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

and on his quiet, bony face. Maybe a little older than I; possibly in his late thirties. I studied
him, trying to estimate how hard it would be to kill him if I had to. I could see him watching,
doubtless with the same thought in mind.
It was the way things were, now. There was no shortage of food or drink, or anything material you
could want But neither was there any law, anymoreтАФat least n┬░ne I'd been able to find in the last
three weeks.
4
To break the staring match, I deliberately looked away to the gadget, lying still now beyond the
barricades, and nodded at it,
"I'd Hke to have a look at it dose up," I said. "Is it safer
"Sure." He got to his feet, laying down the rocket launcher. I saw, however, he had a heavy


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revolverтАФpossibly a thirty-eight or forty-fourтАФin a bolster on the hip away from me; and a deer
rifle carbine Hke mine was lying against the barricade. He picked it up in his left hand. "Come
on," he said. "They only show up one at a time; on a staggered schedule, seven to ten hours
apart."
I looked down the road. There were no other wrecked shapes in black and yellow in sight along ft.
"You're sure?** I said. "How many have you seen?*
He laughed, making a dry sound in his throat Hke an old man.
"They're never quite stopped," he said. "Like this one. Ifs harmless, now, but not really done
for. Later HH crawl back, or get puttied back behind the mist over thereтАФyou'll see. Come on."
He climbed over the barricade and I followed him.
When we got to the gadget, it looked more than ever Hke
an overlarge toy carтАФexcept that where the windows
should be, there was a flat yeOow surface; and instead of
four ordinary-sized wheels with tires, the lower halves of
something Hke sixteen or eighteen small metal disks
showed through the panel sealing the underbody. The
rocket had torn a huge hole in the gadget's side.
"Listen," said the man, stooping over the bole. I came
10
TIME STORM 11
Tdose and listened myself. There was a faint buzzing still going on down there someplace inside it
"Who sends these things?** I said. "Or what sends them?**
He shrugged.
"By the way," I said, "I'm Marc Despard." I held out my hand.
He hesitated.
"Raymond Samuelson," he said.
I saw his hand jerk forward a Httle, men back again. Outside of that, he ignored my offered hand;
and I let it drop. I guessed that he might not want to shake hands with a man he might later have
to try to kill; and I judged mat anyone who worried about a nicety like that was not Ekety to
shoot me in the back, at least, unless lie had to. At the same time, there was no point in asking
for trouble by letting any nrisimrtftrsfandings arise.
"I'm Just on my way through to Omaha,** I said. "My wife's there, if she's still all right But I'm
not going to drive right across that time change fine out there if I've got a choke." I nodded at
the haze from which the gadget had come. "Have you got any other roads leading south or east from