"Eric Frank Russel - Mechanistria" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

We must have covered somewhere about thirty miles. I ached all over. By this time the sun was up
and we were at the verge of a wide, smooth road surfaced with dull, lead-coloured metal. A coffin-
shaped object about seven feet long-the fantastic horse I had ridden upon the flat of my back-
surveyed me through its horribly unemotional lenses.
Still retaining its grip, it shoved me through the doorway of a waiting vehicle. This was a big,
boxlike affair mounted on double tractors and had the inevitable copper antenna protruding from its
top. I had just time to note a dozen similar tumbrils lined up behind when I was thrust into
darkness.
The skipper followed me half a minute later. Then Brennand, Wilson, a computator and two
engineers. The skipper was wheezing deep down in his chest. The engineers were using an amazing
mixture of Terrestrial, Venusian and Martian oaths.
The door banged and locked itself, apparently of its own accord. The machine jerked as if
prodded by an invisible finger, trundled forward at fair speed. It stank of oil. Somebody sniffed
and sniffed and did some vituperative muttering in the gloom. I think it was Brennand.
Finding his automatic lighter, the skipper flicked it and we had a look around. Our moving
prison proved to be a steel cell nine feet long by six wide. There wasnтАЩt so much as a ventilator.
The oil-smell grew to the unbearable pungency of the cat house at the zoo.
Still sniffing and muttering, the offended Brennand raised his needle-ray and started to cut a
hole in the roof, so I got mine going and speeded up the glowing circle. Metal flowed easily. The
severed plate dropped out in a couple of minutes. If our carrier had any sentience, it remained
unaware of its own mutilation for it kept going straight ahead without pause or falter.
The sky didnтАЩt show through the roof. No vision of fleecy clouds greeted us, no welcome flood
of light poured in. Above the gap in the steel lay a thick coating of dark green stuff impervious to
our needle-rays. We concentrated all we had upon it, without avail.
A try at the door and the walls brought no better result; green stuff again. The floor turned out to
be the weak spot. As the machine roared onward, we cut a hole in the floor, light immediately
sprang through it, we found ourselves staring down at a swiftly spinning shaft and a section of
running road.
With his gun pointed downward, Brennand said, тАЬ Mother, see what I can do!тАЭ and cut the shaft.
The machine lost pace, stopped. We braced ourselves for an almighty crash that did not come.
One by one the following machines swerved around us and kept going. Brennand and I continued
to study the hole in the floor while the others kept an anticipatory watch upon the door. McNulty
and his computator had lost their weapons in the affray, but one of the engineers had retained his
while the other engineer clung to a four-foot spanner with which -- it was rumoured -- he frequently
slept.
We had no way of telling whether our dogbox had a driver or whether it functioned of its own
volition or under some form of remote control, but if a driver or anyone else opened that door, we
were all set to make a determined break. Nothing happened. We waited five tense minutes during
which I wondered which of our crew were imprisoned in the other overtaking machines and to what
sort of grim fate they were being rushed.
Finally we enlarged the gap in the floor and had almost made it big enough for our purpose
when something huge and heavy churned along the road, hit our machine a gentle bump. Came a
loud, metallic click and the next instant we moved forward, slowly, then faster. A breakdown
dingus had come on the job.
 The portion of road visible through the hole soon streamed past at a rate that put an end to any
thoughts of escape via that route. To drop through would be foolhardy in the extreme; if we werenтАЩt
chewed up by the speeding tractors weтАЩd certainly be minced by anything that might be running
close behind.
тАЬThis,тАЭ remarked McNulty, тАЬis most annoying.тАЭ
тАЬAnnoying? тАЬ echoed Brennand, eyeing him peculiarly. He kneeled, put his face to the hole and