"Keith Laumer - Bolos 8 - Bolo Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

"Negative."

"Third Sardunar?" Hector had won the Triple Star of Valor for that one, shortly before he'd been
shipped to Cloud with the First Armored. The decoration was still there, atop many others, welded
to the Honors Ring on his glacis.

"Negative. I have no record of having participated in any combat."

Helplessly, Jaime shook his head. What the machines had done to the human population of Cloud was
horrific, enslaving and murdering them on a planetary scale. What they'd done to Hector was
horrific on an individual level; somehow, they'd managed to steal the Bolo's very soul, if he had
one. Instead of cleanly killing him, they'd robbed him of himself, robbed him of who and what he
was.

Well, in a sense, that was what they'd done to the human population as well.

"Hector, run a full diagnostic on yourself, please. Level One. Check your holographic memory and
all heuristic acquisition functions, please."

Again, that long hesitation. A Level One diagnostic took something like a third of a second.
Unless there was something seriously wrong, the answer should have come back in an instant.

"Diagnostic complete. All operations and systems are nominal."

"Like hell they are." Rising, he walked around to the right side of the Bolo. High overhead,
perhaps eight meters off the ground, the dark gray cliff of armor was pocked by a hole, a crater


file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/...mer%20-%20Bolo%208%20Bolo%20Rising%20Txt.txt (15 of 177) [2/4/2004 11:27:22 PM]
 file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Keith%20Laumer%20-%20Bolo%208%20Bolo%20Rising%20Txt.txt

over two meters across just above the right forward track assembly. Something had melted its way
through a meter of solid duralloy, penetrating battle screens and armor alike with equal ease.

What had the weapon been? What had it done to him?

"Hector, there is a large hole in your armor above your Number Three road wheel. Please run a
local diagnostic and describe the damage."

The pause was even longer this time, long enough for Jaime to walk back around to the other side.

"Diagnostic complete. All operations and systems are nominal."

Something, clearly, was interfering with either Hectors autodiagnostics or his memory... or both.
Jaime was up against a wall, as he'd been on each of his earlier visits. Talking to the Bolo was
an exercise in highly circularized hypermobility, a great way to get nowhere fast.

There was a whir and a clatter of motion from the Bolo s left-side antipersonnel batteries. The
blunt, ugly railgun muzzles pivoted, seeking a target in the near-darkness.