"Arcady And Boris Strugatsky. Prisoners of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора

today's quota. Or else we get no chow. Let's go!"
He walked ahead, waddling between the trees. Maxim asked Vepr: "Is he
really a member of the underground?"
Vepr shot him a rapid glance. "What are you saying? How could he be?"
They walked behind Zef, trying to follow in his tracks. Maxim brought
up the rear.
"What's he here for?"
"For jaywalking."
Again, Maxim lost all desire for conversation.
They had taken less than a hundred steps when Zef ordered them to halt,
and work began. "Down!" shouted Zef, and they hit the dirt. Ahead of them a
stout tree turned with a drawn-out creaking sound, disgorged a long thin gun
barrel, and rocked it from side to side, as if trying to aim it. There was a
buzz, a click, and a small cloud of yellow smoke rose lazily from the black
barrel. "It's dead... finished," announced Zef in a very businesslike tone.
He rose first and brushed the dust from his pants. They had blown up the
tree and its cannon. Next, a mine field to clear. After that, a hillock with
an active machine gun that kept them pinned down for a long time. Then they
stumbled into a jungle of barbed wire, and barely struggled through it. When
they finally did, firing opened up somewhere overhead, and everything around
them began to explode and burn.
Maxim was confused, but Vepr remained silent and lay on the ground
calmly, face down, while Zef fired his grenade thrower. "Follow me, on the
double!" shouted Zef, and they ran. The spot they had just left burst into
flames. Zef swore, using unfamiliar words, and Vepr chuckled. When they
reached a dense grove, something suddenly whistled overhead, and a greenish
cloud of poison gas swooshed through the branches. Again they had to run and
force their way through underbrush. Zef repeated the unfamiliar words. Vepr
looked quite ill.
Exhausted, Zef finally called a halt. They built a fire. As the
youngest member of the team, Maxim prepared dinner, heating canned soup in
their pot. Zef and Vepr, grimy and ragged, lay on the ground. Vepr looked
utterly exhausted. He was not a young man, and this life was harder on him
than on the others.
"It doesn't make sense. How could we have managed to lose the war with
this incredible concentration of weapons?" asked Maxim.
"What do you mean 'managed to lose'?" replied Vepr. "Nobody won the
war. Everyone lost except the Creators."
"Unfortunately, few people understand that." Maxim stirred the soup.
"I'm not used to that kind of talk anymore," said Zef. "All you get
here is 'Shut up, rehab!' and 'I'm counting to three.' Hey, boy, what's your
name?"
"Maxim."
"Yes, right. You, Mac, keep stirring. See that it doesn't stick."
Maxim stirred until Zef said it was time to serve the soup; he couldn't
hold out any longer. They ate in complete silence. Maxim sensed a change in
mood and was sure that today he'd betaken into their confidence. But after
dinner Vepr lay down again and stared at the sky, while Zef, mumbling to
himself, took the pot and wiped up the bottom with a crust of bread.
"We ought to shoot something," he muttered. "My belly is so empty. I