"Rog Philips - The Phantom Truck Driver" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

 "I made it through."
He didn't remember me.
"Yes, you did," I said. I remained standing with my hand on the door, and looked at the right front
tire. It was clean. There was no scraper welded to the frame to take off the layers of mud as they piled
up. Instead, there was a fine spray of some liquid playing against the top of the tire from a nozzle.
"Come in out of the rain," the driver said casually.
"Guess I will," I said. I lifted a heavy mud-caked foot up to the step and climbed in, sinking onto the
seat beside him.

I slammed the door shut. I looked at the dashboard. Not because I expected to find anything
different, but because I didn't want to look at the driver and give away the fact that I knew him.
My hair began to crawl under my sou'wester. At first glance the dashboard was regulation, but a
dozen little things stood out after that. It was a hand-made dashboard, very well made, but unable to
completely capture the details of the mass production stamp job.
I thought of that spray that kept the tires from fouling up.
I thought of the Juny that had come running toward the trench with an improved rifle.
It was obvious now. This truck had been built by hand тАФ by the Junies. That meant
My head was spinning. The Junies were manufacturing atom grenades. They weren't using them on
us. This was the second time they had brought me a truckload of grenades.
But who was this driver sitting beside me?
I studied him out of the corner of my eye. He wasn't looking at me. It occurred to me he hadn't
looked directly at me at any time. He had kept his face straight ahead, as though he were just relaxing.
His hands were on the wheel.
He was husky. His chest was thick, his arms muscular. A theory entered my head and I tried to
reject it. The driver couldn't be a robot. Or could he?
Maybe not a robot. Maybe an automaton with a Juny sitting in his chest running him.
"I'd better see how the unloading's coming," I said, opening the door.
His lips moved in a natural way, curving into a likeable smile. "Sure," he said.
I slid off the seat to the ground, looked at him again, then slammed the door.
The last of the grenade cases was being tossed into the trench. The truck was empty.
We closed the tailgate. I shouted to the driver. The motor roared, and the truck started up.
I wanted to run after it, to get back in the cab and see where it was going. I didn't. I dropped into the
trench and watched the truck disappear into the drizzling rain.
The next few minutes were filled with grenade explosions as the Junies were stopped in their tracks.
So many had been killed that emotions didn't connect with it. At least, not until now.
Now I watched the slaughter with a sense of horror, a feeling of insanity. They were manufacturing
atom grenades to deliver to us to use in killing them.
Aside from everything else, how had they discovered how to make them? It had taken human
scientists over half a century from the first atom bomb to mass isolation and containment of pure
neutrons. It had taken another half century to produce the atom grenade in its present form.
There was only one answer to that. Obviously some of the Junies had run across the information in
our books. They had then duplicated every step, from locating ores to building neutron isolation plants.

The messenger from the radio dugout was coming along the trench toward me again. A shaft of
sunlight struck him and those around him. I wasn't the only one who looked up at the break in the clouds.
The eastern horizon was visible. The rainstorm would soon be over.
The kid grinned nervously when he reached me. "They're crazy back at base," he said. "They claim
the truck they sent turned back before it reached us. When we told them it got through with the grenades
they just sputtered."
"Let them sputter," I said. "Tell them if they rigged oil spray to coat the truck tires, they wouldn't pick