"David L. Robbins - Endworld 11 - Liberty Run" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robbins David L)

trooper wearing his helmet cocked at an angle.

Lieutenant Lysenko, keeping his attention fixed on the trio of women
150 yards away, nodded. "The Home embraces a thirty-acre plot," he
noted absently.

"The Home!" The stocky soldier snickered. "What a stupid name!"

"I don't know about that," Lieutenant Lysenko remarked. "I sort of like
it. The man responsible for constructing that walled compound knew what
he was doing. His name was Kurt Carpenter, according to the files our
informant turned over to us. Carpenter was no fool. He foresaw the
inevitability of World War Three and took appropriate action. For an
American, he was most unusual. Not at all like the typical capitalistic
swine of his time. He used his wealth to build this place he called the
Home, then gathered a select group here shortly before the war. He
dubbed them his Family."

"The Home! The Family!" the stocky soldier said, his tone laced with
scorn. "I still think it's stupid!"

Lieutenant Lysenko cast a disapproving glance at the trooper. "Were
your feeble intellect the equal of your flippant mouth, Grozny, the Party
Congress would hail you as a genius," he stated acidly.

Private Grozny frowned, but held his tongue. He knew better than to
match wits with the cerebral Lysenko. He also knew what would happen if
he riled the officer.

The approaching women were 125 yards off.

"Was it stupid of Kurt Carpenter to surround his compound with
twenty-foot-high brick walls?" Lieutenant Lysenko demanded. "And to cap
those thick walls with barbed wire? Or to install a sturdy, massive
drawbridge in the center of the west wall as the only means of entering or
exiting to minimize hostile penetration? Was it stupid of him to initiate
the practice of designating certain Family members as Warriors, superbly
trained individuals responsible for preserving the Home and safeguarding
the Family?"

"No," Grozny admitted.

"It was very smart of them to clear the fields all around their Home,"
interjected the youngest soldier.

"True," Lysenko said. "Our task is that much more difficult."

Grozny nodded at the women. "The mice come to the cats, eh?"

Lieutenant Lysenko studied one of the women. "But one of the mice