"Wilson, Richard - Transitory Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Richard)

THE CREATURE MOVED toward them, then backed away. It seemed to beckon with its
metal tentacles. There was a ticking sound from the eye above its body.
"Look out!" cried Murray. "It'll get us the way they got me."
He reached for the revolver strapped to his side. Quickly the cube leapt forward
and lashed out a tentacle, pinning Murray's arms to his sides. Before Doug could
move he felt himself grabbed in the same way.
The thing whirled, and running awkwardly but swiftly on its metal legs, carried
them through the door and into a long corridor, down which it sped.
Murray was cursing at a great rate, and raining ineffectual kicks on the body of
the metal monster that had them in its power. Doug was silent, wondering whether
he'd have been better off if he had gone to the bottom with his copra boat,
instead of being whisked through the bowels of a great floating sphere by
something that properly had no business outside a nightmare.
Out of the corner of his eyes Doug saw walls flash past at a rapid rate. There
were some strange things on the walls--and behind them, for they were of a
glasslike substance. One portion bore varicolored murals, depicting unfamiliar
scenes in an alien land peopled by strange folk--giants in stature, gaunt,
hairless, intelligent-looking, an unearthly green in color.
Behind one transparent section of the corridor, Doug thought he saw a row of
slabs, with immense figures, draped in white, laid out on them. But his metal
captor whisked him past so quickly that he could not be positive.
The automaton's pace slackened as it approached a large door set in the end of
the corridor. It swung open as they neared it, and the creature ran through.
It set Doug and Murray on their feet.
In the small, translucent-walled room a weird sight met their eyes.
Approximately a dozen of the metal beings were grouped at one corner, with
what--if there were any difference--would be their backs toward them.
They seemed to have all their attention centered on a screen set in the floor.
"What the hell's this?" muttered Murray. "A convention?"
Then they saw Charlie Hayes. He was on his hands and knees, in the center of the
group. His eyes were intent on the screen. Doug edged closer, elbowing his way
through the metal men as if they were human subway-goers.
He could make nothing of the action taking place on the screen. It was a
flashing whorl of color, punctuated at irregular intervals by a lightning-streak
of black, or by a series of white circles that leapfrogged from side to side.
CHARLIE HAYES, his forehead wrinkled in an effort to comprehend, was unaware of
everything except the message that seemed undecipherable. One of the silver
automatons had a tentacle thrown across Hayes' back. More by accident, thought
Doug, than through any strictly human instinct of friendship.
There was a mechanical clicking of irritation as the metal men were roughly
thrust aside by Art Murray, anxious to discover the center of so much interest.
For the first time Murray seemed to realize that his employer might be in
danger. He noticed the nearness of the robot's tentacle to Hayes' neck.
Before Doug had a chance to stop him, he had cried:
"Get your dirty hands of the boss!" and drove his boot into the side of the
robot.
The metal man pitched forward. Its eye shattered as it crashed through the glass
of the screen. The screen abruptly turned white--the spinning colors vanished.
Hayes got to his feet. "You fool!" he breathed. "What have you done?"
The robot lay still in the wreckage of the screen. The others turned slowly