"Gene Wolfe - The Horars of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

immaculate despite the dampness, their massive bodies ramrod-straight, their uniforms as clean as
conditions permitted.
The L.A. Rams with guns, he thought proudly. Barking "On Phones," he flipped the switch on his
helmet that would permit 2900 to knit him and the squad together with Pinocchio in a unified tactical unit
Another order and the HORARS deployed around Pinocchio with the smoothness of repeated drill, the
wire closing the south gate was drawn back, and the patrol moved out.
With his turret retracted, Pinocchio the robot tank stood just three feet high, and he was no wider
than an automobile; but he was as long as three, so that from a distance he had something of the look of a
railroad flatcar. In the jungle his narrow front enabled him to slip between the trunks of the unconquerable
giant hardwoods, and the power in his treads could flatten saplings and bamboo. Yet resilient organics
and sintered metals had turned the rumble of the old, manned tanks to a soft hiss for Pinocchio. Where
the jungle was free of undergrowth he moved as silently as a hospital cart ,
His immediate precursor had been named "Punch," apparently in the sort of simpering depreciation
which found "Shillelagh" acceptable for a war rocket "Punch"--a bust in the mouth.
But Punch, which like Pinocchio had possessed a computer brain and no need of a crew (or for that
matter room for one except for an exposed vestigial seat on his deck), had required wires to
communicate with the infantry around him. Radio had been tried, but the problems posed by static,
jamming, and outright enemy forgery of instructions had been too much for Punch.
Then an improved model had done away with those wires and some imaginative officer had
remembered that "Mr. Punch" had been a knockabout marionette--and the wireless improvement was
suddenly very easy to name. But, like Punch and its fairy-tale namesake, it was vulnerable if it went out
into the world alone.
 A brave man (and the Enemy had many) could hide himself until Pinocchio was within touching
distance. And a well-instructed one could then place a hand grenade or a bottle of gasoline where it
would destroy him. Pinocchio's three-inch-thick armor needed the protection of flesh, and since he cost
as much as a small city and could (if properly protected) fight a regiment to a stand, he got it.
Two scouts from 2910's squad preceded him through the jungle, forming the point of the diamond.
Flankers moved on either side of him "beating the bush" and, when it seemed advisable, firing a pattern of
fletchettes into any suspicious-looking piece of undergrowth. Cheerful, reliable 2909, the assistant squad
leader, with one other HORAR formed the rear guard. As patrol leader 2900's position was behind
Pinocchio, and as squad leader 2910's was in front
The jungle was quiet with an eerie stillness, and it was dark under the big trees. "Though I walk in the
valley of the shadow..."
Made tiny by the phones, 2900 squealed in his ear, "Keep the left flankers farther out!" 2910
acknowledged and trotted over to put his own stamp on the correction, although the flankers, 2913,
2914, and 2915, had already heard it and were moving to obey. There was almost no chance of trouble
this soon, but that was no excuse for a slovenly formation. As he squeezed between two trees something
caught his eye and he halted for a moment to examine it. It was a skull; a skull of bone rather than a
smooth HORAR skull of steel, and so probably an Enemy's.
A big "E" Enemy's, he thought to himself. A man to whom the normal HORAR conditioning of
exaggerated respect bordering on worship did not apply.
Tiny and tinny, "Something holding you up, 2910?"
"Be right there." He tossed the skull aside. A man whom even a HORAR could disobey; a man even
a HORAR could kill. The skull had looked old, but it could not have been old. The ants would have
picked it clean in a few days, and in a few weeks it would rot But it was probably at least seventeen or
eighteen years old.
The ornithocopter passed them on flapping wings, flying its own search pattern. The patrol went on.
Casually 2910 asked his helmet mike, "How far are we going? Far as the creek?"
2900's voice squeaked, "Well work our way down the bank a quarter mile, then cut west," then with
noticeable sarcasm added, "if that's okay with you?"