?"
"Of course."
"We talk it out, sir.""And have you arrived at any cogent conclusion?"
"Meaning no disrespect, sir, I think the major problem is obvious. My people have been
cooped up in this ship for fourteenтАФ"
"Ridiculous! Every one of us has been adequately conditioned against the pressures of
living in close quarters and the enlisted people have the privilege of confraternity." That
was a delicate way of putting it. "Officers must remain celibate, and yet we have no morale
problem."
If he thought his officers were celibate, he should sit down and have a long talk with
Lieutenant Harmony. Maybe he just meant line officers, though. That would be just him and
Cortez. Probably 50 percent right. Cortez was awfully friendly with Corporal Kamehameha.
"Sir, perhaps it was the detoxification back at Stargate; maybeтАФ"
"No. The therapists only worked to erase the hate conditioningтАФeverybody knows how I
feel about thatтАФand they may be misguided but they are skilled.
"Corporal Potter." He always called her by her rank to remind her why she hadn't been
promoted as high as the rest of us. Too soft. "Have you `talked it out' with your people,
too?"
"We've discussed it, sir."
The sub-major could "glare mildly" at people. He glared mildly at Marygay until she
elaborated.
"I don't believe it's the fault of the conditioning. My people are impatient, just tired of
doing the same thing day after day."
"They're anxious for combat, then?" No sarcasm in his voice.
"They want to get off the ship, sir."
"They will get off the ship," he said, allowing himself a microscopic smile. "And then
they'll probably be just as impatient to get back on."
It went back and forth like that for a long while. Nobody wanted to come right out and
say that their squad was scared: scared of the Tauran cruiser closing on us, scared of the
landing on the portal planet. Sub-major Stott had a bad record of dealing with people who
admitted fear.
I fingered the fresh T/O they had given us. It looked like this:
 I knew most of the people from the raid on Aleph, the first face-to-face contact between
humans and Taurans. The only new people in my platoon were Luthuli and Heyrovsky. In