"Harrison, Harry - Bill, the Galactic Hero 5 - on the Planet of Zombie Vampires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"Enough of your sickening bucolic memoirs," sneered Blight. "Easier! Who said anything about wanting it easier? Prisoners aren't supposed to have it easy. There is crime, therefore punishment."
"It's ecologically sound and mostly organic," said Bill hopefully. There was a very real possibility the crew might string him up if he had them picking bugs again.
"I do not wish to have pepper sprayed on my plants," said the captain. "It would destroy their tender and delicate flavor."
Bill refrained from mentioning the obvious: that Blight never ate okra and wouldn't have the faintest idea what it tasted like. The addition of copious amounts of pepper could only improve its palatability. Even the soap would help.
Bill was proved right. The crew frothed with anger when he told them they were pulling bug-picking duty. The only thing that saved him this time was the captain's threat of solitary confinement for malingerers, lasting for the rest of the trip with nothing but watered-down okra juice for sustenance, plus a doubling of any protester's prison sentence.
"Can't they at least turn down the lights while we're working in here?" asked Uhuru, who was stripped to the waist and sweating heavily.
"I talked to Caine about that," said Bill. "He's willing, but the captain said changing the light cycle would ruin his experiment."
"My back hurts," moaned Tootsie, leaning over an okra bed to get to the aphids in the middle. "And if you want to know - I'm rooting for the bugs. They can have all this green gunk they want."
"Be thankful we don't have an infestation of thrips," Bill suggested. "Or white flies. They're so small we'd be picking them off with tweezers."
"Aphids aren't exactly giant-sized," said Larry or Moe or Curly. "They're hard to get a good grip on without bending the leaves."
"Don't hurt the plants!" yelled Bill, remembering how a broken stem had brought fifty laps around B Deck with full packs.
"Quit complaining," said a grinning Bruiser. "I like squashing bugs. It almost as much fun as bashing heads. I just wish caterpillars bigger; it hard to pull legs off these little bowbers."
"We're supposed to be squashing, not torturing," said Rambette.
"Each to his own," Bruiser suggested sadistically, holding out a caterpillar and watching it squirm. "Wonder what they taste like."
"Yuck!" said Tootsie. "Eating bugs?"
"It's all protein," said Curly. Or maybe it was Larry. "They probably taste better than the okra." On the other hand, it could have been Moe.
Bruiser started making a pile of smashed, legless bugs, chuckling gleefully to himself. Bill shuddered.
"This is no way to win a war," said Rambette, dropping aphids into a jar. "I'd like to know what a bug hunt has to do with ridding the universe of those rotten Chinger lizards."
"I'm with you," said Uhuru, collecting caterpillars. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't set off that little explosion. Me, a trained Trooper, reduced to picking insects off plants! We should be fighting, not playing in a garden."
"I don't know," said Bill. "Maybe those Chingers aren't all that bad."
"Are you kidding?" Tootsie said. "They're monsters. Chingers are blood-thirsty killing machines. They eat babies for breakfast. Raw. You going soft on us?"
"I just thought maybe we ought to try to understand them," said Bill. "You know, open a meaningful dialogue or something."
"Only thing I open their stinking lizard bellies," snarled Bruiser. "Only good Chinger is dead Chinger."
"Have you ever met one face-to-face?" Bill suggested hesitantly. "It's possible they're not as mean as we think."
"I don't have to talk to them to know they're nothing but bad news," said Uhuru. "Killing them from long distance is good enough for me. Hit 'em before they hit you, I always say."
"I learned all I want to know about them in the training films," said Tootsie. "Vermin like that ought to be exterminated."
Bill sighed. It was clear the propaganda machine had done its work brainwashing the crew. He could hardly blame them, though, having thought the same way before he actually met one. Maybe he still did.
They labored on under the burning lights until one after another they moaned and dropped exhausted. "Time for a break," Bill said. "Take ten."
He needed a break himself. A stack of fertilizer sacks in the far corner made a shaded area that looked remarkably cozy. Bill stumbled over and sighed as he slumped into the relative coolth. His eyes closed, sleep descended - and something hot and heavy clutched him.
"Glumph!" he mumbled as something wet and burning sealed his mouth. He struggled free and scrambled back, looking up to see an angry Rambette standing over him.
"You don't like to be kissed, hmm? Maybe you don't like girls."
"Sure I like girls. But it happened so quick -"
"No need to lie!" she whimpered, sitting beside him with a clash of knives. "You don't think I'm feminine, that's it. Just one more warrior girl good only for battle. Well, it wasn't always like that. I was not always as you see me. Oh, things would have been different if it hadn't been for the bats."
"Bats?" Bill stuttered, batting his own eyes in confusion.
