[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
anyone, or we'd never get off that planet. But it was no time for courtesy, or boys' games. I hit the big
one in the solar plexus, chopped another guy in the collarbone while the big one was folding, then
leaned to the other side to squeeze a nerve. The shrieks were quite unmanly and horrible, and suddenly, I
wasn't enjoying this at all but I kicked the fallen bodies out of die way and left Suzanne guarding them
with tack-hammer shoes while I kidney-punched the two who were beating Marty down, just as he
collapsed. They howled and stumbled over Marty, falling, just as a huge fist caught me in the head from
behind. I felt myself flip over and fall, but all I could see were stars. Then something caught me under
the shoulders, and I lashed out with a blind kick. The stars cleared, and I stumbled back up on my feet to
see a farm boy curled around his pain and another one's fist coming right at my face.
I dropped to my knees; the fist went over my head, and I surged up, catching him by the shirtfront
and kicking his legs out from under him.
And suddenly, it was clear between us and the doors.
"Inside!" I snapped at the girls, but didn't wait to see if they took my advice I swung around to
help out in front.. ..
Just in time for somebody to kick me in the stomach.
I saw it coming a half second early, just enough to start falling back, and it exploded in my belly
like a bomb. For a moment, my abdominal muscles locked, and I couldn't breathe but that had
happened to me before, and as my knees hit ground, I reached out and grabbed the other leg, right on the
nerve point.
The man screamed, as high and sharp as a woman, and fell down, still screaming. I felt the first stab
of breath come back, and staggered up to my feet while I was waiting for my lungs to get back to
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (232 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
working full:time. I knew I was going down, but I was blasted sure I was going to take that plowboy
with the thick boot down with me.
This time I saw the kick coming a long way off, in time to catch the boot and pull.
He yelled and flipped up, then down. I didn't hear anything snap, though, and I dropped it before
anything could. He wouldn't be using that leg again tonight anyway.
I looked around for my next customer and saw that somehow, suddenly, the way was clear. The
farm boys were all down, several of them moaning and rolling on the ground, holding their heads. I
glanced up at Barry and Horace, and saw them holding their canes like sabers, eyes glinting, breathing
hard. Winston had blood running down from the comer of his mouth, and Merlo was going to need
several big orders of beefsteak. Marty was helping Ogden up from under a tangle of farm-boy boots, and
I felt a surge of rage they even had to pick on an old man! I stepped toward him, anxious to check his
pulse, but he waved me away, panting. "I am all right, Ramou. No heart attack this time, by some
miracle."
"Let us not rely on another one," Barry said. "Back to the ship, friends."
I beckoned to the ladies, and they came out from the lecture hall they had managed to get back
inside a locked door, somehow. They looked about them hesitantly, and picked their way through the
moaning bodies gingerly and quickly, as if afraid someone was going to try to tackle mem, which was
quite possible. I went to meet them, just in case, and ushered them back into the center of our group. We
started off down the avenue, with some curious onlookers watching from the sides audience members,
who had stuck around for the late show.
"Barry," Marnie said, "do you suppose, tomorrow night, we could afford a cab?"
"Surely, Marnie," he said, "if there is one."
"Never can find a taxi when you need one," Marty wheezed.
"Especially not when they haven't been invented where you are." I reminded myself to check his
ribs when we got home. "Larry, how are you?"
"Why should you care?" he snarled feebly.
I contained a surge of irritation. "Because if you go out of commission, there's one less wall
between me and them, if it happens again. Anything broken?"
"I don't think so," he grated, "no thanks to you."
"Ramou knocked down half of them himself," Suzanne protested.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (233 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
"How about you, kid?" I looked up at her, feeling a stab of anxiety. I didn't know what lay in her
past, but I was hoping this wouldn't trigger any bad memories.
"I'm all right, Ramou," she assured me, but she clung all the more tightly to my arm. "I'm all right,
because you were there. Don't ever go away, all right?"
It numbed me, but I managed to pat her arm reassuringly. "Just let me know when you're going to
need me, okay?"
Prudence must not have liked the sound of that, because she suddenly showed up on the other side
of me, towing a red-faced Elias. "I am so sorry, Ramou! So ashamed of my countrymen!"
" 'S okay," I grunted.
