"Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)

I looked up and felt a catch in my throat. I couldn't utter a sound. I wanted to shout "Stop! Freeze!"
but I couldn't. And I probably wouldn't have had time, anyway, it all happened so fast. Kirill stepped
over the empty, turned his back to the canisters, and got his whole back into the silver web. I shut my
eyes. I went numb and the only thing I heard was the web tearing. It was a weak crackly noise. I was
crouched there with my eyes shut, unable to feel my arms or my legs, when Kirill spoke.
"Well, shall we get on with it?"
"Let's go."
We picked up the empty and headed for the door, walking sideways. It was terrifically heavy, the
bitch, it was hard for the two of us to drag it. We came out into the sun and stopped by the boot. Tender
reached out for it.
"OK," said Kirill. "One, two тАж "
"No," I said. "Let's wait a sec. Put it down first."
We set it down.
"Turn around. Let's see your back."
He turned without a single word. I lookedтАФthere was nothing on his back. I turned him this way and
that, but there was nothing. I looked back at the canisters, and there was nothing there either.
"Listen," I said to Kirill, still looking at the canisters. "Did you see the spider web?"
"What web? Where?"
"All right. We were lucky."
But to myself I thought: actually, there's no way of knowing that yet.
"All right, let's heave-ho."
We stuffed the empty into the boot and fixed it so that it wouldn't move around. There it was, the
pussycat, shiny new and clean, the copper gleaming in the sun. Its blue filling sifted cloudily in slow
streams between the disks. We could see that it wasn't an empty at all, but something like a vessel, like a
glass jar with blue syrup. We looked at it some more and then clambered into the boot and set off on the
return trip without messing around.
 These scientists sure have it easy! First of all, they work in daylight. And second, the only hard part is
getting into the Zone. On the way back, the boot drives itself. In other words, it has a mechanism, a
coursograph, I guess you'd call it, that controls the boot and drives it exactly along the course it took
coming in. As we floated back, it repeated all our maneuvers, stopping and hovering for a bit, and then
continuing. We went over each of my nuts and bolts. I could have gathered them up if I had wanted to.
My greenhorns were in a great mood, of course. They were turning their heads every which way and
their fear was almost all gone. They started gabbing. Tender was waving his arms around and threatening
to come right back after dinner to lay the road to the garage. Kirill plucked at my sleeve and started
explaining his graviconcentrate phenomenon to meтАФthat is, the mosquito mange spot. Well, I set them
straight, but not right away. I calmly told them about all the jerks who blew it on the way back. Shut up, I
told them, and keep your eyes peeled, or the same thing will happen to you that happened to Shorty
Lyndon. That worked. They didn't even ask what had happened to Shorty Lyndon. We floated along in
silence and I only thought about one thing. How I would unscrew the cap. I was trying to picture my first
gulp, but the web kept glistening before my eyes.
In short, we got out of the Zone, and we were sent into the delouserтАФthe scientists call it the medical
hangarтАФalong with the boot. They washed us in three different boiling vats and in their alkaline solutions,
smeared us with some gunk, sprinkled us with some powder, and washed us again, then dried us off and
said, OK, friends, you're free! Tender and Kirill dragged the empty. There were so many people who
had come to gawk that you couldn't push your way through them. And it was so typical. They were all
just watching and grunting words of welcome, but not one was brave enough to lend a hand to the tired
returnees. All right, that was none of my business. Now nothing concerned me any more.
I pulled off my special suit, threw it on the floorтАФlet the bastard sergeants pick it upтАФand headed
straight for the showers, because I was sopping wet from head to toe. I locked myself in a stall, got my
flask, unscrewed the cap, and attached myself to it like a lamprey. I sat on the bench, my knees empty,