"Yes. If you let me hold your hand I'll tell you -

THE BATRIDER'S TALE

Ram-Bette set the gold-and-purple platinum band at her neck and slipped on her golden bracelets. Oh, this was to be a wondrous day when she and the other girls in Virgins Dorm Zash in the village of Smoosh on the shores of the Great Orgonne Sea - incidentally on the planet Ishus - at last had their Coming Out Party. After this day she would no longer be a simple simpering girl but a full-fledged and proud Ishian. Oh, what a wondrous wakening.
"Tarry not, silly ones," ordered Drekk, suspiciously coy for one of her age and mien. "The ceremony awaits in the Great Hall."
They all sallied forth, trying not to giggle, and succeeding until Ram-Bam tripped over the feeble legs of a male who was floundering to get out of their way. This was too funny, and giggling turned to laughter until Drekk sniffed with offended dignity and they grew silent.
Oh, the Great Hall was as they had never seen it before! Lambent flame flickered from gilt sconces on the wall, reflected from the diamond eyes of the great statue of Dingg-Bat that filled the end of the majestic Hall.
"Silence, O Daughters of Smoosh," Drekk called out in command, and they were silent as the Elder Mothers filed forward and stood before them. "Virgins of Dorm Zash, today your destinies will be fulfilled. Today you will Come Out of Virginhood into full proud Status. In our fair language, as you all well know, Ram means mother so thus all your names begin with Ram, followed of course by your dear mother's name, separated of course by a hyphen, and on this most Sacred and Important Day we will take your hyphens away. You will be dehyphenized! Your new names will signify your new status. Some of you will become Noble Mothers to reluctantly but boldly mate with the feeble males of our race. Others with green fingers and dirt under their nails will become Farmerettes to grow the vital crops that sustain us. Others..."
Ram-Bette, soon to become Rambette when she was dehyphenized, wanted to listen to every silver word - but was distracted. There was a strange and high-pitched sound that drew her attention, caused her to turn and gaze up into the darkness of the Great Hall above. Drekk caught the movement and her eyes widened and she gasped with pleasure.
"Ram-Bette, soon to be Rambette, step forward nobly and face your sister virgins. You have been chosen! Stand here, Dear One - do not be afraid, for yours is the noblest role of all in Smoosh. Because your voice has not changed like the others and is still high and squeaky. Because you have sort of a pin head with small ears and eardrums. Because of that, you and you alone heard the bat that was admitted to this Great Hall as a test. Only you of all who dwell in Dorm Zash will become that savior of us all - a Batrider."
The Ceremony was tragic, turgid, illuminating, and fulfilling. Afterwards, when all the others had gone, Rambette stood before Drekk, under the brooding statue of Dingg-Bat, and Swore the Oath of Fealty, drank the Wine of Dingg, which made her head swim in giddy circles, then and only then, was she told the Secret of Secrets.
"I have sealed the Entrance Portal and put out the Do Not Disturb sign," Drekk intoned. "Now the Secret of Secrets can be revealed. This village of Smoosh has not been founded on the shores of the Great Orgonne Sea by chance. You must understand that Ishus is a watery planet and covered with a Great Ocean. Lo, many, many parsecs ago our ancestors settled this land, coming here from across the Sea of Space, we know not how. All was peaceful, or so it was written, for many golden years. But then the Bad Years came.
"Strange chemicals leaking from the planet's core were activated by strange radiation from the sun. These caused gene changes, or so our Wise Ones say, for I myself know naught of such mysteries. The X chromosome of the males was stunted and crunched, which is why all men are stunted and crunched and die young and are worthless except for their single function of which I shall tell you anon. The Y chromosome of the female was made radiant by the radiation, which is why we are so big and radiant. But - alas! - there was a hideous mutation and the muscular and grim Z chromosome split from the other two. Those who possess the Z chromosome are muscular and grim and women - but with a difference. The Sacred Diagram of the Mendelian Triangle demonstrates this. When X and Z cross there is dominant and recessive and since women are dominant more women are born, and of course a few feeble men, which is all we need. But a Z chromosome is dominant and when these cross only women with Z chromosomes are born. Do you understand the significance of this?"
Rambette, who had been listening in stupefied awe, had not an inkling of what Drekk was talking about. She gurgled dashingly, shook her head, then nodded.
"I know it is difficult," Drekk intoned. "But in time you will learn all. Suffice to say now that only females with Z chromosomes are born of women with Z chromosomes. And in this fact lies the unhappy history of our fair world. It is written that there was a Battle of the Sexes between those of the Y and those of the Z. It was fierce and deadly and in the end the Outsiders, as those with the Z chromosome came to be called, were driven from this land, angry and manless, doomed to die away at last since none were born to replace them.