"Zelazny, Roger - DEVILCAR" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

"Leave it!" snarled Murdock, as the hood clicked open. "Save the
ammo for something that might fight back."
They sped past it.
"Did it say anything?"
"Machine profanity," she said. "I've only heard it once or twice,
and it would be meaningless to you."

He chuckled. "Cars actually sweat at each other?"
"Occasionally," she said. "I imaging the lower sort indulge in it
more frequently, especially on freeways and turnpikes when they become
congested."
"Let me hear a swear-word."
"I will not. What kind of car do you think I am, anyway?"
"I'm sorry," said Murdock. "You're a lady. I forgot."
There was an audible click within the radio.
They raced forward on the level ground that lay before the foot of
the mountains. Murdock took another drink, then switched to coffee.
"Ten years," he muttered, "ten years..."
The trail swung in a wide curve as the mountains jogged back and
the foothills sprang up high beside them.
It was over almost before he knew it.
As they passed a huge, orange-colored stone massif, sculpted like
an upside-down toadstool by the wind, there was a clearing to the
right.
It shot forward at themЧthe Devil Car. It had lain in ambush,
seeing that it could not outrun the Scarlet Lady, and it rushed toward
a final collision with its hunter.
Jenny skidded sideways as her brakes caught with a scream and a
smell of smoke, and her fifty-calibers were firing, and her hood
sprang open and her front wheels rose up off the ground as the rockets
leapt wailing ahead, and she spun around three times, her rear bumper
scraping the saltsand plain, and the third and last time she fired her
remaining rockets into the smouldering wreckage on the hillside, and she
came to a rest on all four wheels; and her fifty-calibers kept firing
until they were emptied, and then a steady clicking sound came from
them for a full minute afterwards, and then all lapsed into silence.
Murdock sat there shaking, watching the gutted, twisted wreck
blaze against the sky.
"You did it, Jenny. You killed him. You killed me the Devil
Car," he said.
But she did not answer him. Her engine started once more and she
turned toward the southeast and headed for the Fuel Stop/Rest Stop
Fortress that lay in that civilized direction

For two hours they drove in silence, and Murdock drank all his bourbon
and all his coffee and smoked all his cigarettes.
"Jenny, say something," he said. "What's the matter? Tell me."
There was a click, and her voice was very soft:
"SamЧhe talked to me as he came down the hill..." she said.
Murdock waited, but she did not say anything else.