"Jerry Pournelle - Falkenberg's Legion 2 - Falkenberg's Legio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

"One of those, huh?" The trustee's grin vanished. "Tanith for you." He pushed a button and the
door on the opposite side of the cage opened. "Get on," he snapped. "Fore I call the guards." His
finger poised menacingly over the small console on his desk.
John took papers out of an inner pocket of his tunic. "I have an appointment to CoDominium
Navy Service," he said. "I was ordered to report to Canaveral Embarcation Station for transport
by BuRelock ship to Luna Base."
"Get movin! - uh?" The trustee stopped himself and the grin reappeared. "Let me see that." He
held out a grimy hand.
"No. " John was more sure of himself now. "I'll show them to any CD officer, but you won't
get your hands on them. Now call an officer."
"Sure." The trustee didn't move. "Cost you ten credits."
"What?"
"Ten credits. Fifty bucks if you ain't got CD credits. Don't give me that look, kid. You don't
pay, you go on the Tanith ship. Maybe they'll put things straight there, maybe they won't, but
you'll be late reporting. Best you slip me something."
 John held out a twenty-dollar piece. "That all you got?" the trustee demanded. "OK, OK, have
to do." He punched a code into the phone, and a minute later a petty officer in blue CoDominium
Space Navy coveralls came into the cage.
"What you need, Smiley?"
"Got one of yours. New middy. Got himself mixed up with the colonists." The trustee laughed
as John struggled to control himself.
The petty officer eyed Smiley with distaste. "Your orders, sir?" he said.
John handed him the papers, afraid that he would never see them again. The Navy man
glanced through them. "John Christian Falkenberg?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, sir." He turned to the trustee. "Gimme."
"Aw, he can afford it."
"Want me to call the Marines, Smiley?"
"Jesus, you hardnosed - " The trustee took the coin from his pocket and handed it over.
"This way, please, sir," the Navy man said. He bent to pick up John's duffel. "And here's your
money, sir."
"Thanks. You keep it."
The petty officer nodded. "Thank you, sir. Smiley, you bite one of our people again and I'll
have the Marines look you up when you're off duty. Let's go, sir.
John followed the spacer out of the cubicle. The petty officer was twice his age, and no one
had ever called John "sir" before. It gave John Falkenberg a sense of belonging, a sense of having
found something he had searched for all his life. Even the street gangs had been closed to him,
and friends he had grown up with had always seemed part of someone else's life, not his own.
Now, in seconds, he seemed to have found - found what, he wondered.
They went through narrow whitewashed corridors, then into the bright Florida sunshine. A
narrow gangway led to the forward end of an enormous winged landing ship that floated at the
end of a long pier crowded with colonists and cursing guards.
The petty officer spoke briefly to the Marine sentries at the officers' gangway, then carefully
saluted the officer at the head of the boarding gangway. John wanted to do the same, but he knew
that you didn't salute in civilian clothing. His father had made him read books on military history
and the customs of the Service as soon as he decided to find John an appointment to the
Academy.
Babble from the colonists filled the air until they were inside the ship. As the hatch closed
behind him the last sounds he heard were the curses of the guards.
"If you please, sir. This way." The petty officer led him through a maze of steel corridors,