"Avram Davidson - Bumberboom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

smoke. The earth shook like a dying man, and they were instantly thrown upon the quaking ground.
Things flew screaming over their heads. They lay deafened and stunned for long moments.
Mallian, presently seeing Zembac Pix's mouth moving, said, with a groan, "I cannot hear. I cannot
hear."
"I had not spoken. Woe! Mercy! Malignant fates! Where is the Bumberboom?"
And the Crew, now picking themselves up from the dirt, with shrieks and wails, began the same
question. "Bumberboom? Bumberboom? Bumberboom?" But a few fragments of twisted metal and a
shattered wheel were all that remained of that great cannon and weapon more utile than a thousand
swords...
Mallian felt a sob shake his throat. All his plans, all his efforts, wasted and shattered in a single
moment! He fought for and found control. "Age and disuse," he said, "must have corroded the barrel.
Never mind. We will somehow contrive to cast another."
Zembac Pix agreed, and said through his tears, "And to prepare more powder. Four and one-half
measures of sulphur to thirty-one and a third of-- "
"You err. It was of a certainty twenty-five and a fifth of sulphur to six and one eighth of snowy... Or
was it eleven and one tenth of... We must consult the formulary." But of that sole book wherein alone the
arcane and secret art of the gunnery was delineated, only one scorched bit of page remained, and on it
was inscribed the single word overload. There was another silence, the longest yet, disturbed only by the
idiotic and inconsolable ululations of the Crew.
In a different voice Mallian said, "It is just as well. Clearly the engine represented a mere theorizing,
and, as we have plainly seen, is of no practical value whatsoever. What is perhaps more to the point, I
observe that the horse is uninjured, and I propose we mount him immediately and proceed by way of the
woods to the northern and nearest border of this land of morose and barbarous folk, for I trust not their
humors at all."
"Oh, agreed! Agreed, Master-Lord!" declared Zembac Pix, scrambling up behind him. "Only one
question more: What of the erstwhile Crew? Should we try to persuade them to follow?"
Mal wheeled the horse around. "I think not," he said. "Soon enough their bellies will bring them down
to where the pantries and the bake-ovens of the Nor-folk are. But we will not tarry to witness this droll
confrontation. We will, however, think about it. I am of the firm opinion that they deserve one another."
He kicked his heels into the horse's sides and Zembac Pix smote it on the rump. They rode down the
hill.
Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. ( http://www.alexlit.com/ )

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