"Pournelle, Jerry - Birth Of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

"God bless you-"
"Yeah, there's none like us. Barnstorm out."
"Get me the relay station," I told the communications man.
"John Henry, this is Relay One. Over."
"You monitor that call from Plemmons?"
УRight.Ф
"Where's the main force?"
"Headed in at flank speed."
"Get a message to Zenansky. Have him broadcast to Marsport. We've got the power station. If they shell this place, or take it away from us, we'll blow hell out of it. If they leave us alone, we'll keep the power coming. Make sure everybody knows that. Get Mars Industries Association to understand it, too."
"Roger, John Henry."
Wilson had come up while I was talking. "Think they'll hold off?" he asked.
"Doubt it. Not now, not until they're sure they can't recover the bomb makings. How're you doing on the vault?"
"Blew open clean. What do we do with that stuff?"
"Get some of those transport containers out into the flatland, and bury 'em. Report where you've hidden them to Relay One, but don't make any maps.Ф
Wilson eyed me narrowly. "It's that way, huh? Okay."
I took a dozen troops and went forward toward the approaching Feddies. We had to hold them until Zemansky's group could get to us. We deployed in broken ground a kilometer from the big dome-shape of the station.
"Try to keep between them and the reactor containment," I told them. "They won't shoot heavy stuff if they think it'll wreck the power plant. They don't know how many of us there are. Keep moving, and make 'em think there's a lot."
Then we lay down and waited.

Do men love war? Certainly it is easier to fight than to think about it. What had those Feddies done to me? They were young men, like us, some with families. They'd joined up to see the world, or for the pay, or even, I suppose, because they believed in the Federation and world peace. Now they were coming to kill us, and we were waiting to kill them.
You think like that when you're waiting. You imagine a bullet tearing through your p-suit, and the blood spurting out, blood pushed by five pounds of pressure so that even veinous blood streams like a fountain. You think of what that bullet can do to you, and what the bullets in your own rifle can do to them. You wonder what the hell you're doing out here, and why you don't run like hell and let the others fight.
Such thoughts can finish you. If I had them, the others did too. "Sing, damn you," I said.
"Sing what?" someone asked.
УAnything.Ф
Have you ever heard "The Two Grenadiers?" Why in God's name one of the troops had ever learned that, or why any of us should care about an emperor over two hundred years in his grave, I don't know; what was France to us? But it reminded us of brave men and brave deeds. We lay under the black sky of Mars, dust blowing over us, and listened.

". . . and under her soil to lay me,
and when my cross on its scarlet band,
over my heart you've bound me,
then put my musket in my hand,
and belt my sword around me.
So shall I lie and listen,
Ayel, keeping shield watch
in my grave. ."

Wilson came up behind me. He motioned out toward the horizon. Was the dust thicker out there?

". . . then armed will I rise
from out of my grave,
and stand as my
Emperor's defenderl"

"Bloody hell, what kind of song is that?" someone shouted. "I'll give you a song!

When a man grows old,
and his balls grow cold . . ."

I recognized the voice. Hartig, who boasted that he was the only man on Mars who knew the entire and uncut version of "Eskimo Neff." There was no tune, but it kept us from thinking about what was coming. It went on interminably.
Wilson nudged me and pointed. The dust was definitely thicker out there. We had another twenty minutes, no more. I thought about where I'd put the men. No point in moving them.