Vitalson: переводы

→Even if Hidalgo happened to be a martinet butt-
head he was still our CO. Whatever chances we had
for a successful mission rested on his shoulders.
That's what pissed off the dynamic duo of Arlene and
me. I wanted Hidalgo to be good. I didn't want him to
screw up. I wanted him to be a man I could trust, a
competent man.

→Put smart and daring together and you have a
combination that spells either patriot or traitor. I'd
studied enough history to understand that it could be
difficult to tell them apart. When your world is up
against the wall, you have to make the tough choices.
It's priority time. No one ever likes that.

→I hadn't been able to stop thinking about Arlene's
potential threat against Hidalgo, that she'd get rid of
him if he got in the way of completing the mission. I'd
never heard her talk like that before. I had known how
daring she could be from the first time I met her,
when she went at it with Gunny Goforth to prove she
was enough of a "man" to wear her high-and-tight. I
knew how smart she could be from Phobos where she
left her initials on the walls for me, a la Arne
Saknussen from Journey to the Center of the Earth, so
I'd realize whose trail I was following.

→We no longer lived in a world of high school
football games. Now the pigskin only covered ugly
pink demons who didn't need a rule book to spoil a
day's fun.

→I was interested in a certain girl who happened to
prefer a friend of mine. Her name was Noelle; his
name was Ron. Bummer. But we had a nice three-way
conversation going when our teacher suddenly came
to the back of the bus. Old man Crowder. We called
him Clam Crowder because he looked like something
you'd pull out of a shell, and you wouldn't get a pearl,
either. He just wanted to make sure that nothing was
going on that was against the rules. The darkness of
the spaceship, the kidding around of three friends, the
arrival of the man with the rule book--all that was
enough for me to be unfair to Captain Hidalgo. Time
to snap out of it.

→"With a song if need be," contributed Arlene. I'd
found a new Achilles' heel in my best buddy: my
singing voice. Maybe she had a point. I could just see
a pumpkin deliberately smashing itself against a wall
to escape from my perfect pitch. An army of imps
would blow up a barrel of sludge themselves and die
in glop and slop rather than let me start a second
verse. Yeah, Arlene might have something there.
I didn't elaborate on any of this because our fearless
leader chose that moment to join us. All the marines
were awake on the bus. That was what it felt like--a
bus.

→"Know how you feel, marine," I said to Albert.
"We're all getting antsy. That may be the secret of
preparing a warrior to do his best. Drag ass while
delivering him to the war and he'll be ready to kill
anything."

→But Fly had to take the mission to the limit. I saw
that berserker look come over him after Hidalgo died,
and I understood. I also knew we might not have
come through alive without that fire in him. When I
can think again, I'll tell Fly I understand.
Now I can only feel my loss. By the time we arrive
at our destination and turn around, Albert will have
been in his grave for centuries. So I sit alone at one
end of the ship while Fly sits at the other. The Fred
ship has large picture windows.

→I will never see Albert again. I'd reconciled
myself to accepting him as a sixty-seven-year-old. I
could have still loved him. At least we would have
been together again.

→I watch the stars contract to a small red disk at the
center of the line of travel. Fly watches a similar disk,
but his is blue. We do not talk. He searches for words
that I do not want to hear.

→We both wonder what the human race will do in the
next several thousand years.

→Hawaii Base employed the services of a number of
scientists and doctors. I'll never forget Arlene's reac-
tion when they said that Albert was going to be all
right, despite his having taken a face full of acidic imp
puke. Best of all, he wasn't going to be blind. Once
Arlene heard that, she allowed herself to genuinely
relax. I was damned glad that our Mormon buddy had
pulled through. He'd proved to be one hell of a
marine all the way from Salt Lake City to the monster
rally in L.A. What was more, he'd proved to be a true
friend.