"Gordon R. Dickson - Time Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

barricade across the street up ahead; and a single figure crouched behind it with what looked like
a rocket launcher cm his shoulder. He was peering over die barricade away from me; al-tiiaugh he
must have heard die sound of die motor coming up die street behind him.
I pulled die truck into an alley between two stores and stopped it
"Stay here and stay quiet," I told die girl and Sunday.
I took die carbine from beside my driver's seat and got out Holding it ready, just in case, I went
up behind dw man crouched at die barricade. Up tiiis close I could see easily over die
barricadeтАФand sure enough, tiiere was another mistwall, less than a mile away, but unmoving. For
die first time since I had come into die silent town, I became conscious of a steady sound.
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It came from somewhere up ahead, beyond the point where the straight white concrete highway
vanished into the unmoving haze of the mistwaUтАФa sftiall buzzing sound. Like the sound of a fly in
an enclosed box on a hot July day such as this one was.
"Get down," said the man with the rocket launcher.
I pulled my head below the top line of the makeshift barricadeтАФfurniture, rolls of carpeting, cans
of paintтАФthat barred the empty street between the gritty sidewalks and the unbroken store windows
in the red brick sides of the Main Street building. Driving hi from the northwest, I had thought
at first that mis small town was still living. Then, when I got closer, I guessed it was one of
those places, untouched but abandoned, such as I bad run into further north. And so it was, in
fact; except for the man, his homemade barricade, and the rocket launcher.
The buzzing grew louder. I looked behind me, back down Main Street I could just make out the
brown, left front fender of the panel truck showing at the mouth of the alley into which I had
backed it There was no sound or movement from inside it The two of them in there would be obeying
my orders, tying still on the blankets in the van section, the leopard probably purring a little
in its rough, throaty way and cleaning the fur of a forepaw with its tongue, while the girl held
to the animal for comfort and companionship, in spite of the heat
When I looked back through a chink in the barricade, mere was something already visible hi the
road. It had evidently just appeared out of the naze, for it was coming very fast Its sound was
die buzzing sound I had heard earlier, now growing rapidly louder as the object raced toward us,
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TIME STORM 9
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' seeming to swell in size, like a balloon being inflated against the white backdrop of the haze,
as it came.
It came so fast that there was only time to get a glimpse of it It was yellow and black in color,
like a wasp, a small gadget with an amazing resemblance to a late-model compact car, but half the
size of such a car, charging at us down the ruler-straight section of highway like some outsize
wind-up toy.
I jerked up my rifle; but at the same time the rocket launcher went off beside me with a flat dap
of sound. The rocket was slow enough so that we could see it like a black speck, curving through
the air to meet the gadget coming at us. They met and there was an explosion. The gadget bopped up
off the road shedding parts which flew toward us, whacking into the far side of the barricade like
shrapnel. For a full minute after ft quit moving, there was no sound to be heard. Then the
whistling of birds and the trifling of crickets took up again.
I looked over at the rocket launcher.
"Good," I said to the man. "Where did you get that launcher, anyway?"
"Somebody must have stolen it from a National Guard outfit,'* he said. "Or brought it back from
overseas. I found it with a bunch of knives and guns and other things, in a storeroom behind the
town police office.*1
He was as tall as I was, a tight-shouldered, narrow-bodied man with a deep tan on his forearms,