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

armor radialed an unhealthy heat.
Suddenly Zef and Vepr emerged from the underbrush onto the road. When
they spotted the tank they ran faster. Maxim rose to meet them.
"You're alive." Zef greeted him. "I'm not surprised. But I brought you
some bread. Eat up, fast!" "Thanks." Maxim took the thick slice of bread.
Leaning on his mine detector, Vepr stood there watching him.
"Get it down fast, Mac, and take off!" said Zef. "They've come for you
back there."
"Who?" Maxim stopped chewing.
"We don't know the details. Some idiot with buttons from head to toe.
He was shouting at the top of his lungs. Wanted to know why you weren't
there. And I was almost shot. So I stared at him hard and reported that you
were killed in a mine field and your body was not found."
Zef walked around the tank. "What lousy luck." He sat down and rolled a
cigarette.
"That's strange," said Maxim, biting off a piece of bread. "Why? For
further interrogation?"
"Could it be Fank?" asked Vepr in a low voice.
"Fank? Medium height, square face, scaly skin?"
"Not likely!" said Zef. "This was a big lanky fellow covered with
pimples. A real imbecile - the Legion."
"That's not Fank."
"Maybe on Fank's orders?" asked Vepr.
Maxim shrugged his shoulders and stuffed the last crust of bread into
his mouth.
"I don't know," he said. "I used to think that Fank was connected
somehow to the underground, but now I don't know what to think."
"I think you'd better get out of here," said Vepr. "Although, to tell
the truth, I don't know what's worse, the mutants or that Legion
bureaucrat."
"All right, let him go," said Zef. "He wouldn't work for you as a
messenger anyway. And this way, at least he'll bring back some information
- if he survives."
"I suppose you aren't coming with me."
Vepr shook his head. "No. I wish you luck."
"Get rid of the rocket," suggested Zef. "Or you'll blow yourself up.
Now, here's the situation. There are two more outposts ahead of you. You can
slip past them easily. They face south. Farther on it gets worse. The
radiation is terrible, nothing to eat, mutants. And still farther - sand
and no water."
"Thanks," said Maxim. "Good-bye."
He jumped onto the tread, flung open the hatch, and climbed into the
hot semidarkness. He was about to pull the levers when he remembered that he
had one more question. He put his head out.
"Why is the real purpose of the towers kept from the rank-and-file
underground?"
Zef frowned and spat, and Vepr replied sadly: "Because most of the
staff hope to seize power someday and use the towers in the same way, but in
their own interests."
For several seconds they looked each other straight in the eye, Zef