"Charles Stross - Rogue Farm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Rogue Farm
Charles Stross

'Rogue Farm' appeared in 'Live Without a Net' (ed Lou Anders, pub Roc 2003). It is copyright Charles Stross.




It was a bright, cool March morning: mare's tails trailed across the south-eastern sky
towards the rising sun. Joe shivered slightly in the driver's seat as he twisted the starter
handle on the old front-loader he used to muck out the barn. Like its owner, the ancient
Massey-Fergusson had seen better days; but it had survived worse abuse than Joe
routinely handed out. The diesel clattered, spat out a gobbet of thick blue smoke, and
chattered to itself dyspeptically. His mind as blank as the sky above, Joe slid the tractor
into gear, raised the front scoop, and began turning it towards the open doors of the
barn - just in time to see an itinerant farm coming down the road.

"Bugger," swore Joe. The tractor engine made a hideous grinding noise and died. He
took a second glance, eyes wide, then climbed down from the tractor and trotted over to
the kitchen door at the side of the farmhouse. "Maddie!" he called, forgetting the
two-way radio clipped to his sweater hem. "Maddie! There's a farm coming!"

"Joe? Is that you? Where are you?" Her voice wafted vaguely from the bowels of the
house.

"Where are you?" He yelled back.

"I'm in the bathroom."

"Bugger," he said again. "If it's the one we had round the end last month..."

The sound of a toilet sluiced through his worry. It was followed by a drumming of feet
on the staircase, then Maddie erupted into the kitchen. "Where is it?" she demanded.

"Out front, about a quarter mile up the lane."

"Right." Hair wild and eyes angry about having her morning ablutions cut short, Maddie
yanked a heavy green coat on over her shirt. "Opened the cupboard yet?"

"I was thinking you'd want to talk to it first."

"Too right I want to talk to it. If it's that one that's been lurking in the copse near Edgar's
pond I got some issues to discuss with it." Joe shook his head at her anger and went to
unlock the cupboard in the back room. "You take the shotgun and keep it off our
property," she called after him: "I'll be out in a minute."

Joe nodded to himself, then carefully picked out the twelve-gauge and a pre-loaded
magazine. The gun's power-on self test lights flicker ederratically, but it seemed to have
a full charge. Slinging it, he locked the cupboard carefully and went back out into the
farmyard to warn off their unwelcome visitor.