"Pournelle, Jerry & S M Stirling - Falkenberg 2 - Prince of Mercenaries e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

I can damned well live without the kind of laws they have here, Mark thought. And of course they steal. Why shouldn't they? How else can they live?
"And it is unlikely to last in any event. The governor has brought in a regiment of mercenaries to deal with the Free State."
About what I'd expect, Mark thought. "Why not CD Marines?"
Tappinger shook his head. "A complex issue. The simplest answer is financial. There are not enough CD forces to keep the peace everywhere because the Grand Senate will not appropriate enough money."
"But you said Tanith drug profits go to the NavyЧ"
"In large part they do. And since that is a lot of money, do you not think others want some of it? The Grand Senate itself envies the Navy's share, for it is money the Senate doesn't control. The Senate sends the Navy anywhere but Tanith, so the planters are squeezed again, to pay for their protection."
And that's fine with me, Mark thought. "Mercenaries can't be much use. They'd rather lie around in barracks and collect their pay." His teachers had told him that.
"Have you ever known any?"
"No, of course not. Look, Taps, I'm tired. I think I better get to bed." He turned and left the old man. To hell with him, Mark thought. Old man, old woman, that's what he is. Not enough guts to get away from here and strike out on his own.
Well, that's fine for him. But I've got bigger things in mind.
* * *
The harvest began at the end of the hurricane season. The borshite pods formed and were cut, and the sticky sap collected. The sap was boiled, skimmed, boiled again until it was reduced to a tiny fraction of the bulky plants they had worked all summer to guard.
And Ewigfeuer collapsed on the steps of the big house. Morgan flew him to the Lederle hospital. Curt returned with a young man: Ewigfeuer's son, on leave from his administrative post in the city.
"That old bastard wants to see you outside," Lewis said.
Mark sighed. He was tired from a long day in the fields. He was also tired of Tappinger's eternal lectures on the horrors of the Free State. Still, the man was his only friend. Mark took his bottle and went outside.
Tappinger seized the bottle eagerly. He downed several swallows. His hands shook. "Come with me," he whispered.
Mark followed in confusion. Taps led the way to the shadows near the big house. Juanita was there.
"Mark, honey, I'm scared."
Tappinger took another drink. "The Ewigfeuer boy is trying to raise money," he said. "He storms through the house complaining of all the useless people his father keeps on, and shouts that his father is ruining himself. The hospital bills are very high, it seems. And this place is heavily in debt. He has been selling contracts. He sold hers. For nearly two thousand credits."
"Sold?" Mark said stupidly. "But she has less than two years to go!"
"Yes," Taps said. "There is only one way a planter could expect to make that much back from the purchase of a young and pretty girl."
"God damn them," Mark said. "All right. We've got to get out of here."
"No," Tappinger said. "I've told you why. No, I have a better way. I can forge the old man's signature to a permission form. You can marry Juanita. The forgery will be discovered, but by thenЧ"
"No," Mark said. "Do you think I'll stay to be part of this system? A free society will need good people."
"Mark, please," Tappinger said. "Believe me, it is not what you think it is! How can you live in a place with no rules, you with your ideas of what is fair and what isЧ
"Crap. From now on, I take care of myself. And my woman and my child. We're wasting time." He moved toward the stables. Juanita followed.
"Mark, you do not understand," Tappinger protested.
"Shut up. I have to find the guard."
"He's right behind you." Morgan's voice was low and grim. "Don't do anything funny, Mark."
"Where did you come from?"
"I've been watching you for ten minutes. Did you think you could get up to the big house without being seen? You damned fool. I ought to let you go into the green and get killed. But you can't go aloneЧno, you have to take Juanny with you. I thought you had more sense. We haven't used the whipping post here for a year, but a couple of dozen might wake you up toЧ" Morgan started to turn as something moved behind him. Then he crumpled. Juanita hit him again with a billet of wood. Morgan fell to the ground.
"I hope he'll be all right," Juanita said. "When he wakes up, Taps, please tell him why we had to run off."
"Yeah, take care of him," Mark said. He was busy stripping the weapons belt from Morgan. Mark noted the compass and grinned.
"You're a fool," Tappinger said. "Men like Curt Morgan take care of themselves. It's people like you that need help."
Tappinger was still talking, but Mark paid no attention. He broke the lock on the stable and then opened the storage room inside. He found canteens in the harness room. There was also a plastic can of kerosene. Mark and Juanita saddled two horses. They led them out to the edge of the compound. Tappinger stood by the broken stable door.
They looked back for a second, then waved and rode into the jungle. Before they were gone, Tappinger had finished the last of Mark's gin.
* * *
They fled southward. Every sound seemed to be Morgan and a chase party following with dogs. Then there were the nameless sounds of the jungle. The horses were as frightened as they were.
In the morning they found a small clump of brown grass, a minuscule clearing of high ground. They did not dare make a fire, and they had only some biscuit and grain to eat. A Weem's Beast charged out of a small clump of trees near the top of the clearing, and Mark shot it, wasting ammunition by firing again and again until he was certain that it was dead. They then were too afraid to stay and had to move on.
They kept moving southward. Mark had overheard convicts talking about the Free State. On an arm of the sea, south, in the jungle. It was all he had to direct him. A crocodile menaced them, but they rode past, Mark holding the pistol tightly, while the beast stared at them. It wasn't a real crocodile, of course; but it looked much like the Earthly variety. Parallel evolution, Mark thought. What shape would be better adapted to life in this jungle?
On the eighth day they came to a narrow inlet and followed it to the left, deeper into the jungle, the sea on their right and green hell to the left. It twisted its way along a forgotten river dried by geological shifts a long time before. Tiny streams had bored through the cliff faces on both sides, and plunged thirty meters across etched rock faces into the green froth at the bottom. They were the highest cliffs Mark had seen in his limited travels on Tanith.
At dark on the second day after they found the inlet Mark risked a fire. He shot a crownears and they roasted it. "The worst is over," Mark said. "We're free now. Free."
She crept into his arms. Her face was worried but contented, and it had lines that made her seem older than Mark. "You never asked me," she said.
He smiled. "Will you marry me?"
"Sure."
They laughed together. The jungle seemed very close and the horses were nickering in nervous fear. Mark built up the fire. "Free," he said. He held her tightly, and they were very happy.

VIII
Lysander set down his fork and turned to his hostess. Ann Hollis Chang looked much more elegant here in the dining room of the governor's private apartments than she had when Lysander had seen her in the governor's office. Her silver grey hair was down in loose waves and held by a bright blue jeweled comb, and her gown was simply cut but clung in ways that flattered her somewhat bony figure. Still there was much of the senior bureaucrat about her. She was attentive to the guests at her end of the table, but she was also thoroughly aware of everything Governor Blaine said at the far end. She had mentioned earlier that her husband was a senior chemist with the Lederle company, and never came to government functions, official or not.
Lysander smiled. "Madame Chang, this roast is excellent."