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

enjoyed a few breaths of uncontaminated air. One of the engineers snickered.
тАЬI have lost a seven hundred dollars owl-eye camera,тАЭ announced young Wilson, with some ire.
His eyes tried to stab the skipper to death. тАЬThatтАЩs a damnsight more than annoying! IтАЩll take it out
of their metal hides first chance I get!тАЭ
тАЬHereтАЩs your blamed camera,тАЭ announced Brennand. He got to his feet, extracted it from his
pocket, handed it over, a thing little bigger than a cigarette pack. тАЬYou dropped it as you were
lugged out of the ship. I caught it a moment before I was slung after you.тАЭ
тАЬThanks-youтАЩre a pal!тАЭ Wilson fondled it with loving fingers. тАЬIтАЩve been worrying about it.тАЭ He
stared straight at me, repeated, тАЬYes, IтАЩve been worrying about it.тАЭ
One of the engineers glanced at the section of road flicking past the hole. The broken shaft, of
course, was not rotating.
тАЬWeтАЩre being towed. If I were sure that nothing is following close upon us ---.тАЭ He let it hang a
minute, then finished, тАЬHey, sit on my legs while I get my head through and have a look.тАЭ
тАЬNo, you donтАЩt,тАЭ snapped McNulty. тАЬWeтАЩre moving much too fast to risk a drop. We stay
together and face events together.тАЭ
So we sat on the floor wistfully watching the circle of light, our backs to the cold, hard walls.
Somebody dug out an airtight can of cigarettes, opened it, handed it around. We smoked in glum
silence.
Eventually our vehicle stopped and a multitude of grindings and clankings sounded all around.
The entire machine shuddered as an unseeable enormity lumbered by at one side, shaking the
ground with its tonnage. On the other side, something purred like a dynamo as it approached our
door. We stood facing the door, alert, wide-eyed, those who had ray guns holding them ready.
With surprising swiftness the door clicked and swung wide. A big, multi-jointed arm reached
through the opening, felt blindly around. The way it did it reminded me of a pet-store dealer
groping in a box for white mice. I was still gaping at that shiny limb, my needle lined on its
backmost joint, when one of the engineers ducked under it and leaped out whooping defiance.
The fantastic searcher was just about to fasten upon the skipper when the back joint seized as the
ray hit dead on and the whole arm lost its flexibility. It withdrew, stiff and awkward, as the second
engineer charged forth in the wake of the first. This one was the guy with the four-foot spanner.
The silliest thoughts occur to one at the most inappropriate times; I remembered as I followed the
computator and McNulty close upon this fellowтАЩs heels that at no time had I seen him put down
that spanner or let go of it for a moment.
Outside the battle was short and sharp. We found ourselves faced by forty machines of eight
distinct types. Half a dozen of them were no bigger than dogs and did nothing but canter around
observing everything that happened. The biggest was a monstrosity twice the size of a Pullman
coach and had one great, telescopic arm terminating in a huge, black disc.
Five yards from the door, struggling in the grasp of a many-armed coffin, the engineer whoтАЩd
got out first was striving to burn away the contraptionтАЩs near-side lens. The one with the spanner
had tangled with a wheeled globe and battered ineffectually at the universal joints from which its
writhing tentacles. sprouted. He was cursing with great vigour and admirable fluency.
On the left a tall, idiotic gadget faintly resembling a drunken surrealistтАЩs notion of a sober
giraffe, was running away with McNulty. It had four arms that tightly embraced the luckless
skipper, four legs that moved in ungainly swings, and a greatly elongated neck from the top of
which shone a single lens. Still full of life, the skipper was putting up a futile struggle.
With its front limbs thrown out in mock affection a glassily staring coffin thumped forward to
clasp me to its bosom. It moved with that dull, heavy dum-dum-dum you hear in Africa when an
enraged rhinoceros is making for you. A belly-fluttering sound. It was so near that I sensed its
characteristic stink of warm machine oil.
I stepped backward beyond what I thought would be the limit of its full reach and promptly it
slid another twenty inches of joint from its metal casing. That trick almost cost me my unwary