"Harrison, Harry - Bill On The Planet Of Robot Slaves - uc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

C H A P T E R 1

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Bill was not happy in his work. He Really should have been since, like most things military, it required little or no intelligence. Just well-conditioned reflexes. Which reflexes now tickled his brain with a reminder that the shufe of recruit footsteps was growing very dim. He glanced up to see that they were almost out of sight. In fact they really were out of sight behind the cloud of dust kicked up by their weary boots. And their feet were, obviously, weary as well. Bill took a deep breath and blasted most of it out with a single roar of sound.
"To the rear -- h'arch!"
A small bird fell to the ground, stunned by the intensity of the command. This cheered Bill ever so slightly since it proved that his skills as a drill-private were improving. It cheered the recruits as well since they were about to march into a deep, rock-filled ravine. The first rank was already atremble with fear, facing the terrible choice of death by falling or death by drill-instructor. They wheeled about, not too smartly since they were stumbling with fatigue, and marched, coughing strenuously, back into the cloud of dust.
As they came closer a snarl of anger twisted Bill's lips, a snarl made even more impressive by the
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single, long tusk that rested on his lower lip, its yellow tip practically touching his chin. Bill twanged it with his fingernail and the snarl grew snarlier. Two tusks were menacing. One rusk made him look like a bulldog who had lost a fight. Something had to be done about this.
The loud thud of tramping feet drew his attention and his eyes unfocussed to see that the marching recruits were just a step away, the nearest one gasping with fear at the thought of running down the DI.
"Company -- HALT!" he bellowed.
Aching feet thudded into silence and the recruit almost thudded into Bill. He stood in shivering eyeball contact with the feared DI, his dusty eyeball touching Bill's bloodshot one.
"What are you staring at?" Bill sussurated with all the menace of a snake in heat.
"Nothing, majesty, sir, your highness. . ."
"Don't lie -- you're staring at my face."
"No, I mean yes, can't help myself since my eyeball is touching your face."
"And it's not just my face you are staring at -- it's my tusk. And you are thinking -- why has he only one tusk?" Bill stepped back and growled loathingly at all of the swaying, frightened, fatigued, near-death recruits. "You are all thinking that, aren't you? Say _yes_!"
"Yes!" They gasped and croaked in unison, most of them too hammered by fatigue to have the slightest idea of what the hell they were doing anyway.
"I knew it," Bill sighed, then twanged the solitary rusk gloomily. "Not that I blame you. A DI with two tusks would be a fearful and terrible sight. But a single tusk is, I must say it, a pathetic sight."
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He sniffled with self-pity and rubbed a pendant drop from his nose with the back of his hand.
"Not that I expect sympathy from you feebleminded misfits -- or loyalty or anything like that, since it is always bowbyour-buddy week. No, I expect raw self-interest and bribery. We will drill until it grows dark or you drop dead, whichever comes first." He waited while the moan of pain sighed through the troops. "Or you might emulate yesterday's intake who, so sympathetic to my problem, freely donated one buck each towards my fang fund. I must admit that I was so grateful that I cut the drill short at that point."
The troopers, all recently and reluctantly drafted into service for the glory of the Empire, had already absorbed a few survival messages. They read this one loud and cleat. There was a clink of coins as Bill passed before them and accepted their unsolicited donations.
"Dismissed," he muttered as he counted the loot. Enough, yes, just enough. He smiled and looked down at his feet. The smile instantly vanished. The tusk was only half of his problem. He was now looking at the other half.
His left foot appeared normal enough, encased in its mirror-finished recruit-stamping boot. His right boot was slightly different. More than slightly. For one thing it was twice the size of his left boot. Of even greater interest was the long toe that stuck out through a hole above the heel. An impressive yellow toe that .was tipped by a shining claw. Bill growled in frustrated anger and kicked out with his right foot and gouged a deep groove in the hard ground. Something was just going to have to be done about this as well.
