"Bill the Galactic Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

the eyes-visible only as baleful red gleams in the Stygian darkness. A nose,
broken and crushed, squatted above the mouth that was like a knife slash in
the taut belly of a corpse, while from between the lips issued the great,
white fangs of the canine teeth, at least two inches long, that rested in
grooves on the lower lip.
"I am Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang, and you will call me 'sir' or
'm'lord.'" He began to pace grimly before the row of terrified recruits.
"I am your father and your mother and your whole universe and your dedicated
enemy, and very soon I will have you regretting the day you were born. I will
crush your will. When I say frog, you will jump. My job is to turn you into
troopers, and troopers have discipline. Discipline means simply unthinking
subservience,. loss of free will, absolute obedience. That is all I ask . . ."
He stopped before Bill, who was not shaking quite as much as the others, and
scowled.
"I don't like your face. One month of Sunday KP."
"Sir..."
"And a second month - for talking back."
He waited, but Bill was silent. He had already learned his first lesson on
how to be a good trooper. Keep your mouth shut. Deathwish paced on.
"Right now you are nothing but horrible, sordid, flabby pieces of debased
civilian flesh. I shall turn that flesh to muscle, your wills to jelly,
your minds to machines. You will become good troopers, or I will kill you.
Very soon you will be hearing stories about me, vicious stories, about how
I lulled and ate a recruit who disobeyed me."
He hatred and stared at them, and slowly the coffin-lid lips parted in an
evil travesty of a grin, while a drop of saliva formed at the tip of each
whitened tusk.
"That story is true."
A moan broke from the row of recruits, and they shook as though a chill
wind had passed over them. The smile vanished.
"We will run to breakfast now as soon as I have some volunteers for an
easy assignment. Can any of you drive a helicar?"
Two recruits hopefully raised their hands, and he beckoned them forward.
"All right, both of you, mops and buckets behind that door. Clean out the
latrine while the rest are eating. You'll have a better appetite for lunch."
That was Bill's second lesson on how to be a good trooper: never volunteer.
The days of recruit training passed with a horribly lethargic speed.
With each day conditions became worse and Bill's exhaustion greater. This
seemed impossible, but it was nevertheless true. A large number of gifted
and sadistic minds had designed it to be that way. The recruits' heads were
shaved for uniformity. The food was theoretically nourishing but incredibly
vile and when, by mistake, one batch of meat was served in an edible state
it was caught at the last moment and thrown out and the cook reduced two
grades. Their sleep was broken by mock gas attacks and their free time filled
with caring for their equipment. The seventh day was designated as a day of
rest, but they all had received punishments, like Bill's KP, and it was as
any other day. On this, the third Sunday of their imprisonment, they were
stumbling through the last hour of the day before the lights were extinguished
and they were finally permitted to crawl into their casehardened bunks. Bill
pushed against the weak force field that blocked the door, cunningly designed