"William Tenn - Down Among the Dead Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

the torn edge of hysteria all afternoon and who are damn glad that someone has at last said something
that they can make believe is funny.
And the white-haired briefing officer, who hadn't so much as smiled, waited for the hysteria to work
itself out, before saying gravely: "No, they don't smell bad at all. Unless, that is, they don't bathe. The
same as you gentlemen."
That shut us up. Even the kid, blushing his way back into his seat, set his jaw stiffly at the reminder.
And it wasn't until twenty minutes later, when we'd been dismissed, that I began to feel the ache in my
own face from the unrelaxed muscles there.


The same as you gentlemen...
I shook myself hard and walked over to the kid. "Hello, Commander," I said. "Been here long?"
He managed a grin. "Over an hour, Commander. I caught the eight-fifteen out of Arizona Base.
Most of the other fellows were still sleeping off last night's party, I'd gone to bed early; I wanted to give
myself as much time to get the feel of this thing as I could. Only it doesn't seem to do much good."
"I know. Some things you can't get used to. Some things you're not supposed to get used to."
He looked at my chest. "I guess this isn't your first sling-shot command?"
My first? More like my twenty-first, son! But then I remembered that everyone tells me I look
young for my medals, and what the hell, the kid looked so paleтАФ"No, not exactly my first. But I've never
had a blob crew before. This is exactly as new to me as it is to you. Hey, listen, Commander: I'm having
a hard time, too. What say we bust through that gate together? Then the worst'll be over."
The kid nodded violently. We linked arms and marched up to the sentry. We showed him our
orders. He opened the gate and said: "Straight ahead. Any elevator on your left to the fifteenth floor."
So, still arm in arm, we walked into the main entrance of the large building, up a long flight of steps
and under the sign that said in red and black:


Human Protoplasm Reclamation Center
Third District Finishing Plant


There were some old-looking but very erect men walking along the main lobby and a lot of
uniformed, fairly pretty girls. I was pleased to note that most of the girls were pregnant. The first pleasing
sight I had seen in almost a week.
We turned into an elevator and told the girl, "Fifteen." She punched a button and waited for it to fill
up. She didn't seem to be pregnant. I wondered what was the mat-ter with her.
I'd managed to get a good grip on my heaving imagination, when I got a look at the shoulder patches
the other passengers were wearing. That almost did for me right there. It was a circular red patch with
the black letters TAF superimposed on a white G-4. TAF for Terrestrial Armed Forces, of course: the
letters were the basic insignia of all rear-echelon outfits. But why didn't they use G-1, which represented
Personnel? G-4 stood for the Supply Division. Supply!
You can always trust the TAF. Thousands of morale specialists in all kinds of ranks, working their
educated heads off to keep up the spirits of the men in the fighting perimetersтАФbut every damn time,
when it comes down to scratch, the good old de-pendable TAF will pick the ugliest name, the one in the
worst possible taste.
Oh, sure, I told myself, you can't fight a shattering, no-quarter interstellar war for twenty-five years
and keep every pretty thought dewy-damp and intact, But not Supply, gentlemen. Not this placeтАФnot
the Junkyard. Let's at least try to keep up appearances.
Then we began going up and the elevator girl began announcing floors and I had lots of other things
to think about.