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

enter the Zone in two's. The rule is: two do the work and the third watches, and when they ask him about
it later, he tells.
"Personally, I would take Austin," Kirill said. "But you probably don't want him. Or is it all right?"
"Nope," I said. "Anybody but Austin. You can take Austin another time."
Austin isn't a bad guy, he's got the right mix of courage and cowardice, but I feel he's doomed. You
can't explain it to Kirill, but I can see it. The man thinks he knows and understands the Zone completely.
That means he's going to kick off soon. He can go right ahead, but without me, thanks.
"All right, then," Kirill said. "How about Tender?"
Tender was his second lab assistant. An all-right kind of guy, on the quiet side.
"He's a little old," I said. "And he has kids."
"That's all right. He's been in the Zone before."
"Fine," I said. "Let's take Tender."
He stayed to pore over the map and I made a beeline for the Borscht, because I was starving and my
throat was parched.
I got back to the lab in the morning as usual, around nine, and showed my pass. The guard on duty
was the lanky bean pole of a sergeant that I beat the hell out of last year when he made a drunken pass at
Guta.
"Fine thing," he said to me. "They're looking for you all over the institute, Red."
I interrupted him right there, polite-like.
"I'm not Red to you," I said. "Don't try that palsy-walsy stuff on me, you Swedish dolt."
"God, Red! Everybody calls you that."
 I was all wound up before going into the Zone and cold sober to boot. I hauled him up by his
shoulder belt and told him in precise detail just what he was and what maternal line he was descended
from. He spat on the floor, returned my pass, and said without any of the niceties:
"Redrick Schuhart, your orders are to appear immediately before Chief of Security Captain Herzog."
"That's better," I said. "That's the ticket. Keep plugging away, sergeant, you'll make lieutenant yet."
Meanwhile I was thinking, what was this curve coming my way? What did Captain Herzog need me
for during working hours? All right, I went off to make my appearance. His office was on the third floor,
a nice office, with bars on the windows just like a police station. Willy was sitting at his desk, puffing on
his pipe, and typing some kind of gibberish. Some little sergeant was digging through the metal file cabinet
in the corner. A new guy I'd never seen. We have more sergeants at the institute than at division
headquarters. They're all well-built healthy fellows. They don't have to go into the Zone and they don't
give a damn about world issues.
"Hello," I said. "You called for me?"
Willy looked right through me, moved away from the typewriter, laid a hefty file on the desk, and
started leafing through it.
"Redrick Schuhart?"
"The same," I answered, feeling a nervous laugh welling up. I couldn't help it, it was funny.
"How long have you been with the institute?"
"Two years, starting my third."
"Family?"
"I'm alone," I said. "An orphan."
Then he turned to his little sergeant and gave him an order in a stern tone.
"Sergeant Lummer, go to the files and bring back case number one-fifty."
The sergeant saluted and disappeared, and Willy slammed the file shut and asked gloomily:
"Up to your old tricks again?"
"What old tricks?"
"You know what tricks. There's new material on you here."
So, I thought.
"Where from?"