"Eric Frank Russell - Mechanical Mice2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

hardly uttered the sen┬мtence when a trapdoor in the machine's side fell open, a jointed,
metallic arm snaked cautiously through the opening and reached for a marine chronometer
standing on the table.
With a surprised oath, Burman dashed forward to rescue the chronometer. He was too late.
The arm grabbed it, whisked it into the machine, the trapdoor shut with a hard snap, like the
vicious clash of a sprung bear trap. Simulta┬мneously, another trapdoor in the front flipped
open, another jointed arm shot out and in again, spearing with ultra-rapid motion too fast to
follow. That trapdoor also snapped shut, leaving Burman gaping down at his torn clothing
from which his expensive watch and equally expensive gold chain had been ripped away.
"Good heavens!" said Burman, backing from the machine.
We stood looking at it a while. It didn't move again, just posed there ticking steadily as if
ruminating upon its welcome meal. Its lenses looked at us with all the tranquil lack of interest
of a well-fed cow. I got the idiotic notion that it was happily digesting a mess of cogs, pinions
and wheels.
Because its subtle air of menace seemed to have faded away, or maybe because we
sensed its entire preoccupation with the task in hand, we made an effort to rescue Burman's
valuable timepiece. Burman tugged mightily at the trapdoor through which his watch had
gone, but failed to move it. I tugged with him, without result. The thing was sealed as solidly
as if welded in. A large screwdriver failed to pry it open, A crowbar, or a good jimmy would
have done the job, but at that point Burman decided that he didn't want to damage the
machine which had cost him more than the watch.
Tick-tick-tick! went the coffin, stolidly. We were back where we'd started, playing with our
fingers, and no wiser than before. There was nothing to be done, and I felt that the accursed
contraption knew it. So it stood there, gaping through its lenses, and jeered tick-tick-tick.
From its belly, or where its belly would have been if it'd had one, a slow warmth radiated.
According to Burman's drawings, that was the location of the tiny electric furnace.
The thing was functioning; there could be no doubt about that! If Burman felt the same way
as I did, he must have been pretty mad. There we stood, like a couple of prize boobs, not
knowing what the machine was supposed to do, and all the time it was doing under our very
eyes whatever it was designed to do.тАЭ
From where was it drawing its power? Were those anten┬мnae sticking like horns from its
head busily sucking current from the atmosphere? Or was it, perhaps, absorbing radio
power? Or did it have internal energy of its own? All the evi┬мdence suggested that it was
making something, giving birth to something, but giving birth to what?
Tick-tick-tick! was the only reply.
Our questions were still unanswered, our curiosity was still unsatisfied, and the machine was
still ticking industriously at the hour of midnight. We surrendered the problem until next
morning. Burman locked and double-locked his laboratory before we left.

Police officer Burke's job was a very simple one. All he had to do was walk around and
around the block, keeping a wary eye on the stores in general and the big jewel depot in
particular, phoning headquarters once per hour from the post at the corner.
Night work suited Burke's taciturn disposition. He could wander along, communing with
himself, with nothing to bother him or divert him from his inward ruminations. In that particular
section nothing ever happened at night, nothing.
Stopping outside the gem-bedecked window, he gazed through the glass and the heavy
grille behind it to where a low-power bulb shed light over the massive safe. There was a
rajah's ransom in there. The guard, the grille, the automatic alarms and sundry ingenious
traps preserved it from the adventurous fingers of anyone who wanted to ransom a rajah.
Nobody had made the brash attempt in twenty years. Nobody had even made a try for the