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Thunder rumbled from behind the mountains as Bill started across the drill field towards the barracks. He cast a suspicious eye at the sky as black clouds boiled quickly into sight. The wind rushed up just as fast as the clouds. He coughed as the dust swirled around him -- but not for long. The dust was beaten down by a torrential rain that instantly turned the field to a sea of mud. The rain -- stopped as soon as he had been well soaked -- and giant hailstones plocked holes into the mud and rattled off his helmet. Before he reached the barracks the clouds were blown from sight and the tropical sun burned billows of steam from his uniform. This planet, Grundgy, had an interesting climate.
This was the only thing interesting about it. Otherwise it was barren and worthless and had only two seasons: frigid winter, tropical summer. There were no minerals worth digging, no land worth planting, no resources worth exploiting. In other words the perfect planet to turn into a military base. This had been done, at great and overpriced expense, until the giant island-continent in the boiling, iceberg filled sea, was a single great military establishment. Fort Grundgy, named after the galaxy-famous Commander Merda Grundgy. He was famous for absolutely nothing other than the fact that he had expired of terminal hemorrhoids from overeating. But since he was the Emperor's granduncle his name would be ever honored.
These and kindred gloomy thoughts sifted through Bill's mind as he sifted through the moneybag in his riveted steel footlocker. Enough, just enough. Six hundred and twelve Imperial Bucks. Now was the time.
He unzipped his boots and kicked them off. The
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three yellow toes on his right foot were curled and cramped and he stretched them happily. Then he ripped off his uniform and dropped it into the shredder where the reinforced paper fabric was instantly reduced to its component fibers. He tore a fresh uniform from the roll on the latrine wall and drew it on. He had trouble getting his large yellow toes into his right boot and muttered foul curses as he struggled with it.
It was raining stair rods when he opened the barracks door. Muttering nastily he slammed the door shut, counted to ten, then opened it again and stepped out into the broiling sun and hurried down the company street to the base hospital.
"The doctor is otherwise engaged and cannot see you at this time," the zaftig corporal at reception said as she daintily filed the edge of one blood-red fingernail. "Put your name here for sick call which is three weeks from now at four in the morning -- eeek!"
She had eeked because he had growled viciously as he had kicked out with a twisting kick and had tom a groove down the metal of her desk with his clawed heel.
"Don't give me no bowb, Corp, I been too long in the army to take no bowb."
"Apparently you have not been in it long enough to learn any grammar. Out-before I call the MP's and have you shot for destruction of government property-eeek!"
Her pained cry echoed the screech of torn metal as he raked the desk again.
"Call the Doc. Tell him it's about money, not medicine."
"Why didn't you say so to begin with," she
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sniffed as he banged the intercom. "Cash customer to see you, Admiral." She did this with alacrity and efficiency since the admiral-doctor was giving her a percentage, as well as a good stupfing, with equal alacrity and efficiency whenever he got his mind off of his illegal experiments.
The door opened behind her and Admiral-Doctor Mel Praktis poked his bald head out and leered one-eyedly at Bill, his other eye hidden by a black monocle. The monocle concealed the fact that the eye had been removed in a manner too disgusting to mention. But had since been replaced by an electronic telescope-microscope, which is a very handy thing to have. His illegal medical experiments had been so loathsome that when they had been discovered he had been condemned to death by impalingor alternately becoming a medic in the navy. It had not been an easy decision. Though it had worked out well in the end since the alcoholic commander of the base here turned a blind drunk eye on his experiments. Praktis had blinded the eye himself with a limitless supply of medical alcohol to make sure he got away with his dirty work.
"Are you the one for the prefrontal lobotomy?" Praktis asked.
"Not bowby likely. The tusk, Doc, the tusk, remember? I only had enough bucks before for a single implant-but I have the rest now."
"No bucks no tusks. Let's see what you got."
Bill shook the bag so it jingled.