"Harry Harrison & Jack C. Haldeman - Bill the Galactic Hero 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

hopeless battle against the dreaded Chingers.
The official military line was that the crazed Chingers were the cause of almost every horrible thing that
had ever happened in the universe. Reptilian in nature and bad to the bone, it was said they stood seven
feet tall and ate human babies for breakfast. With Tabasco.
Bill knew better.
Seven inches was more like their physical size, and before the Space Troopers had started blasting them
away, the Chingers hadn't even had a word for violence. Although they were peace-loving and friendly,
they were not stupid. They were also quick learners. And hated Tabasco. So the Emperor had an
intergalactic war to keep his troops busy, and Bill had two right arms, a cinder block for a foot, and an
enlistment contract with an automatic extension clause.
This was not the first foot transplant Bill had ever had. All of them had been disastrous. Though maybe
not the first one, a giant chicken foot. He had become attached to that foot, and vice versa of course. But
while it was handy for scratching in the sand for bugs, it wouldn't fit in his boot and hurt all the time. The
fact that his new foot was turning into solid rock probably wasn't anyone's fault. Sometimes bad things
just seemed to happen.
Bill kicked open Doctor Hackenslash's door and followed his careening foot into the office.
"You could have knocked, Trooper," squealed the doctor from underneath the desk. "I thought we were
under attack."
"No Chinger in its right mind would give this bowby little post a second glance," said Bill, skidding his
foot along the floor to stop its momentum. "I've got a more serious problem."
"Possibly your nose this time?" said the doctor hopefully, crawling out from under the desk and brushing
chunks of the splintered door off his chair. "Nose problems are my speciality."
Perhaps this was because the good doctor possessed a hooter like an anteater, a great flaring, projecting
nose with cavernous nostrils, gloomy hair-filled canyons. He pointed this impressive proboscis at Bill and
sniffed.
"You want your nose examined?"
"Only if you have to get to my foot that way. Look at it, doc! It's getting heavier."
"Feet are so boring," sniffed Hackenslash, tapping his own nose with his finger so that it flapped in a most
interesting manner. "All those little pink toes wiggling all the time. Give me a nose any day. Deviated
septums! Sinus cavities! Postnasal drip! Nobody knows the nose better than those who know the nose
know."
"My toes aren't pink anymore, and they sure aren't wiggling. They're more like granite. We got to do
something."
"How about we wait?" said the doctor, breaking into a sneezing fit on account of all the door dust floating
around the room. Bill was knocked back three feet by the force of this nasal blast.
"Wait?" yelled Bill. "I'm dragging a boulder around, and you want to wait?"
"Think of it as a scientific experiment тАФ be brave," said Hackenslash, grabbing a handful of tissue from
one of the five boxes on his desk and blowing his nose. Bill cowered under the white blast of shredded
Kleenex. "Maybe if we wait it'll spread. Next your knee could turn to stone. Then your whole leg. Maybe
even your you-know-what тАФ interesting possibilities there! Perhaps even those two right arms you're so
proud of. It might even spread to your nose. As a scientist I would be remiss to pass up this opportunity to
study such an unusual occurrence."


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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Zombie Vampires

Bill watched the doctor double over with a seemingly endless attack of the sneezes, and as the physician
gobbled up a bunch of antihistamines Bill decided enough was enough. He'd take the hard line.
"As a Trooper with a stone foot I am unfit for battle," said Bill, choking on the word "battle." "As the base