"But it is not!" Surprisingly, there were tears in her eyes. "They are such beasts! Such savages!
They have no care for refinement or elegance, no care for culture, no regard for women! They think we
are just objects to be owned and used, just toys and servants!"
"Prudence!" Elias exclaimed, shocked.
She rounded on him. "Do you think you are really any better than the rest of them, Elias? Do you
think you will not truly expect a woman to wait on you hand and foot and, aye, warm your bed at your
command, when you are married?"
"Such is the natural order of man and woman!" he protested.
"Scarcely natural at all," Mamie snapped.
"It is set forth in the Bible!"
"Not in quite those words," she said witheringly, "and please remember that the Bible was written
by men!"
"Aye, because God is a man!"
"Don't tell me you see God as one of those brutes!" Suzanne protested, tears in her eyes.
Elias glanced at her, but he couldn't quite meet her gaze. "We are all imperfect," he muttered.
"But some more imperfect than others, it seems! Why did they do it, Ramou?"
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (234 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
"Testosterone overload," I said. "We boiled up a lot of pressure in them." I was careful not to say
who had lit their fires most. "They had to blast it out one way or another. They did."
"The steam-boiler theory of male behavior," Lacey said dryly.
"That steam gets a lot of work done," I said, but it went past her; she thought James Watt invented
electric light.
Behind us, we heard whistles shrilling.
I halted. "What's that?"
"The watch." Elias glanced behind him uneasily.
"The watch? Where were they when we needed them?"
"Watching," Marty said.
"Be glad they didn't show up while we were fighting," Merlo said. "Loyalty to the home team
usually wins out."
Barry nodded. "They probably would have arrested us for disturbing the peace."
"There is some truth to that," Larry said, with a glance at Suzanne. She didn't even notice him
enough for a glare.
"You wrong our good watchmen," Prudence began, but Elias disagreed.
"If you'll excuse us, we must needs go home it is nearly curfew. Your lecture was excellent, and I
thank you for it. Come, Prudence!"
"Ow! Elias, not so hard! But she didn't try to stop him, just stumbled after, looking back to wave at
us. "My apologies for my fellow citizens!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
anyone, or we'd never get off that planet. But it was no time for courtesy, or boys' games. I hit the big
one in the solar plexus, chopped another guy in the collarbone while the big one was folding, then
leaned to the other side to squeeze a nerve. The shrieks were quite unmanly and horrible, and suddenly, I
wasn't enjoying this at all but I kicked the fallen bodies out of die way and left Suzanne guarding them
with tack-hammer shoes while I kidney-punched the two who were beating Marty down, just as he
collapsed. They howled and stumbled over Marty, falling, just as a huge fist caught me in the head from
behind. I felt myself flip over and fall, but all I could see were stars. Then something caught me under
the shoulders, and I lashed out with a blind kick. The stars cleared, and I stumbled back up on my feet to
see a farm boy curled around his pain and another one's fist coming right at my face.
I dropped to my knees; the fist went over my head, and I surged up, catching him by the shirtfront
and kicking his legs out from under him.
And suddenly, it was clear between us and the doors.
"Inside!" I snapped at the girls, but didn't wait to see if they took my advice I swung around to
help out in front.. ..
Just in time for somebody to kick me in the stomach.
I saw it coming a half second early, just enough to start falling back, and it exploded in my belly
like a bomb. For a moment, my abdominal muscles locked, and I couldn't breathe but that had
happened to me before, and as my knees hit ground, I reached out and grabbed the other leg, right on the
nerve point.
The man screamed, as high and sharp as a woman, and fell down, still screaming. I felt the first stab
of breath come back, and staggered up to my feet while I was waiting for my lungs to get back to
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (232 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
working full:time. I knew I was going down, but I was blasted sure I was going to take that plowboy
with the thick boot down with me.
This time I saw the kick coming a long way off, in time to catch the boot and pull.
He yelled and flipped up, then down. I didn't hear anything snap, though, and I dropped it before
anything could. He wouldn't be using that leg again tonight anyway.
