"C M Kornbluth - Thirteen O'Clock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

life and limb! I have a bill pending at the All Ellil Conference on Communication and
Transportation-would you be interested?"

"No," grunted the general. The engineer, swishing his long black cloak, returned to his throttle muttering
about injunctions and fair-play.

V

"Easy, now!" whispered the general.

"Yessir," answered a troll going through obvious mental strain while his hand, seemingly of its own
volition, scrawled lines and symbols on a sheet of paper. Peter was watching, fascinated and mystified, as
the specialist in military divination was doing his stuff.

"There!" said the troll, relaxing. He looked at the paper curiously and signed it: "Borgenssen, Capt."

"Well?" asked General Skaldberg. "What was it like?"

The Captain groaned. "You should see for yourself, sir!" he said despondently. "Their air-force is flying
dragons and their infantry's a kind of Kraken squad. What they're doing out of water I don't know."

"Okay," said the general. He studied the drawing. "How about their mobility?"

"They haven't got any and they don't need any," complained the diviner. "They just sit there waiting for
you-in a solid ring. And the air-force has a couple of auxiliary rocs that pick up the Krakens and drop
them behind your forces. Pincher stuff-very bad."

"I'll be the judge of that!" said the general. The captain saluted and stumbled out of the little cave which
the general had chosen to designate as GHQ. His men were bivouacked on the bare rock outside.
Volcanoes rumbled and spat in the distance. There came one rolling crash that set Peter's hair on end.
"Think that was for us?" he asked nervously.

"Nope-I picked this spot for lava drainage. I have a hundred men erecting a shut-off at the only exposed
point. We'll be safe enough." He turned again to the map, frowning. "This is our real worry-what I call
impregnable, or damn near it. If we could get them to attack us-but those rocs smash anything along that
line. We'd be cut off like a rosebud. And with our short munitions we can't afford to be discovered and
surrounded. Ugh! What a spot for an army man to find himself in!"

A brassy female voice asked, "Somep'n bodderin' you, shorty?" The general spun around in a fine purple
rage. Peter

looked in horror and astonishment on the immodest form of a woman who had entered the cave entirely
unperceived- presumably by some occult means. She was a slutty creature, her hair dyed a vivid red and
her satin skirt an inch or two above the knee/ She was violently made up with flame-colored rouge,
lipstick and even eye-shadow.

"Well," she complained stridently, puffing on a red cigaret, "wadda you joiks gawkin' at? Aincha nevva
seen a lady befaw?"

"Madam," began the general, outraged. "Can dat," she advised him easily. "I hoid youse guys chewin' da