"A Day for Damnation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

TWO

I WAS wrong.

A machine that big could get off the ground.

It lumbered through the air like a drunken cow, but it flewand it carried enough troops and gear to overthrow a small government. We had three of the best-trained teams in the Special Forces-Duke and I had trained them ourselves-a complete scientific squad, and enough firepower to barbecue Texas (well, a large part of Texas anyway).

I hoped we wouldn't need to use it.

I climbed into the back and sat down with the "enlisted men." Draftees, all of them. Except they weren't called draftees any more. The Universal Service Obligation had been rewritten-twice-by the New Military Congress of the United States. Four years of uniformed service. No exceptions. No deferments. No "needed skill" civilian classifications. And this means you. You were eligible on the day you turned sixteen. You had to be in uniform before your eighteenth birthday. Very simple.

To get into the Special Forces, though, you had to ask. In fact, you almost had to demand the opportunity. You couldn't end up in the Special Forces any more unless you wanted to be here.

And then, you have to prove you could handle the job.

I didn't know how rigorous the training was-I'd fallen into the Special Forces by accident, before the standards were tightened, and I'd been spending most of my career playing catch-up-but I could tell by looking at this team that it produced the result. I'd also heard that three-quarters of those who started the training dropped out before it was halfway over.

These were the survivors. The winners.

There wasn't one of them old enough to vote. And two of the girls didn't even look old enough to be wearing brassieres. But they weren't kids. They were combat-hardened troops. That these soldiers still counted their ages in the teens was incidental; they were as dangerous a bunch as the United States Army could put togetber. And it showed on their faces. They all had that same coiled look behind their eyes.

They were passing a cigarette back and forth between them. When it came to me, I took a puff-not because I wanted one, but because I wanted to make sure it wasn't "dusted" before I passed it on. I didn't think any of my troops would be that stupid, but it had been known to happen-on other teams, not mine. The army had a technical term for officers who let their troops go into combat situations stoned; we called them statistics.

The team wasn't talking much, and I knew why. It was my presence. I wasn't much more than three years older than the oldest of them, but I was the Lieutenant and that made me "the old man." Besides-they were afraid of me. Rumor had it I'd once burned a man alive on a worm hunt.

I felt old looking at them. And a little wistful too. These kids would be the last ones on the planet for a long time who would be able to remember what a "normal" childhood was like.

They should have been in high school or their first year in college. They should have been putting up balloons in the gymnasium for some school dance, or worrying about their Global Ethics reports, or even just hanging out down at the mall.

They knew this was not the way the world was supposed to work. And this was definitely not the future they had planned on. But this was the way it had turned out; there was a job that had to be done and they were the ones who had to do it.

I respected their commitment.

"Sir?" That was Beckman, tall and gangly and dark. I remembered, his family was from Guam. I glanced over toward him. "Are we gonna be back in time for Derby?" he asked.

I thought about it. We were headed into Southern Wyoming. Two hours in the air each way. Four hours on the ground, maximum. Derby was on at 9:00 P.M. T. J. had found out that Stephanie was coming back from Hong Kong. Now for sure, he had to locate the missing robot before Grant did. "Should be," I said. "If we're off the ground by six. No later." I glanced around at the others. "Can you guys target on that?"

They nodded agreement. "Sure."

"Fine by me."

"Let's do it."

I gave them a grin. A trick I learned from Duke. Spend your smiles as if each one cost you a year off your life. Then your troops will bust their buns to earn them.

They looked so thrilled, I had to get up and go quickly forward before I burst out laughing.

Duke glanced at me as I climbed up beside him. "They okay?"

"They're worried about the missing robot."

"Huh?"

"Derby. It's a TV program."

"Never touch the stuff myself," he said. He checked his watch. He leaned forward and tapped the pilot's shoulder. "You can call Denver now. Tell them we've passed Go-NoGo Lambda. They can launch the follow-chopper." To me, Duke said, "You can start warming up the jeeps now. I want to drop the hatch and roll as soon as we hit dirt. I want this ship empty in thirty seconds."

"You got it," I said.

The target was nearly fifty klicks south of Wheatland.

It had been spotted, almost accidentally, by a Reclamation Scout. Fortunately, he knew what he was looking at. He called it in, then turned his jeep north and drove like hell. He nearly made it too.

A response team spotted the overturned jeep from the air a day later. A drop squad pulled the jeep's log-disk, and the video record confirmed the infestation site. Four worms. Three "children" and an "adult." The nest would have been burned or frozen within forty-eight hours-except this time, Denver had a better idea.

This time we were going to capture a whole Chtorran family alive.

Duke and I always got the good jobs.