"Keith Laumer - The Monitors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

of a double- clutched engine, then a skreel of brakes and a second police car shot into view,
pushing a spray of dust beside it. It rocked to a stop half through the broken barricade and the
doors popped wide. Maxwell whirled and disappeared into the brush. Four tall, long- legged men in
yellow came pelting up toward the burning car. Blondel shoved the man he had gotten out down
across the side of the car.
"Jump, sir!" one of the Monitors called, and a gust whirled fire around the seat of Blondel's
pants. He jumped. Two Monitors closed in on him, held him up while he coughed smoke and
knuckled pain tears into his eyeballs. He looked back and saw two men on top of the car, passing
down the second man. Then they were all running. In the distance Blondel caught the roar of
Maxwell's SL gunning up to speed just as the tank blew. Fire fountained over half an acre of
woods. Three of the Monitors went trotting off, efficiently aiming little gadgets like pen-cell
flashlights at the blazes. The one who was still holding Blondel's arm cleared his throat as
deferentially as a waiter presenting a padded bar bill.
"Sir, I must ask you to go with us back to the village."
The other Monitors were coming back now. They ringed Blondel in. Their manner, while not
precisely ominous, invited no liberties.
"Sure," Blondel said wearily. "I guess we were bound to get together sooner or later."
 CHAPTER THREE


It was a silent ride back into town. Blondel a ssayed a question or two which netted him
courteous but uninformative replies. The car made a brief stop at the police station, which seemed
to be full of Monitors, with a few city cops and state troopers standing around outside looking
puffy and unhealthy next to the trim figures in yellow. Then they drove on through town and down
a bumpy dirt road to a small grass- strip airport. There was a gold heli waiting, similar to the one
Blondel had rammed earlier. Two Monitors escorted him to it, got in with him. The machine lifted,
hummed along at treetop level for a few miles, then circled and settled in on a wide lawn that
looked black in the deep twilight, except where floodlights made green pools. Blondel climbed out
and stared at the big, bright - lit gray stone house with gabled roofs, chimneys, a porte-cochere,
and long low outbuildings behind.
The Monitors escorted him up wide steps between potted arbor vitaes into a high-ceilinged hall
with polished ash flooring showing around pink and gold Persian rugs. The re were shiny, spindle-
legged tables, a big gilt-framed mirror, a painting of an old pirate in mutton chops.
There was a short wait, then a polite Monitor ushered him along to a big white- painted oak
door standing invitingly half open. He stepped through it into a library that looked half the size of
the one at Yale.
Across the room a small, fatherly- looking old gentleman, in a loose toga- like garment sat
behind a big rosewood desk beside a tier of books that was lost in shadows at the top. Through a
wide, curtained window behind him Blondel could see a stretch of flood- lit lawn. There was an
expensive odor of hand- rolled cigars and tooled bindings and the kind of furniture wax which is
applied by hand at body heat according to a formula known only to a secret guild of elves. Blondel
shifted from one foot to the other, and wondered what Maxwell was doing now.
"Tell me frankly," the old gentleman leaned forward and gave him a look that invited
confidence, "why you felt it necessary to run away." He had a voice like the "amen" notes on an
electric organ.
"Well -- after all, I, ah, didn't know who you fellows were," Blondel extemporized.
The old man said, "Ah," and nodded as though he had found the explanation quite
enlightening. "Of course. Well, we shall quickly set that aright. I am the Tersh Jetterax." His tone
indicated that he had just cleared up a weighty mystery. "I have been assigned the responsibility
for the well- being of all citizens in this zone," he added, with a smile like a good-natured professor