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

Peering over his shoulder I had a look through the port. Sure enough two more of the lofty
erections were coming down the street, swaying like drunken sailors as they progressed. Back. of
me I could hear our airlock door being wound home.
WilsonтАЩs camera went click-click. The pinnace stirred, swept away from the roof, boosted speed
under QuirkтАЩs expert hands. No Martian could handle a boat with quite the same touch as a well-
trained Terrestrial.
I went in search of Jay Score, found him prone by the little bomb hatch in the belly. He was
holding a banger and released it just as I got there. Putting my face to the nearest port, I saw the
building adjoining our former prison bulge at the walls and throw its roof at the clouds. The inside
must have been a shambles.
тАЬSo much for their operating-theatre,тАЭ growled Jay. His eyes were like coals. тАЬThat one took
them. apart for a change!тАЭ
I could sympathise with his feelings but, darn it, a robot isnтАЩt supposed to experience so human
an emotion as a thirst for revenge. Still, nobody cared to show surprise at his rare moments of
unrobotic sentiment. By all the laws he wasnтАЩt supposed to have any more feelings than a dummy-
but the fact remained that he did have them, in a cold, phlegmatic sort of way.
тАЬMcNulty wonтАЩt like that,тАЭ I pointed out. тАЬHeтАЩll say that despite our losses the Terrestrial
authorities will call it unnecessary destruction. HeтАЩll let his conscience nag him all the way home.тАЭ
тАЬOf course,тАЭ agreed Jay, with suspicious alacrity. тАЬI did not think of that. What a pity!тАЭ His
voice hadnтАЩt altered its inflection in the slightest degree while his face, of course, remained
completely without expression. His thoughts were as easy to read as those of a stone joss.
He went forward to see Quirk. Soon afterwards we made a series of swoops as steadily we
drummed northward. Each time the boat ducked down there came a resounding twang from
outside, so I had another go at the port, found we were busting a few antennae on our route. I didnтАЩt
need extra-sensory perception to know that Jay had a hand in that performance, whether McNulty
approved or not.
Quickly the great metropolis rolled away beneath us, its roads dotted with hurrying machines
plus a good number that were stalled, unmoving. Back in the distance I could just make out the pair
of towers which by now had reached our recent sanctuary. One track minds; they had been ordered
to do a job and were still trying to obey a full minute after weтАЩd gone.
That city covered twenty square miles and all of it metal. IтАЩve never seen so much metal in one
place, nor think IтАЩll ever do so again.
Out here in the suburbs the egg-bodied machines remained in sweet repose along with three
other kinds, and I could see various individuals hors-de-combat on the wide arterial roads running
north and south.
 Whang! went another antenna, then we soared to twenty thousand feet. On the southern horizon
a second city now revealed faint outlines of high buildings and tall masts.
Like a beautiful golden spindle the Marathon lay on the black and crimson surface. Most of the
crew were busy around her stern. Diving to her starboard side, the pinnace landed and we poured
out. It wasnтАЩt until that moment I remembered that my belly had been empty for hours.
We heard the other part of the story over a quick and more than welcome meal. It appeared that
the Martians had coped with all attacks until the globes and coffins withdrew. These had posted
themselves at short distance from the ship and waited for nobody knew what; perhaps for the
Martians to come out and be flattened in the open or, more probably, for the arrival of some other
kind of machine better able to deal with them.
The Martians had seized this opportunity to blow free in the pinnace and had seen their
besiegers swarm into the abandoned vessel the moment they left. But except for wrecked
specimens lying around, the hostile horde had gone by the time we returned.
тАЬYou know,тАЭ pondered Jay Score, тАЬit looks rather as if mere motion is their definition of sentient
life. It moves, therefore it lives. The Marathon has no animation of its own, so they considered it as