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

The farm squatted, buzzing and clicking to itself, in the road outside Armitage End. Joe
eyed it warily from behind the wooden gate, shotgun under his arm. It was a medium
sized one, probably with half a dozen human components subsumed into it - a
formidable collective. Already it was deep into farm-fugue, no longer relating very clearly
to people outside its own communion of mind. Beneath its leathery black skin he could
see hints of internal structure, cytocellular macro-assemblies flexing and glooping in
disturbing motions. Even though it was only a young adolescent, it was already the size
of an antique heavy tank, andblocked the road just as efficiently as an Apatosaurus
would have. Its melled of yeast and gasoline.

Joe had an uneasy feeling that it was watching him. "Buggerit, I don't have time for
this," he muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering
up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn't getting
any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing
out. It wasn't a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage -- the
big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could
feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.
"What do you want with us?" he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

"Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus," crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe
half out of his skin. "Buy my brains!" Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked
suggestively out of the farms' back then retracted again, coyly.

"Don't want no brains around here," Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the
stock of the shotgun. "Don't want your kind round here, neither. Go away."

"I'm a nine-legged semi-automatic groove machine!" Crooned the farm. "I'm on my way
to Jupiter on a mission for love! Won't you buy my brains?" Three curious eyes on stalks
extruded from its upper glacis.

"Uh --" Joe was saved from having to dream up any more ways of saying fuck off by
Maddie's arrival. She'd managed to sneak her old battledress home after a stint keeping
the peace in Mesopotamia twenty ago,and she'd managed to keep herself in shape
enough to squeeze inside. Its left knee squealed ominously when she walked it about,
which wasn't often, but it still worked well enough to manage its main task - intimidating
trespassers.

"You." She raised one translucent arm, pointed at the farm. "Get off my land. Now."

Taking his cue, Joe raised his shotgun and thumbed the selector to full auto. It wasn't a
patch on the hardware riding Maddie's shoulders, but it underlined the point. The farm
hooted: "why don't you love me?" it asked plaintively.

"Get orf my land," Maddie amplified, volume cranked up so high that Joe winced. "Ten
seconds! Nine! Eight --" Thin rings sprang out from the sides of her arms, whining with
the stress of long disuse as the Gauss gun powered up.

"I'm going! I'm going!" The farm lifted itself slightly, shuffling backwards. "Don't
understand. I only wanted to set you free to explore the universe. Nobody wants to buy