"Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)
No, friends, it's hard to describe them to someone who hasn't seen them. They're too simple,
especially when you look close and finally believe your eyes. It's like trying to describe a glass to
someone: you end up wriggling your fingers and cursing in frustration. OK, let's say you've got it, and
those of you who haven't get hold of a copy of the institute's ReportsтАФevery issue has an article or the
empties with photos.
Kirill had been beating his brains out over the empties for almost a year. I'd been with him from the
start, but I still wasn't quite sure what it was he wanted to learn from them, and, to tell the truth, I wasn't
trying very hard to find out. Let him figure it out for himself first, and then maybe I'd have a listen. For
now, I understood only one thing: he had to figure out, at any cost, what made one of those empties
tickтАФeat through one with acid, squash it under a press, or melt it in an oven. And then he would
understand everything and be hailed and honored, and world science would shiver with ecstasy. For
now, as I saw it, he had a long way to go. He hadn't gotten anywhere yet, and he was worn out. He was
sort of gray and silent, and his eyes looked like a sick dog'sтАФthey even watered. If it had been anyone
else, I would have gotten him roaring drunk and taken him over to some hard-working girl to unwind.
And in the morning I'd have boozed him up again and taken him to another broad, and in a week he
would have been as good as newтАФbright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Only that wasn't the medicine for Kirill.
There was no point in even suggesting itтАФhe wasn't the type.
So there we were in the repository. I was watching him and seeing what had happened to him, how
his eyes were sunken, and I felt sorrier for him than I ever had for anyone. And that's when I decided. I
didn't exactly decide, it was like somebody opened my mouth and made me talk.
"Listen," I said. "Kirill."
And he stood there with his last empty on the scales, looking like he was ready to climb into it.
"Listen," I said, "Kirill! What if you had a full empty, huh?"
"A full empty?" He looked puzzled.
inside."
I could see that it was beginning to penetrate. He looked up at me, squinted, and a glimmer of reason,
as he loved to call it, appeared behind the dog tears.
"Hold on," he said. "Full? Just like this, but full?"
"Yes, that's what I'm saying."
"Where?"
My Kirill was cured. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "Let's go have a smoke."
He stuffed the empty into the safe, slammed the door, and locked it with three and a half turns, and
we went back into the lab. Ernest pays 400 in cash for an empty empty, and I could have bled him dry,
the son of a bitch, for a full one, but believe it or not, I didn't even think about it, because Kirill came
back to life before my eyes and bounded down the steps four at a time, not even letting me finish my
smoke. In short, I told him everything: what it was like, and where it was, and the best way to get at it.
He pulled out a map, found the garage, put his finger on it, and stared at me. Of course, he immediately
figured it out about meтАФwhat was there not to understand? "You dog, you," he said and smiled. "Well,
let's go for it. First thing in the morning. I'll order the passes and the boot for nine and we'll set off at ten
and hope for the best. All right?"
"All right," I said. "Who'll be the third?"
"What do we need a third for?"
"Oh no," I said. "This is no picnic with ladies. What if something happens to you? It's in the Zone," I
said. "We have to follow regulations."
He gave a short laugh and shrugged. "As you wish. You know better."
You bet I did! Of course, he was just trying to humor me. The third would be in the way as far as he
was concerned. We would run down, just the two of us, and everything would be hunky-dory, no one
would suspect anything about me. Except for the fact that I knew that people from the institute didn't
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