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

ton tank rumbled headlong into the busted jail.
A clicking, whirring mass of coffins, globes and other nightmarish contraptions crowded hard
behind it. The leading invader was so big it filled the large doorway with only a couple of inches to
spare on either side. Fascinatedly, too fearful to move, I watched its great caterpillar treads
streaming downward over the front cog-drives as it lumbered toward me, an alien juggernaut.
His black features curiously alight, Sam Hignett yelled at Sug Farn, тАЬMe last! тАЬ
Our Negro surgeon might have got his self-sacrificing wish, but he counted without the tentacled
individual dangling overhead. A speedy globe got through the door-way, beat the juggernaut along
the floor and grabbed at Sam. It was about two seconds too late. Silently, without comment or
visible excitement, Sug Farn released three of his clinging arms from the roof, garnered all seven of
us and with a mighty effort heaved us beyond reach.
 As I slowly soared to the hole I could feel a subtle trembling in the limb lifting me while Sug
Farn strained his utmost to raise the big burden. Another limb reached down, coiled around me,
took some of the weight. Up through the hole I caught a glimpse of another Martian figure crawling
along the underside of the dented roof toward the top of the nearer wall, then I was in the sunlight
and on my feet.
Sitting in its handy roof-dent like a mud-hen on its nest was the pinnace. There the powerful
little vessel rested, its tubes ready for action, its smooth, streamlined shape a thing of delight. No
vision could have done more to boost the spirits of weary men.
Metal buildings towered all around us, most of them with roofs higher than the one on which we
were standing. Square or oblong in plan, without windows or decorations of any sort, all were
severely and depressingly utilitarian. No smoke or steam arose from any point within view, but
puffs of coloured vapour came from several invisible sources.
Many of the buildings bore great latticework radio masts; a few had complicated aerial arrays
resembling directional antennae. The entire place was a metal metropolis.
Down below, wide, straight, evenly-spaced streets were filled with scurrying machines of at
least a hundred types. Most of them looked like nothing weтАЩd formerly seen; one in particular, a
long, semi-flexible contraption, reminded me of a monster centipede. It had a triple row of
revolving cutters projecting from its front and evidently functioned as some sort of tube borer or
subterranean excavator.
A small proportion of coffins and globes were visible among the crowd, with a couple of
giraffes and several of those inquisitive, seemingly useless gadgets that had got under our feet
during the earlier affray. Observing this medley of alien forms, I developed the notion that the
globes and coffins were different kinds of warriors, the giraffes were civil police and that the nosey
little machines were reporters or war correspondents who kept constant watch and transmitted
continual reports either to some co-ordinating centre or maybe to the community as a whole. But I
didnтАЩt feel too sure about the giraffes.
While two-thirds of the rescued crew clambered into the pinnace, giving it a full load, I stood
with Jay Score at the ragged edge of the roof-hole and looked into our recent prison. It was an
amazing sight. The pair of lobster-things had gone, presumably to their anticipated fate.
Immediately beneath us, squatting like an enormous iron toad in the middle of the floor, was the
fifty tonner that had burst in through the door.
Around it glassy-eyed globes whirled hither and thither, occasionally waving tentacles at us in
what could have been fury-if an automaton is capable of fury. Several coffins had folded their
jointed rear legs, sat and stared up at us in fantastic imitation of a pack of baulked hounds, their
forward lenses having gained enough tilt to bear on the roof and reveal their escaped prey. Despite
their total lack of facial animation I could almost see their jaws open and tongues hanging out.
Most of the moving machines made a continual clicking and clanking. Their pungent oil smelled to
high heaven.
Thirty feet above this mob, Sug Farn and Kli Yang had stuck themselves securely to the tops of