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

opposite walls and now fished for the enemy. Sug Farn snaked out a tentacle that looked as though
it could have anchored a battleship, spread the end suckers on the flat, smooth back of a squatting
coffin which-to judge from its posture-was patiently waiting for us to drop like over-ripe grapes.
Sug Farn lifted the coffin which immediately clanked with alarm and waved its jointed legs. An
alert globe whirled to its rescue.
Kli Yang at once chipped in and took the globe with all the blank-faced nonchalance of a
chameleon tongue-swatting a fat fly. The coffin soared twenty-five feet, the suckers let go, it
dropped on the back of the fifty tonner, crashed thence to the floor with a rattle of busted internal
works and lay motionless. The globe, which was lighter, went up fighting madly in the sucker-
grasp of Kli Yang, then was flung on top of another globe. The flung one went dead. The struck
one suffered some sort of injury to its steering circuits and proceeded to race round and round in a
tight circle.
Looking longingly at the biggest monstrosity which continued to sit unmoving beneath us with
all the indifference of a dumped flivver, Kli Yang remarked, тАЬThis is how we won the fight in the
ship. We sat on the ceilings where they couldnтАЩt get at us. We picked them up, dropped them and
left the rest to nature. They canтАЩt climb. Neither could they get into the Marathon a machine big
enough to reach us.
With one saucer eye on me and Jay, he rolled the other downward for another look at the foe.
This independent swivelling of Martian eyes always did give me the creeps and always will. To
Sug Farn, he added, as if it were a logical afterthought on the same subject, тАЬKli Morg ought to
have sacrificed his bishop.тАЭ
тАЬYes, I had just reached that solution,тАЭ agreed Sug Farn using a globe to crack the pate of a
giraffe. тАЬMorg tends to err on the side of economy in his games. That makes him somewhat slow to
see that the loss of a bishop now is well worth the gain of two rooks ten moves later. тАЬHe sighed,
Said, тАЬWatch this!тАЭ made a swift snatch at a gesticulating object that seemed to be a mass of weird
tools, got it by a big knobbed projection on its front, hurled it against the base of Kli YangтАЩs wall.
Whoom! Heat bathed my legs as the pinnace blew free and drummed into the sky. That left
eleven of us on the roof plus the double-minded Martians amusing themselves by converting our
prison into a junk-yard. Turning, I saw the pinnace zooming northward on a stream of thunder and
fire.
тАЬTheyтАЩll be back for us shortly-if weтАЩre still here.тАЭ Jay ScoreтАЩs brilliant optics studied the
Martians and the metal horde below. тАЬKli is wrong in suggesting that they have no climbers. How
did they erect these buildings?тАЭ
тАЬNone of those can climb,тАЭ I argued uneasily, pointing to the crowd down there.
тАЬNo-but I bet they have some kind of building machines stowed away, some kind of mechanical
steeplejack. Ten to one they will haul them out as soon as they get over the confusion weтАЩve caused
by defying their rules of war.тАЭ He indicated surrounding streets in which no great excitement was
yet evident. тАЬIt is taking a long time to sink in. I doubt whether a prisoner has ever broken free
within living memory, if they have memories. Temporarily they are stumped by a situation they can
hardly comprehend.тАЭ
тАЬYes, we certainly are dealing with a totally different kind of mentality,тАЭ I agreed. тАЬIt looks as if
theyтАЩre too conditioned to meet the abnormal and cope with it promptly.тАЭ
I didnтАЩt mention it because Jay was too much of a definite personality, but I felt that he had
some advantage over the rest of us in being able to look at things from the viewpoint of our
mechanical opponents.
Kli Yang crawled up through the hole, followed by Sug Farn. The latter stared around, settled
himself in the dent made by the pinnace, wrapped himself up in his own tentacles and went to
sleep. From him came high, soft and long-drawn whistles.
тАЬSlumbering!тАЭ complained Kli Yang. тАЬHe cannot do anything without grabbing himself a sleep
on the strength of it.тАЭ Keeping one disgusted eye fixed on the snoring Martian, he swivelled the