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

things to be slaughtered, or picked apart piece by piece!"

"Get down, Rahni," Jaime said quietly. "There are easier ways to die."

Rahni s voice rose to a quavering shriek. "What can they do to us that they haven't done
already... ?"

"For God's sake!" Wal cried. "Shut up and get back down!"

But it was already too late. Jaime heard them coming, heard the scissoring swish of sliding metal
parts, the hum of floaters, the clacketa-clacketa snaps and clickings of oiled and glistening
machines drawn by the commotion.

Like ripples spreading from the splash of a rock chucked into a pond, the other slaves nearest
Rahni began crowding back, moving away, leaving the standing man at die center of a widening empty
space. Wal, too, backed away, and he reached out with his good hand, grabbed Jaime by the arm, and
pulled him clear as the machines closed in.

In the lead was a heavy floater, a dark gray, metal construct of smoothly rounded, convex and
teardrop-shaped surfaces set round about with the gleaming red lenses of a dozen optical sensors.
It rode upright on a humming contra-gravity field, a faceless machine taller than a man and
massing at least one hundred fifty kilos.

Behind came three smaller floaters and a stilter, one of the walking clackers, a tripod with blade-
edged legs scissoring as they moved with oiled precision. Its lumpy body sported a nest of
segmented tentacles... and an organic prosthesis as well, a human hand grafted to a shining,
jointed arm of blue-gray steel and duralloy.

Rahni spun at the machines' approach, but only when he saw that upraised, once-human hand did the
enormity of what he'd done strike him.

"No!" he shrieked, stumbling backward, arms raised as if to ward off the attack. "No! I... I
didn't mean it! I'll work! I'll work hard...!"

The largest floater advanced. A tiny patch on its side seemed to soften and run like water, and a
glittering snake of a tentacle, silver and segmented, whiplashed into the air with a faint snicker
of sound.

"I didn't mean anything by it... I"

Jaime pulled free of Wal's trembling grip and stepped into the floater's path. "Wait!" he said,
raising his voice in challenge. "He just got a little carried away, is all. Let him go back to
work!"

"MOVEтАФASIDE," the big floater said, its harsh voice grating like the rasp of steel and broken
glass.

A Speaker! There weren't many of them, and it was assumed that they were fairly high up in the
Masters' caste hierarchy.