"Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley - Bill the Galactic Hero 3 " - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

The drone ship was small, about the size of a launch, built of cheap plastic and aluminized cardboard
since it was not expected to return. One of the MPs pulled open the main hatchway and growled in anger
as the handle came off in his hand.
"Never mind that," the other MP said. "The inner parts still work all right."
"Why don't they build them better?" Bill whined, then shrieked with pain. He was being carried in a
crunched and uncomfortable manner by the two MPs.
"Why should they bother?" the first MP said. "These ships are specially constructed for one-way trips to
only the most dangerous places."
"You mean I'm not expected to return?" Bill whimpered, wallowing in self-pity.
"I don't mean anything of the sort! Well, maybe. Anyhow, the real crafty advantage of sending a
volunteer, is that, if you should not return, as is confidently expected, the military will probably send a
fully-fledged expeditionary force to Tsuris, even declare war as they sincerely want to."
"You said probably?"
"It has to be probably, since the military can always change its teeny-tiny mind. But that's what will
probably happen."
"Yipe!" Bill yiped. "What the bowb are you doing with my ear?"
"I'm fastening a translating device to your ear, so if you find any Tsurisians on Tsuris you can talk to
them."
"Tsuris! The place nobody ever comes back from?"
"You catch on fast. That's the whole point of the operation. Your non-return will give us the excuse to
invade."
"I don't think I like this."
"You don't have to like it, trooper. Just follow orders and shut up."
"I refuse! Cancel the orders!"
"Shut up." They wrestled Bill into the ship and strapped him into the pilot's command chair. It was
beautifully padded and comfortable. Bill was not. He opened his mouth to protest again and the neck of
an open bottle was shoved into it. He gurgled and gasped.
"What...was that?"


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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

"Apathia 24. With a double shot of Extasis Tricarbonate. One hundred and fifteen proof." The MP
nodded as Bill gurgled down some more. "That's the stuff. You can keep the bottle."
It was really good stuff. So good that Bill never noticed when the MPs left and the hatch closed. The ship
must have taken off, he could not remember when, because he saw by the vision plate that he was in
space. Lots of little stars and such. And what looked like a planet down below. He admired the great
storms sweeping across its surface as he drained the bottle. Lightning crackled balefully through the
purple-black clouds and his radio crackled with static.
Radio? He fiddled with the knobs until a voice came through clearly. At least it sounded clear although it
did not make much sense.
"No gliggish in hut overstep galoshes."
He sneered at this and was reaching to turn it off when a voice buzzed in his ear. He blinked rapidly at
this тАФ then slowly remembered the translator had been attached just inside his left ear. "What did they
say?"
"Just a minute," the translator said testily. "All right, I think I've got it now. They're definitely speaking
Tsurisian. The question is, is it High Garpeiean dialect or Someshovish."
"Who gives a bowb?" Bill muttered, trying to get the last drops of metabolic poison from the bottle.
"An interesting problem in linguistic analysis," the translator said. "In the former dialect it means, 'Please