"Robert Goulart - Gadget Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Robert)
"That's for you if you want to use it," said the bouncing private. "Corporal Bozes said you could use it. That's why we hung around - to be helpful. That clunk isn't much for altitude, and there's not enough armor on its belly. Those humping snipers can set your tail on fire easy enough as it is, without flying over in a thing like that."
"I hope it'll do for me," said Hecker. "I have an appointment."
"Plenty good for Social Wing purposes," said the private and bounced again.
In five minutes Hecker was in the air. He had to be in San Emanuel Sector, a beach town beyond the Laguna Sector, by nightfall. The town was not one the military rated as secured, and he could expect no help from any officials of the R.S.C. or the Police Corps once he got there. The old army hopper, which he'd have to ditch before he got in sight of San Emanuel, chugged through the sky. It strained for altitude, whining, for nearly a half hour, then began making rumpling, pocking sounds and dropped from the sky toward a stretch of scrubby beach. Hecker's safety straps snapped as he tried to right the ship. When the crash came, he was slammed hard into the control panel.
CHAPTER 2
The hopper was moving away from him in pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle dissolving. There were weathered, gritty hands all around him and raw smells of the sea and strong spices. Gray clothes and close-cropped hair. Hecker caught at himself and sat back. Hands were sliding through his clothes, and one hand snapped out his packet of identification material, another got his pistol. Since he'd passed into Rehab Center on retinal and voice prints, the packet contained only the faked papers he was to use on his trip into the unsecured towns. Plus the dog-eared business card with the drawing of a gull on it, the one which had come into Social Wing headquarters with the message from the possible Kendry contact.
Hands had found the card and someone said, "Kendry pass. Leave him safe and alive."
Hecker's pistol was returned, tucked back into its pouch and patted. "Scavengers," he said, seeing a little better. "Beach people." The old army hopper was dismantled completely, and its pilot seat, still holding Hecker, was tipped in a clump of beach scrub. The sky had thinned and the wind had grown warm. It was late in the afternoon now, and when Hecker touched at his head he found a swelling spreading across the left side of his face, a smear of dry blood in its center.
The man with his hands still on Hecker was old, sixty-five or more, and dry with age and sun. "Want to talk, you can talk. Want to eat you can eat. Want to hide, you can hide. I'm Rius." He seemed to have too many ribs. They lined his thin body in places where there shouldn't be ribs. "The military won't venture into this stretch. You find yourself in the Manhattan Beach Sector, south of Venice."
"I've got to," said Hecker, letting Rius help him to stand, "get to San Emanuel by tonight."
"He does know the Kendrys," said a tall, blonde girl. She was wearing a pair of thin gray shorts and mismatched souvenir moccasins.
"We're free and easy here," Rius told him. He had a plastic bag of green chili peppers in the pocket of his shorts. "He doesn't have to talk. Or share."
"I seem to have already shared my hopper with you," said Hecker. He found he could walk and took himself clear of the grasp of the old man.
"Rights of salvage," said Rius. "An ancient law of the sea." He bit a pepper in half and pointed with the uneaten portion at the Pacific Ocean.
The glare of the sun on the water made Hecker turn away. Along the beach were scattered fifty people, most of them dressed as simply as Rius and the blonde. Hecker stretched out a long, lanky arm and took his identification folder from Rius, along with Kendry card. "Much obliged."
"Would you," asked the blonde, "like to talk about your problems? Are you thinking of quitting the formal culture up there in the Republic?"
"He's free to talk or not to talk," reminded Rius, starting another chili pepper. "That's the way we are here."
"If you'd like to talk about what business you have with the Kendrys," said the tall blonde, who had small breasts, "you can do that, too."
A plump, pale man with his hair recently cropped padded over the sand and squinted at Hecker. "They didn't mention you till now. I'm Dr. Jay V. Leavitt. What happened? Oh, no, that's right... you don't have to tell me. That's how it is here."
"My hopper crashed, and then you guys dismantled it for scrap," said Hecker. "I'll talk freely about that. My head hit the instrument panel in the crash because the safety belts snapped."
"I bet nobody even asked you how you came by that old army hopper," said the doctor.
"I borrowed it."
The doctor smiled. and shrugged. "My wife lets me spend a month down here each spring. May I feel your head?"
"Sure."
"Don't worry yourself."
"No brain damage, I guess." The doctor thumbed down Hecker's lower eyelids. Then rapped his head. "And no sign of a fracture. I bet you don't even have much of a concussion. You could rest up here on the beach a couple of days if you like, though I'm not prescribing. The nights get cold but we build fires."
"I'm en route to San Emanuel."
"You should talk of Marsloff and Percher," Dr. Leavitt told him. He screwed his forefinger around in the pocket of his new gray shorts. "I had some Band-Aids in here. No, all used up."
"Who are Marsloff and Percher?"
"Drive one of the land trucks," said the blonde girl. "They're going to try to get down to the San Diego Sector tonight with a load of salvage. Dr. Leavitt is probably suggesting you could catch a ride as far as San Emanuel with them. If he doesn't mind you speaking for him."
"Not at all," replied the doctor. "You're a very bright girl. Were you possibly a receptionist or dental-hygiene nurse up in the Republic?"
"Only a housewife," said the blonde. "I could never have any satisfactory conversations with my husband. He's in riot control research and used to bring new equipment home to try out." To Hecker she said, "You have to be a little careful of Percher. He's a gadget freak."
"Oh," said Hecker. He'd worked with gadget cases in the Social Wing.
"A gadget freak is a person," explained Dr. Leavitt, "who uses machines and appliances in unnatural ways to produce electric brain stimulation and other potentially dangerous, though momentarily pleasurable, effects. Unlicensed electric brain stimulation was outlawed well over two years ago by the Junta."
"Where's his partner, this Marsloff?" asked Hecker.
"They're both of them off down there." The blonde indicated the location with a turn of her head. "See the old fallen-down beach restaurant that says POOR BOY on its side. Their truck is hidden in there. Marsloff is the big and dark-haired man leaning on the rail. Percher's a little blond fellow. He's in their truck probably."
"He rewired an electric mixer to stimulate himself with last night," said the doctor sadly. "A bright young man otherwise, when he's not comatose."
"You should have been here when he got inside a rebuilt soft-drinks machine," said the blonde. "Want me to walk over with you?"
"Sure," said Hecker. She started down the sand, and he moved in beside her. "Been out here long?"
"A year, I guess. My name's Hildy. You don't have to tell me yours. We don't care here."
"James Xavier Hecker." His fake papers had used his real name.
"I read your I.D. packet. `Jim' do they call you?"
" `Hecker' usually," said Hecker.
"Hey, Marsloff. Rius says it's okay if you help this guy." She stopped a few yards from the big man. "He knows the Kendrys. He wants a lift south."
Marsloff strode over. He had gray-black hair, short on his head and long and swirling on most of his body. "Can you drive a truck?"
"Yes."
"My partner, Percher, is a gadget freak. He found half a dozen old-fashioned electric toothbrushes this morning, and he's knocked himself blooey again in the cab of our truck. Has his own portable generator back in what used to be the pantry of the cafe. He's in a coma right this minute."
"Shouldn't you get Leavitt to look at him?"
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