"Edmond Hamilton - Pardon My Nerves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

stars blazing undimmed all around you and was made to mine them in the ordinary
the Sun glaring at your back. Also it was a way. Instead, automatic machines, adapted
pleasure not to have to worry about the from ordinary machines, were designed
effects of acceleration-pressure on others. I that could do the work without need of
simply opened the power to the last notch. intelligent direction.


9
 There were many Diggers, big in those small buildings I did not
shoveling and excavating machines to get investigate them.
up the ore. There were lorry- like haulers to Instead I strode off toward the main ore-
transport it to the main work-base. There, beds, where the Diggers and Haulers were
self-powered and movable crushers usually puffing about at their work.
reduced it by means of their ponderous Before I had gone a half- mile I heard a
pile-driver arms and loaders flung it into rumbling clanking sound from ahead.
the barges, which could be picked up by Only a Mach could make such a sound and
space-ships. There were also automatic I felt relieved.
tenders to supply copper atomic fuel and тАЬAt least some of them are still at work,
lubrication to the other machines. Eek,тАЭ I said.
These MachsтАФas such semi-automatic Then the Mach appeared over a crest,
machines were calledтАФhad worked coming toward me. It was a Digger, its
perfectly until now. Their electric reaction- huge shovel with its mighty inertron tusk
circuits, which made use of both lens raised in the air as it rumbled along on its
тАЬeyesтАЭ sensitive to light impulses and caterpillar tractor.
electroscopic artificial senses sensitive to It puzzled me to see a Digger wandering
radiation, kept them in their ceaseless like this. They never were supposed to
routine of toil. What had interrupted the leave the ore-bedsтАФthe Tenders took
carefully-designed routine ? atomic fuel and lubricant to them there, at
тАЬProbably,тАЭ I told Eek as we swept in regular intervals.
toward Dis, тАЬtheyтАЩve run into some But this one was a mile away from the
problem that their rud imentary reaction- ore-diggings. It came clanking along
circuits can't handle. Well, we'll soon get toward me and I waited. Then the lenses in
them going again.тАЭ its humped circuit-box on top glimpsed
I had carefully studied the file on Dis me. It stopped, its atomics purring.
which Curt had given me before I left. I Its reaction-circuits, having received the
spotted, on the drab gray surface of the visual intelligence that I was human, would
little moon, the cluster of cylindrical instantly cause it to s tand still and await
barges and sheds that were the main work- my actions. The Machs were all made so. I
base. strode forward to examine it more closely.
I would not have been surprised to see Then I got the most terrible shock of my
motionless Machs around it if something life. From the giant machine a deep
had gone wrong. But there were no Machs bellowing toneless voice spoke to me.
there at all. It said, тАЬWhere did you come from,
тАЬNow what's become of the Crushers chum ?тАЭ
and Loaders ?тАЭ I wondered. тАЬThey were I stood stock still. Eek was cowering
never supposed to leave work-base.тАЭ behind me in terror. The huge machine
I landed the space-sled and stepped off brooded, its lenses pointed straight at me.
it. Of course, since Eek and I don't breathe, It was terribly clear to me what had
the deadly poison of the atmosphere happened. My mind, overburdened with
affected us no more than space. psychoses, had cracked. I was suffering