"Nancy Kress - Maximum Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

for a moment I can't see the signs, the trucks, the civvies, the fancy stained-glass window in the front of the
church, with its blue and red figures of some ancient saints older than rocks. The smell is awfulтАФlike
burning tires mixed with rotted garbage. Then the wind shifts and the smoke blows in the other direction.


I don't get to go in until afternoon. They let the regular army do it for hours, truckload after truckload of
civvies, probably to be sure it's safe for us precious little NSs. Us kids have to do a year of National Service
to learn selfless dedication to the good of the group, blah blah, but nobody wants us to get killed. By noon,
when nobody's been blown up and the eight regular soldiers are due for rotating breaks, they let us have a
turn. I'm right there with the first bunch.
I'm paired with a soldier who, behind his faceplate, looks in his forties or fifties, a career soldier, all
business. We jump in the back of a truck with eighteen suited, scared civvies all thinking about their dogs
and cats and parakeets. The truck rumbles along toward the burning wreck.
The soldier briefs me. "Nobody goes in closer than eight hundred feet. Nobody. This lot swore they all
lived farther away than that, but they could be lying. You escort your charge in and out of the house. They
get four minutes, you time it. Grab the pet and out. Nothing else, this is just about pets. If they can't grab
their animal in four minutes, out anyway. By force, if you have to. They even teach you kids to use your
stun gun?"
"Yes, sir," I say, ignoring the insult.
"Just the pets," he repeats. "No money, pictures, terminals, furniture, jewelry. And don't fucking get
yourself injured."
"No, sir." I flash him a big smile. He stares at me a minute, then looks away, his mouth twisted in
disgust. I don't care. I'm too damn happy.
The smoke gets worse, and pretty soon we can see flames. That train is burning like the hell the
preacher used to try to tell us about, when I was in the government school. Another glow marker, waist
high, with the field set to bright yellow, snakes along eight hundred feet from the maglev track. The houses
beyond the marker are standing, all right, but I wouldn't bet much on that if any fuel canisters blew. What is
that stuff, anyway? Probably some long unpronounceable name only stewdees would care about.
We stop about a hundred feet from the marker. Eighteen civvies, three soldiers, three NSs. The
sergeant gets the first six civvies off the truck and running toward houses, each civvy with a soldier or NS.
Some of the civvies could barely shamble along. My civvy is never going to win any marathons, but he
moves pretty fast for a mosstooth. I trot along beside him, parallel to the marker glow. Other pairs
disappear into the smoke in other directions, or into houses, which are the little row-jobbies you get in places
like this. I see one soldier-with-civvy come out almost immediately, followed by a big dog barking its fool
head off with doggie joy.
We trot on. And on. Where does this guy live? We're almost at the end of the houses. Beyond are just
big gray windowless buildings, warehouses or factories or something. There wouldn't be any pets in those.
Would there?
All of a sudden the civvy puts on a big burst of speed. Son of a bitch! He's away from me before I can
get out my stun gun, which I hadn't been expecting to even need. Not to rescue a fucking kitty! The
mosstooth races away from me and right through the glow marker. When I follow him through, there's a
brief burst of pain in my chest, but nothing my suit can't handle. We're inside the explosion zone. I'm gaining
on him, but not by much, when he runs into the nearest big gray building.
And locks the door behind him.
I waste precious seconds pounding on it like some kind of stewdee. Then I run around the outside of
the building. In the back is a loading dock, but it's locked, too. So is the emergency exit. How come these
people had time to lock everything up tighter than a religious virgin?
Then I see my guy running out of a little side door. He don't expect to see me, clearly, since he almost
runs into me. Which is how I get a good look at what he's carrying in his arms.
And I don't even draw my stun gun. I'm the one stunned. It's like I can't even move.