"Tom Easton - Down on the Truck Farm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

Caleb managed to get out a single snicker before squeaking a muffled, "Ouch!"

Dad slapped his thigh. "So," he said. "Tomorrow, I'm taking you out to the Daisy Hill Truck Farm."

It was a sad fact that the morning after tanking up on honeysuckle wine, antidote or no antidote, one had a headache,
not the blinding sort, but a sullen, throbbing thing that would respond only to a nip of honey. The aspirins Jimmy
found beside his breakfast plate were no help at all.

After breakfast, Dad led the way to the elevator that occupied the center of the beanstalk's supporting pillar. He did
not let Jimmy have a moment on the deck to grab a honeysuckle blossom, and when they reached the ground, his hand
on his son's shoulder kept Jimmy from stepping off the path.

"C'mon," he said. "You have your license." He steered Jimmy toward the door on the driver's side of the family
Armadon and held it open. It revealed the bucket seats and control panels that occupied the space grown in the
genimal's back, and when Jimmy climbed in, it closed with a solid "Chunkk!"

"But you still need practice. So you drive. I'll tell you when to turn."

The Armadon was a gengineered armadillo. Somewhat larger than a panel truck of the last century, it had no tail. The
lower portion of its rigid hide swelled out to form four wheels, each one wearing a black rubber tire. The genimal's legs
were mounted high, above the wheels, their joints reversed; as they ran, they pushed against the tires, spun the
wheels on their bony hubs, and propelled the vehicle down the grassy greenways that had replaced paved roads early
in the Biological Revolution.

Obediently, Jimmy toggled the genimal out of its night-time dormancy and took the tiller in his hand. He didn't have
much to say. He knew about the truck farm, and he could guess why his Dad wanted to take him there--Dad hoped he
would get inspired, discover a vocation, swear off the honey forevermore, and straighten out. Fat chance, he thought.

Fortunately, the trip would not take long. There was not far from their neighborhood an entrance to the major highway
that led traffic away from the city and toward the countryside where the land was available for truck farms and other
agricultural operations. At this time of day, most of the traffic was city-bound commuters in wheeled Armadons and
Roachsters, legged Hoppers, Tortoises, and Beetles, and grand Mack trucks hauling pods and trailers full of goods,
chrome eighteen-wheelers dangling from collars beneath their bulldog jowls. An occasional police Hawk hovered
overhead. A construction site featured long-legged Cranes and earth-moving Box-turtles. An Alitalia Cardinal and an
American Bald Eagle circled above the local jetport. Shovel-jawed litterbugs patrolled the shoulder, darting at every
break in the traffic onto the greenway to retrieve the wastes inevitably left behind the vehicles.

Honeysuckle vines covered the embankments beyond the shoulder, and in the shadows beneath an overpass, Jimmy
noticed several full-time honey-suckers. Jimmy read the papers and knew that they died of malnutrition and disease
and exposure and then fell prey to the omnipresent litterbugs, but he was not at all sure their fate was so horrible. They
were the honey-bums his father prayed he would not join. They were poor and tattered, but such was the power of the
euphoric in the honey they loved that they were nevertheless carefree and content with their lot. Was that indeed
what awaited Jimmy? He didn't think that honeysuckle wine had that much of a hold on him, though he did love the
stuff.

A Roadrunner roared past them, its rider bent low over the extended neck, his face hidden by a globular helmet. "Next
exit," said Dad, and the highway gave way to a smaller road poorly enough maintained that in spots, where the turf
was thin, the pavement of a generation before showed through. A few more miles, and they began to see the
white-boarded fences of the truck farm. The barns became visible beyond a grove of trees, and then they could see the
iron-barred runs, some of them containing young trucks. A herd of cattle, mingled Guernseys and Black Angus, milk