"Harrison, Harry - Bill, The Galactic Hero 01 - Bill, The Galactic Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

in a larger voice, and the recruits stumbled from the tavern.
"What have they done to my sonl" Bill's mother screeched, coming into the
market square, clutching at her bosom with one hand and towing his baby brother
Charlie with the other. Charlie began to cry and wet his pants.
"Your son is now a trooper for the greater glory of the Emperor," the
sergeant said, pushing his slack-jawed and round-shouldered recruit squad into
line.
"No! it can't be . . ." Bill's mother sobbed, tearing at her graying hair.
"I'm a poor widow, he's my sole support . . . you cannot . . . I"
"Mother. . ." Bill said, but the sergeant shoved him back into the ranks.'
"Be brave, madam," he said. "There can be no greater glory for a mother."
He dropped a large and newly minted coin into her hand. "Here is the enlistment
bonus, the Emperor's shilling. I know he wants you to have it. ATTENTION!"
With a clash of heels the graceless recruits braced their shoulders and
lifted their chins. Much to his surprise, so did Bill.
"RIGHT TURN!"
In a single, graceful motion they turned, as the command robot relayed the
order to the hypno-coil in every boot. "FORWARD MARCH!" And they did, in
perfect rhythm, so well under control that, try as hard as he could, Bill could
neither turn his head nor wave a last good-by to his mother. She vanished
behind him, and one last, anguished wail cut through the thud of marching feet.
"Step up the count to 130," the sergeant ordered, glancing at the watch set
under the nail of his little finger. "Just ten miles to the station, and we'll
be in camp tonight, my lads."
The command robot moved its metronome up one notch and the tramping boots
conformed to the smarter pace and the men.. began to sweat. By the time they
had reached the copter station it was nearly dark, their red paper uniforms
hung in shreds, the gilt had been rubbed from their pot-metal buttons, and
the surface charge that repelled the dust from their thin plastic boots had
leaked away. They looked as ragged, weary, dusty, and miserable as they felt.

II

It wasn't the recorded bugle playing reveille that woke Bill but the
supersonics that streamed through the metal frame of his bunk that
shook him until the fillings vibrated from his teeth. He sprang to his
feet and stood there shivering in the gray of dawn. Because it was summer
the floor was refrigerated: no mollycoddling of the men in Camp Leon Trotsky.
The pallid, chilled figures of the other recruits loomed up on every side, and
when the soul-shaking vibrations had died away they dragged their thick
sackcloth and sandpaper fatigue uniforms from their bunks, pulled them hastily
on, jammed their feet into the great, purple recruit boots, and staggered out
into the dawn.
"I am here to break your spirit," a voice rich with menace told them, and
they looked up and shivered even more as they faced the chief demon in this
particular hell.
Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang was a specialist from the tips of the
angry spikes of his hair to the corrugated stamping-soles of his mirrorlike
boots. He was wide-shouldered and lean-kipped, while his long arms hung,
curved like those of some horrible anthropoid, the knuckles of his immense