"Frederik Pohl - My Lady Green Sleeves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

prisons that it was sometimes hard even for them to re-
member what they really were, outside. Sauer was a big,
grinning redhead with eyes like a water moccasin. Flock
was a lithe five-footer, with the build of a water moccasin
and the sad, stupid eyes of a calf.
Sauer stopped yelling for a moment. "Hey, Flock," he
cried.
"What do you want, Sauer?" called Flock from his
own cell.
"Didn't you see, Rock?" bellowed Sauer. "We got a
lady with us! Maybe we ought to cut out this yelling so
as not to disturb the lady!" He screeched with howling,
maniacal laughter. "Anyway, if we don't cut this out,
they'll get us in trouble. Flock!"
"Oh, you think so?" shrieked Flock. "Jeez, I wish you
hadn't said that, Sauer. You got me scared! I'm so scared
I'm gonna have to yell!"
The howling started all over again.
The inside guard finished putting the new prisoners
away and turned off the tangler field once more. He licked
his lips. "Say, you want to take a turn in here for a
while?"
"Uh-uh," said the outside guard.
"You're yellow," the inside guard said moodily. "Ah,
I don't know why I don't quit this lousy job. Hey, you!
Pipe down or III come in and beat your head off!"
"Ee-ee-ee!" shrieked Sauer. "I'm scared!" Then he
grinned at the guard, all but his water-moccasin eyes.
"Don't you know you can't hurt a wipe by hitting him on
the head, boss?"
"Shut up!" yelled the inside guard. . . .
Sue-Ann Bradley's weeping now was genuine. She
simply could not help it. The crazy yowling of the hard-
timers, Sauer and Flock, was getting under her skin. They
weren't eveneven human, she told herself miserably,
trying to weep silently so as not to give the guards the
satisfaction of hearing her. They were animals!
Resentment and anger she could understandshe told
herself doggedly that resentment and anger were natural
and right. They were perfectly normal expressions of the
freedom-loving citizen's rebellion against the vile and
stifling system of Categoried Classes. It was good that
Sauer and Flock still had enough spirit to straggle against
the vicious system
But did they have to scream so?
The senseless yelling was driving her crazy. She aban-
doned herself to weeping, and she didn't even care who
heard her any more. Senseless!
It never occurred to Sue-Ann Bradley that it might not
be senseless, because noise hides noise. But then, she