"R. Garcia Y Robertson - Oxygen Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

Her smile turned mischievous, and Tammy told him, "I asked, do you have a girlfriend?"

Suddenly, Tammy's English sentence didn't sound so quaint and fetching. Mia was not due down from
orbit for days, so a chance meeting was unlikely, but Derek could not lie to Tammy, not after her
sometimes painful honesty. Trying to hide behind a nonchalant grin, he told her, "Only if you count
Greenies."

Tammy's smile faded, and Derek saw that he had lost something in her eyes by sleeping with a Greenie.
"Her name is Mia. But I doubt she considers me her 'boyfriend'тАФ not the way humans think of itтАж"

Tammy would not even look at him, totally uninterested in the love life of Greenies. They had a cold,
silent planet-fall, sitting side by side and saying nothing.

Orbital scans showed humans scattered throughout the Hyperborian Depression, with solid patches in the
marsh supporting farm plots, producing melons, squash, patches of corn, pigs, and chickens. None of
which worried the Greenies much, since the whole swamp was slowly becoming a sea bottom. Why dig
people out of a place that would soon be underwater? What worried the Greenies was a water-tight
bunker complex dug into the base of the central massif, and signs of fortifications farther up.

Leo's light armored battalion landed near the biggest bunker entrance, carving out an LZ with wide zones
of fire. No one opposed them. In fact, Derek got the impression that the swarm of armored infantry and
turreted Bug-mobiles sent everyone scurrying for cover. Having said virtually nothing since planetfall, he
and Tammy approached the main bunker, a steel blast-shield dug into a green hillside, with ELVIS
SAVES spray-painted in English above the entrance. His electronic bug scurried ahead of them.

Young women wearing long print dresses, beehive hairdos, and black eye shadow greeted them at the
bunker door, looking askance at Tammy in her brown militia uniform, beneath body armor that read, DO
NOT SHOOT THIS WOMAN! Tammy shook her head and grinned for the first time since that frosty
fall from orbit. "Presleites! Good luck! You're going to wish you were dealing with Pender."

"What do you mean?" Derek asked warily, pleased to have Tammy talking again.

"You'll see." Tammy shook her head. "Church of Elvis, so just watch your back."

Smiling women ushered them into the neatly carpeted bunker, showing a cold shoulder to Tammy. Inside
was a hologram-maze of long fluorescent corridors lined with numbered rooms, all done in the same
white-and-gold motif, with heavy white drapes where the windows should be. Lower levels were
reached by boxy elevators. Unable to tell if this was some illusionary defense, Derek asked Tammy, "Is
this typical Earth-style architecture?"

"From a zillion years ago," Tammy told him. "This is programmed to resemble a Las Vegas hotel casino
in early postatomic Nevada. Before the state was made into a waste dump."

"Really?" That explained the numbered rooms, but not the annoying music in the elevators. "What was
Las Vegas?"

"Resort in the desertтАФdon't ask me why. Presleites adore this style of architecture, which has a sort of
energetic charm," Tammy admitted. "Living like this would drive normal folks crazy, but it doesn't seem
to bother them much."