"David Gerrold - Chtorr 3 - A Rage for Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

"Yes sir, but-" he caught himself. "May I speak, sir?"
"Go ahead."
"Well . . ." His resentment faded into a lopsided, almost conspiratorial malice. "I just sort of figured you
had to be some kind of colossal fuck-up for them to give you this shit detail."
"Thanks for your . . . ah, candor."
"I looked up your record, sir. You've got three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, a Good Conduct Medal,
and eighty million caseys in worm bounties. And, according to the military listings, you're one of the five
best field agents in California. You're a real chopperbopper-too good for this job. So, I figured you must
have really pissed someone off." His grin was infectious. "That's how I got here. "
"You're half-right," I admitted. "I made a bad guess last year. A lot of people died." I didn't like
remembering; I liked talking about it even less. "Anyway, they put me here-where if I made any more
mistakes, they'd be a lot more personal. Understand?"
"Sort of."
"Yeah, I don't like it either, but so what? This is the job. Let's get it done. I'll do the best I can. And so
will you. Understand?" His grin faded. "And whatever else I might feel about it is none of anybody's
goddamn business." I headed back toward the Jeep.
The phone was still yammering on the seat. I picked it up and put the headset to my ear. "JIMBO," I
acknowledged. "All clear. No casualties. And your Vigilante has been removed from service." I
answered a couple more questions, signed off, and looked over at the kid; he was standing rigidly, a
respectful distance away from the Jeep. "What are you waiting for?"
"Your orders, sir," he said crisply.
"Right." I jerked a thumb. "Get in the Jeep and drive." I unclipped the car's terminal and thumbed it to life.
"Yessir."
"McCain-"
"Sir?"
"Don't be a robot. Just be responsible."
"Yes, sir." The kid dropped in behind the wheel, snuck a sideways glance at me, then dropped his rigid
manner.
He headed us back toward the main road while I balanced the terminal on my lap and logged the
destruction of the Vigilante. The kid waited until I was finished, then said, "Sir? Can I ask you
something?"
"Go ahead."
"Well, it's about that spider. I thought those things were only supposed to kill worms."
I nodded. "That was the original programming. But then we started losing units. Renegades were
knocking them out and dismantling them for their weaponry, so the army reprogrammed them against
guerrillas too. All spiders now assume that any humans in a free-fire area-regardless of the clothes they
wear or the ID signals received from their dogtags-are hostiles, until proven otherwise." I added, "And
are treated accordingly."
"You mean-torched?"
"Only if you refuse to be captured." I shrugged. "Some of the reprogramming must have been a little
hasty. Even desperate." The kid didn't speak for a long time. He concentrated on his driving. The narrow
two-lane road was twisty.
After a while, he asked uncomfortably, "Are there a lot of those things around?"
"McDonnell-Douglas is fabricating three hundred and fifty units a week. Most of those are for
export-South America, Africa, Asia-there's a lot of wild country on this planet all of a sudden; but I'd
guess we've got at least a couple thousand of them patrolling the West Coast. It's the highway; 101 has
to be kept open. But not all of them are Vigilantes-and it's also very unlikely that the next one you run
into will be a rogue too."
"I'm not reassured."
I grinned. "You sound like me."