"Тед Чан. Seventy-Two Letters (72 буквы, Рассказ) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Staying low between crates, he moved to the far wall. Through the
windows he saw the courtyard behind the factory, where finished automata
were carted away. He couldnТt get out that way; the courtyard gates were
locked at night. His only exit was through the factoryТs front door, but
he risked encountering the assassin if he headed back the way heТd come.
He needed to cross over to the ceramicworks and double back through that
side of the factory.
From the front of the packing room came the sound of footsteps.
Stratton ducked behind a row of crates, and then saw a side door only a
few feet away. As stealthily as he could, he opened the door, entered, and
closed the door behind him. Had his pursuer heard him?
He peered through a small grille set in the door; he couldnТt see the
man, but felt heТd gone unnoticed. The assassin was probably searching the
packing room.
Stratton turned around, and immediately realized his mistake. The door
to the ceramicworks was in the opposite wall. He had entered a storeroom,
filled with ranks of finished automata, but with no other exits. There was
no way to lock the door. He had cornered himself.
Was there anything in the room he could use as a weapon? The menagerie
of automata included some squat mining engines, whose forelimbs terminated
in enormous pickaxes, but the ax-heads were bolted to their limbs. There
was no way he could remove one.
Stratton could hear the assassin opening side doors and searching other
storerooms. Then he noticed an automaton standing off to the side: a
porter used for moving the inventory about. It was anthropomorphic in
form, the only automaton in the room of that type. An idea came to him.
Stratton checked the back of the porterТs head. PortersТ names had
entered the public domain long ago, so there were no locks protecting its
name slot; a tab of parchment protruded from the horizontal slot in the
iron. He reached into his coat pocket for the notebook and pencil he
always carried and tore out a small portion of a blank leaf. In the
darkness he quickly wrote seventy-two letters in a familiar combination,
and then folded the paper into a tight square.
To the porter, he whispered, "Go stand as close to the door as you
can." The cast iron figure stepped forward and headed for the door.
Its gait was very smooth, but not rapid, and the assassin would reach
this storeroom any moment now. "Faster," hissed Stratton, and the porter
obeyed.
Just as it reached the door, Stratton saw through the grille that his
pursuer had arrived on the other side. "Get out of the way,"
barked the man.
Ever obedient, the automaton shifted to take a step back when Stratton
yanked out its name. The assassin began pushing against the door, but
Stratton was able to insert the new name, cramming the square of paper
into the slot as deeply as he could.
The porter resumed walking forward, this time with a fast, stiff gait:
his childhood doll, now life-size. It immediately ran into the door and,
unperturbed, kept it shut with the force of its marching, its iron hands
leaving fresh dents in the doorТs oaken surface with every swing of its
arms, its rubber-shod feet chafing heavily against the brick floor.