"Arcady And Boris Strugatsky. Prisoners of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора14.
By morning Maxim had maneuvered the self-propelled tank onto the road and turned its nose southward. He could have kept going. Instead, he climbed out of the control compartment, jumped down to the broken pavement, sat down at the edge of the road, and wiped his dirty hands in the grass. Beside him the rusty monster rumbled peacefully, pointing its rocket's sharp tip into the murky sky. Although he had worked through the night, he wasn't tired. The natives had built well: the tank was in pretty good shape. It wasn't mined, and he was surprised to find manual controls. If anyone were blown up in such a tank, it would be due either to a worn-out reactor or its driver's technical incompetence. True, the reactor was functioning at only twenty percent of capacity, and its chassis was rather battered, but Maxim was satisfied. It exceeded all his expectations. It was almost six in the morning and quite light. It was the hour when the convicts were drawn up into columns, fed hastily, and driven out to work. Surely his absence had been noticed by now, and most likely he was already considered a fugitive and condemned to death. Or perhaps Zef had invented some excuse - like a sprained ankle or a bad wound. The forest had grown still. The "dogs," who had been calling out to each other through the night, had quieted down and had probably returned to their underground world. They were probably rubbing their paws together gleefully, recalling how they had frightened those two-legged creatures the preceding day. These dogs would have to be investigated, but he must leave them behind for the time being. He wondered if they were immune to During the night, while he was working on the engine, two of them observed him quietly from the bushes. Then a third arrived and climbed into a tree, to see better. Leaning out of the hatch, he waved to it; and, for kicks, he reproduced, as closely as possible, the four-syllable word the chorus had chanted yesterday. The creature in the tree became furious; its eyes glittered, its wool bristled, and it began to scream guttural insults. The two in the bushes were evidently shocked by this outburst; they rushed off and never returned. The creature cursing in the tree stayed for a long time, unable to calm down. It hissed, spat, made threatening gestures, as if it were about to attack, and bared its white fangs. It was nearly morning when it finally departed, convinced that Mac had no intention of accepting its challenge to do honorable battle. They were hardly intelligent in a human sense, but they were interesting creatures. Most likely they had some sort of social organization. After all, they had driven a military garrison, commanded by the duke, from the Fortress. The information about them was very meager, only rumors and legends... Oh, how he'd like to soak in a nice hot tub right now. His skin was burning; the reactor leaked. If Zef and Vepr agreed to join him, he'd have to shield the reactor with three or four plates - strip the armor from the sides. A distant thud echoed through the forest: the sappers had begun their working day. How utterly senseless. Another thud. A machine gun began to clatter, continued for a long time, and then was still. It was a clear day and quite bright. The cloudless ski was a luminous milky white. The concrete on the road glittered with dew, but the ground around the tank was dry: its |
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