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

14.
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
radiation. Strange creatures.
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