Faithful Ruslan Read Online Free PDF

Ruslan thought that masters were born with this magic ability, but later he noticed that they answered each other readily enough, and if they were asked a question by the Chief Master, whom they addressed as “Comr’d Cap’n P’mission Tspeak,” they answered very promptly and held their hands straight down the sides of their pants. Hence he suspected that the masters, too, were specially taught how to behave toward prisoners—just like the dogs, in fact!
    “What are you looking so miserable for?” asked the driver. He did not lower his eyes, did not hunch his head between his shoulders or break into a sweat, but merely put on a sympathetic expression. “Sorry to finish your spell in the service, are you? Don’t like the idea of starting life all over again, I suppose. Don’t worry, you’ll find your feet. Only I shouldn’t go back to your old village, though, if I were you. Heard about the plenum of the Central Committee? Not much to eat back on the farm these days, I hear.”
    “Keep going,” said Master. “You talk too much.” He did not, however, stand aside for the tractor, and kept holding his gun firmly against his chest with both hands.
    “Sure thing,” the driver agreed. “It’s a fact—can’t seem to stop my tongue from wagging. How can I help it, though, if it itches?”
    “I’d give you something to stop it itching,” said Master.
    The driver roared with laughter.
    “You kill me, soldier! … Hey, but you look good with that gun. Had your picture taken for a souvenir? You’d better; otherwise your girl won’t have you. All those sluts want to see is a gun, they don’t care who’s behind it.” Master did not answer, and the driver expostulated: “See here—where the hell d’you want me to put this boxcar?”
    “Put it where you like. It’s no business of mine.”
    “Well, you’re standing in for the boss around here, aren’t you?”
    “For all I care, you can chop it up for firewood. Why have you brought it here, anyway? Aren’t you going to live in the huts?”
    “Hell, no! I’d rather live in a tent.”
    Master shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
    “Please yourself.”
    The driver nodded, still grinning all over his face, climbed back into the cab and was about to shut the door when he caught sight of Ruslan. He seemed to remember something; his forehead betrayed signs of thought and a furrow of sympathy appeared on it.
    “You gonna shoot that dog? Thought at first maybe you were giving it some training. I saw you as I was driving up, and I wondered why the hell you were training the dog when it was time to put it out to grass. So you’ve got to bump it off.… Look, maybe you don’t have to do it. Couldn’t you leave him behind for us? A dog like that must be worth a fortune. He could guard our stuff for us.”
    “He’d guard it all right,” said Master, “but you wouldn’t like the way he does it.”
    The driver looked at Ruslan with respect.
    “Couldn’t we retrain him?”
    “Not this one. All the dogs that could be taught new tricks have been retrained already.”
    “I see.” The driver shook his head sadly. “They sure have given you a shit job, soldier—shooting dogs. Well, it’s all in the line of duty, I suppose. What a reward for good service—nine grams of lead in the back of the neck. But why do only the dogs get that treatment? You served your time, too, didn’t you?”
    “Are you going to drive on?” asked Master.
    “O.K.,” said the driver, “I’m on my way.”
    Their glances met head-on: Master’s rigid and ice-cold, the driver’s somewhat abashed but still carelessly cheerful. The tractor roared and enveloped itself in clouds of black smoke, Master stepped reluctantly aside, but the tractor did not go straight ahead; instead it gave a jerk, swiveled its nose away from the gates and crawled diagonally across the ground, churning up the soil of the No-Go zone between the inner and outer perimeter fences.
    An instant flash of