"Harry Harrison - SSR 02 - The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"Are you telling me that a successful interplanetary invasion has been
accomplished?" I asked.
"More than one." That evil smirk was decorating his face as he spoke.
"And you and the League would like to see this practice stopped?"
"Right on the head, Jim my boy."
"And I am the sucker who has been picked for the assignment?"
 He reached out, took my cigar from my numb fingers and dropped it into the
ashtray---then solemnly shock my hand. "It's your job. Go out there and win."
I slipped my hand from his treacherous embrace, wiped my fingers on my
pants leg and grabbed back my cigar.
"I'm sure that you will see that I have the best funeral the Corps can
afford. Now, would you care to squeeze out a few details or would you prefer
to blindfold me and shoot me out in a one-way cargo rocket?"
"Temper, my boy, temper. The situation seems to be quite clear. There has
been little word about this in the news media because of a certain political
confusion surrounding the invasions, plus a rigid censorship by the planets
under consideration. As we have reconstructed it--and good men have died
getting this information--the responsible world is named Cliaand, the third
planet in the Epsilon Indi system. There are two score planets orbiting this
sun, but only three are inhabitable. And inhabited. Cliaand took over both the
sister worlds some years ago, but we considered this no cause for alarm. What
is alarming is the fact that they have expanded their scope. Interstellar
conquest, heretofore considered an impossibility. They have invaded and
conquered five other planets in nearby systems and seem poised for bigger and
better things. We don't know how they are doing it, but they must be doing
something right. We have had agents on the conquered worlds but have learned
little of value. The decision has been made, a high level one I assure you--
you would stand and salute if you heard some of the names of the people
involved--that we must get a man to Cliaand to root out the problem at the
core of the woodpile and cut the Gordian knot."
"Other than being contained in a mixed and disgusting metaphor I think the
idea is a suicidal one. Instead of this we could . . ."
"You are going. There is no possible way to wriggle out of this one.
Slippery Jim."
I tried. But nothing worked. I was given a copy of all the known details,
a cortex recording of the language and the master key to a fast pursuit ship
to take me there. I returned gloomily too our quarters where Angelina, tired
of doing her hair and her nails, was throwing a knife at a head-sized target
on the far wall. She was very good. Even underhand, after a quick draw from
her arm sheath, she could hit the black spot of either eye.
"Let me get a pic of Inskipp," I said. "It will make a more interesting
target and one that you can get a degree of pleasure out of."
"Is that evil old man sending my darling out on a job?"
"That dirty old goat is trying to get me killed. The assignment is so top
secret I can't tell a soul about it, particularly you, so here are all the
papers, read them for yourself."
While she did this I slipped the Cliaand language recording into the
stamping machine. This recorded the material directly on my cortex without the
boring and time consuming intermediary of any learning process. The first
session would take about a half an hour with a dozen or more shorter