"Dick, Philip K - Vulcan's Hammer v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

Vulcan's Hammer
By Philip K. Dick

Scanned by BW-SciFi
Scan date: July, 12th,2002

Arrow Books Limited
3 Fitzroy Square, London Wl

An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group

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First published in Great Britain by Arrow Books Ltd 1976
(c) Ace Books Inc. 1960

CONDITIONS OF SALE: This book shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is published at a net price and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956.

Made and printed in Great Britain by litho by The Anchor Press Ltd Tiptree, Essex

ISBN 0 09 913300 8

CHAPTER 1
Arthur Pitt was conscious of the mob as soon as he left the Unity office and started across the street. He stopped at the corner by his car and lit a cigarette. Unlocking the car, he studied the mob, holding his brief case tightly.
There were fifty or sixty of them: people of the town, workers and small businessmen, petty clerks with steel-rimmed glasses. Mechanics and truckdrivers, farmers, housewives, a white-aproned grocer. The usual-lower middle-class always the same.
Pitt slid into his car, and snapping on the dashboard mike, called his highest ranking superior, the South American Director. They were moving fast, now, filling up the street and surging silently toward him. They had, no doubt, identified him by his T-class clothes-white shirt and tie, gray suit, felt hat. Brief case. The shine of his black shoes. The pencil beam gleaming in the breast pocket of his coat. He undipped the gold tube and held it ready. "Emergency," he said.
"Director Taubmann here," the dashboard speaker said. "Where are you?" The remote, official voice, so far up above him.
"Still in Cedar Groves, Alabama. There's a mob forming around me. I suppose they have the roads blocked. Looks like the whole town."
"Any Healers?"
Off to one side, on the curb, stood an old man with a massive head and short-cropped hair. Standing quietly in his drab brown robe, a knotted rope around his waist, scandals on his feet. "One," Pitt said.
"Try to get a scan for Vulcan 3."
"I'll try." The mob was all around the car now. Pitt could hear their hands, plucking and feeling at the car, exploring it carefully and with calm efficiency. He leaned back and double-locked the doors. The windows were rolled up; the hood was down tight. He snapped on the motor which activated the defense assembly built into the car. Beneath and around him the system hummed as its feedback elements searched for any weak links in the car's armor.
On the curb, the man in brown had not moved. He stood with a few others, people in ordinary street clothing. Pitt pulled the scanner out and lifted it up.
A rock at once hit the side of the car, below the window. The car shuddered; in his hands the scanner danced. A second rock hit directly against the window, sending a web of cracks rippling across it.
Pitt dropped the scanner. "I'm going to need help. They mean business."
"There's a crew already on the way. Try to get a better scan of him. We didn't get it well."
"Of course you didn't," Pitt said with anger. "They saw the thing in my hand and they deliberately let those rocks fly." One of the rear windows had cracked; hands groped blindly into the car. "I've got to get out of here, Taubmann." Pitt grinned bleakly as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the car's assembly attempting to repair the broken window-attempting and failing. As new plastiglass foamed up, the alien hands grasped and wadded it aside.
"Don't get panicky," the tinny dashboard voice told him.
"Keep the old-brain down?" Pitt released the brake. The car moved forward a few feet and stopped dead. The motor died into silence, and with it, the car's defense system; the hum ceased.
Cold fear slid through Pitt's stomach. He gave up trying to find the scanner; with shaking fingers he lifted out his pencil beam. Four or five men were astride the hood, cutting off his view; others were on the cab above his head. A sudden shuddering roar: they were cutting through the roof with a heat drill.
"How long?" Pitt muttered thickly. "I'm stalled. They must have got some sort of interference plasma going-it conked everything out."
"They'll be along any minute," the placid, metallic voice, lacking fear, so remote from him and his situation. The organization voice. Profound and mature, away from the scene of danger.
"They better hurry." The car shuddered as a whole barrage of rocks hit. The car tipped ominously; they were lifting it up on one side, trying to overturn it. Both back windows were out. A man's hand reached for the door release.
Pitt burned the hand to ash with his pencil beam. The stump frantically withdrew. "I got one."
"If you could scan some of them for us ..."
More hands appeared. The interior of the car was sweltering; the heat drill was almost through. "I hate to do this." Pitt turned his pencil beam on his brief case until there was nothing left. Hastily, he dissolved the contents of his pockets, everything in the glove compartment, his identification papers, and finally he burned his wallet. As the plastic bubbled away to black ooze, he saw, for an instant, a photograph of his wife ... and then the picture was gone.
"Here they come," he said softly, as the whole side of the car crumpled with a hoarse groan and slid aside under the pressure of the drill.
"Try to hang on, Pitt. The crew should be there almost any-"