"Jerry Pournelle - A Spaceship for the King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

ScannerтАЩs Note: This story was scanned and proofed from the Dec 1971, Jan 1972 and Feb 1972
issues of Analog magazine. It was later re-written by the author and re-titled тАЬKing DavidтАЩs SpaceshipтАЭ.
This version differs substantially from the novelized version.


I

The crowd was getting noisy in the Blue Bottle, although it was early in the evening. Tavern girls
squealed as customers pinched them, gaily clad waiters brought round after round of drinks, and
throughout much of the room everyone was shouting merrily. The reason was not hard to find, for in one
corner of the crowded room, three officers of the Imperial Navy held court, buying drinks for anyone on
Prince Samual's World who would sit with them and laugh at their jokes. Some of the regulars held back,
their distaste at the en-forced association more evident with every round, but for each of them there were
four others from Haven City more than willing to share the Emperor's humor and liquor. Before the night
ended, the officers would doubtless gain some recruits for the Royal and Imperial Marines, young lads
suddenly sobered to find them-selves in an iron service out among the stars, never to see their homes and
discovering that Imperial offi-cers were not such jolly good fellows when you were under their
com-mand.
For the moment the whiskey and brandy, and Grua distilled from a cross between a berry and a
peach grown only on Prince Samual's northern continent flowed freely, the jokes were new to the locals
even if they had been told a century before in the barracks at New Annapolis, and for a few moments
His Imperial Majesty's crimson and gold jacketed officers were relaxed, feeling as at home as they ever
did on a barely civilized planet.
The three of them were class-mates, not six years out of the Academy, the gold and silver stripes of
lieutenants sewn only recently on their sleeves. Closer inspection would have revealed that one of them
was a year younger than his friends, a school prodigy admitted early to midshipman status as much
because of his talents as his family influence, and that young Lieutenant Jefferson was very very drunk.
His classmates had discreetly opened the top clasp of their stiff tunic collars, but Jefferson's was half
unfastened, revealing a none too fresh shirt and the tiny breast pocket computer be-neath. His natural
shyness overcome by countless thimble-sized glasses of Grua, Lieutenant Jefferson basked in the esteem
of the flatlanders, al-most forgetting that they were bar-barians, that he and the tiny Navy outpost on
Prince Samual were the only representatives of true civ-ilization within ten light-years. The others were
singing, and when his turn came he added a verse so ob-scene it shocked the tavern girls, looked wildly
about for approval, and tossed off another glass.
Across from Jefferson a young na-tive, browned by field work, too young to be in the Blue Bottle if
he were not sitting with the Emperor's overlords, beamed at his new friend and shouted approval of the
song.
"Great, Lieu . . . uh, Jeff, great. Tell us more about what it's like out there. Tell us about other worlds.
Is this the most backward place you've ever seen?"
Lieutenant Jefferson belched loudly, murmured an automatic apol-ogy, and focused dizzily on his
ad-mirers. "Oh Hell no, Simom, not by a Full broadside. Samual's got guns, and factories, and, and
long-distance communications, and hydroelectric power. Man you've got nothing to be ashamed of.
You've got no world government, and those wars you're always in stomp you down or for sure youтАЩd be
in Class Two Status in the Empire instead of a colony.
When I think how had you got torn up in The War, it's amazing you got this far in a few centuries . . .
stan-dard centuries, that is. You're doing fine here. That right, laddy?" he asked, digging his elbow into
his classmate's ribs.
Lieutenant Clements turned his black face to Jefferson and grinned, his teeth sparkling. "Sure that's
right, Jeff, you tell 'em this is the best duty we've had since we left the Capital. Maybe better," he
shouted, turning back to the tavern girl beside him.