I looked around for my next customer and saw that somehow, suddenly, the way was clear. The
farm boys were all down, several of them moaning and rolling on the ground, holding their heads. I
glanced up at Barry and Horace, and saw them holding their canes like sabers, eyes glinting, breathing
hard. Winston had blood running down from the comer of his mouth, and Merlo was going to need
several big orders of beefsteak. Marty was helping Ogden up from under a tangle of farm-boy boots, and
I felt a surge of rage they even had to pick on an old man! I stepped toward him, anxious to check his
pulse, but he waved me away, panting. "I am all right, Ramou. No heart attack this time, by some
miracle."
"Let us not rely on another one," Barry said. "Back to the ship, friends."
I beckoned to the ladies, and they came out from the lecture hall they had managed to get back
inside a locked door, somehow. They looked about them hesitantly, and picked their way through the
moaning bodies gingerly and quickly, as if afraid someone was going to try to tackle mem, which was
quite possible. I went to meet them, just in case, and ushered them back into the center of our group. We
started off down the avenue, with some curious onlookers watching from the sides audience members,
who had stuck around for the late show.
"Barry," Marnie said, "do you suppose, tomorrow night, we could afford a cab?"
"Surely, Marnie," he said, "if there is one."
"Never can find a taxi when you need one," Marty wheezed.
"Especially not when they haven't been invented where you are." I reminded myself to check his
ribs when we got home. "Larry, how are you?"
"Why should you care?" he snarled feebly.
I contained a surge of irritation. "Because if you go out of commission, there's one less wall
between me and them, if it happens again. Anything broken?"
"I don't think so," he grated, "no thanks to you."
"Ramou knocked down half of them himself," Suzanne protested.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (233 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
"How about you, kid?" I looked up at her, feeling a stab of anxiety. I didn't know what lay in her
past, but I was hoping this wouldn't trigger any bad memories.
"I'm all right, Ramou," she assured me, but she clung all the more tightly to my arm. "I'm all right,
because you were there. Don't ever go away, all right?"
It numbed me, but I managed to pat her arm reassuringly. "Just let me know when you're going to
need me, okay?"
Prudence must not have liked the sound of that, because she suddenly showed up on the other side
of me, towing a red-faced Elias. "I am so sorry, Ramou! So ashamed of my countrymen!"
" 'S okay," I grunted.
"But it is not!" Surprisingly, there were tears in her eyes. "They are such beasts! Such savages!
They have no care for refinement or elegance, no care for culture, no regard for women! They think we
are just objects to be owned and used, just toys and servants!"
"Prudence!" Elias exclaimed, shocked.
She rounded on him. "Do you think you are really any better than the rest of them, Elias? Do you
think you will not truly expect a woman to wait on you hand and foot and, aye, warm your bed at your
command, when you are married?"
"Such is the natural order of man and woman!" he protested.
"Scarcely natural at all," Mamie snapped.
"It is set forth in the Bible!"
"Not in quite those words," she said witheringly, "and please remember that the Bible was written
by men!"
"Aye, because God is a man!"
"Don't tell me you see God as one of those brutes!" Suzanne protested, tears in her eyes.
Elias glanced at her, but he couldn't quite meet her gaze. "We are all imperfect," he muttered.
"But some more imperfect than others, it seems! Why did they do it, Ramou?"
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...arship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (234 of 260)20-2-2006 23:32:00
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
"Testosterone overload," I said. "We boiled up a lot of pressure in them." I was careful not to say
who had lit their fires most. "They had to blast it out one way or another. They did."
"The steam-boiler theory of male behavior," Lacey said dryly.
"That steam gets a lot of work done," I said, but it went past her; she thought James Watt invented
electric light.
Behind us, we heard whistles shrilling.
I halted. "What's that?"
"The watch." Elias glanced behind him uneasily.
"The watch? Where were they when we needed them?"
"Watching," Marty said.
"Be glad they didn't show up while we were fighting," Merlo said. "Loyalty to the home team
usually wins out."
Barry nodded. "They probably would have arrested us for disturbing the peace."
"There is some truth to that," Larry said, with a glance at Suzanne. She didn't even notice him
enough for a glare.
"You wrong our good watchmen," Prudence began, but Elias disagreed.
"If you'll excuse us, we must needs go home it is nearly curfew. Your lecture was excellent, and I
thank you for it. Come, Prudence!"
"Ow! Elias, not so hard! But she didn't try to stop him, just stumbled after, looking back to wave at
us. "My apologies for my fellow citizens!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]