"Keith Laumer - Bolos 9 - Bolo Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

 This you now have. It will take a few moments for the neural
pathways to be attuned and their signal strength balanced.
"You said I would be immortal. No more sickness. No death."
This you will have soon. You have but to join
Caern's defenders in repulsing the demons, and we know you are eager to
reach for immortality this way. If you vanquish the Enemy, your new and
immortal body awaits you.
"And . . . if we don't win?"
Then Caern and the Assembly of the Gods will be no more. mourning for what might have been> Immortality must fail, for the gods
will be dead and forever Worldpromise shall be broken. And you, LKN
8737938, will cease to exist.
Fresh horror stirred within the churning recesses of Elken's
thoughts. "The gods cannot die! That's impossible!"
The gods will not die, for our servants, you among them, shall defend
us. Behold your new form, LKN 8737938.
Light shimmered into Elken's awareness, and the light took form. He
was in an armored cavern, duralloy-walled and crisscrossed with
walkways and work cranes. To either side, Elken was aware of vast,
squat forms, slab-sided, multi-tracked, blister-turreted, massive military
vehicles of some sort painted in rippling patterns of black and gray that
shifted at the touch of light.
He'd seen such machines before, though without particular interest.
A storehouse of the things had been buried on Caern, relics of the long-
vanished Concordiat. The gods had taken charge of them ages ago, or so

he'd heard through a history feed documentary once.
But he was looking for himself. There were humans before him, but
they seemed impossibly small, tiny and scurrying. There were even a few
gods in the chamber. Where? . . .
Turning his head, he was startled by the shrill whine of a high-
energy mass-converter engine. His sense of perspective shifted, and he
became aware . . .
By the living gods of Caern . . .
"What has happened to me? . . ."
He was trapped within a cliffside, no, a mountain of metal, a
consciousness pinned immobile in the heart of a machine too vast to be
easily comprehensible. In another horror-cold moment, he realized the
truth. He was a tracked vehicle of some sort, exactly like the other metal
monsters now in his field of vision. When he'd tried to move his head, a
turret on his upper deck had slued sharply to the right.
The vehicle in which you now find yourself was called by its creators a
Bolo, Mark XXXII, his god explained. We have taken your brain
and certain parts of your central nervous system and wired them directly
into the Bolo's Combat Command Center. In effect, you are the brain, the
Bolo is your body.
"I'm . . . a . . . monster. . . ."
You are an extremely powerful, adaptable, and efficient combat unit,
and a vital asset in the defense of our world. You show considerable
leadership potential. You will adjust. You will adjust. Your strength as a
human is your adaptability.

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