"Harry Harrison & David Bischoff - Bill the Galactic Hero 6 -" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

white shirt and black tie with Day-Glo polka dots. "You think I'm wasting my breath?"
Bill did exactly what he usually did when he faced a bureaucratic conundrum. "Look, I'm not going
anywhere. The colonel told me to report here promptly at eleven hundred hours today for a special duty
assignment. I ain't no Commupop Party Member, I'm a healthy reader of Blue-Blooded Galactic Comix
and horny-porny comix тАФ when I can get them тАФ and proud of it. So while you figure out what you want
with me, I'll just sit here and have some of the medicine that the doctor ordered me to take every hour."
He took out a medicine bottle that was really a flask of 100-proof rum (even Bill was smart enough not to
take vodka into the GBI office), unscrewed the cap and tippled a good half of its contents, leaving his
mouth open and making lots of noise.
Bill well knew that if he'd done such a thing in a Trooper office, he would have promptly been keelhauled
from the nearest deepspace freighter. However, this wasn't military business, it was GBI stuff and he was
on loan.
Instead of being unhappy, however, the Director was sniffing the air ecstatically. "I can't believe it!
You're just the man I need!"
"What? You want a hit too?" Bill offered the flask, already feeling the comforting kick of alcohol
flattening his senses.
"Uhm.... No, thank you, Trooper Bill. And now that my memory is refreshed and I reexamined my files, I
remember why you're here. Sorry about the grilling. Knee-jerk reaction. If it's not the Chingers I must
worry about, it's the damned Commupops. Bill, I got a very special assignment for you. The fate of the
universe rests upon those considerable shoulders! Or something like that. Sit down, Bill, and let me turn
off this damned machine here. Don't want to fry our most promising Special Agent, now, do we?"
Bill sat down, took another gurgle of drink, then tucked the flask back into his front pocket. It would have
been a good idea for him to have put the top back on and to tuck it into his pocket bottom first, since he
managed to spill about four ounces of primo rum onto his lap, staining his crotch and running chills down
the hairy sides of his legs.
Bill shivered and grimaced, but managed to squelch an embarrassing shriek.
"Ha! Ha!" said the Director, pointing a stubby forefinger at the Trooper. "I saw that!"
"Uhm, uh, well тАФ"
"No need to apologize, soldier. I myself get a petite frisson when I think of performing a special task for
our glorious Emperor!" Overwhelmed by patriotism, the Director of the GBI swiveled and snapped a
snappy straight-armed salute to the Illustrious Emperor, whose three-dee chinless and adenoidal picture
hung prominently on the wall behind him. The Emperor's computerized image (the same Emperor whom
Bill had very nearly almost met or at least perhaps got close to a stand-in in his youth) responded
reflexively with a salute as well. Remarkable, thought Bill, gazing at the picture. They haven't fixed his
strabismic eyes. It was nice to know that even an emperor had physical problems. Even as Bill regarded


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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of The Hippies From Hell

the stereoscopic image, the Emperor's right eye seemed to drift over of its own accord to spot Bill staring
at him. But, of course, it was only a picture. Wasn't it? Of course it was. The Emperor was far too busy to
spy on a lowly Trooper. Right? Paranoia was okay in its place, Bill thought. But really!
"Yeah, uh, right." Bill of course had no idea what frisson meant, but he never argued with, or attempted to
understand, officers. "About the secret mission, sir." He didn't want to stay here too long, now that he'd
dumped his liquor supply.
"The mission? Oh yeah. Right. The mission." J. Edgar Insufledor took a laser-pistol from a drawer and
relit his monstrous cigar, boring a hole in the ceiling in the process. Bill could see many such holes in the
ceiling, so he presumed that the upper office was either empty or a place used for private GBI executions.
"Real simple, Bill. Barworld. Chingers." He spat the words out like he was expectorating cigar tips. "Time