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

nothing shady or questionable about her past or present. She came from an
educated family. Her father had died in the war; her mother was still
employed as a teacher in Duck Village. Ordi, too, had worked as a teacher
until she had been fired as a degen. She hid, tried to escape to Khonti, and
finally met Gel, who was smuggling weapons. He turned her into a terrorist.
Purely idealistic considerations had dictated her initial devotion to the
cause: she fought for a just society where each individual would be free to
think and do as he or she wished and was capable of doing.
Then, seven years ago, the police had tracked down Ordi and taken her
child as hostage in an effort to force her to surrender her husband and
herself. The underground staff would not permit her to do this because she
knew too much. She had heard nothing more about her child and considered him
dead, although deep down she didn't believe it. These last seven years she
was driven primarily by hatred for the enemy. Her dream of a just society
remained only a remote and faded ideal. Although she had loved him deeply,
she accepted the loss of her husband with surprising serenity. Long before
his arrest she had probably reconciled herself to the idea that she must not
get attached to anything at all. Now, like Gel at his trial, she was a
living corpse, but a very dangerous one.
"Mac is a greenhorn," said Memo. "How do we know he won't lose his head
when he's alone? It's ridiculous to rely on this plan and reject an old
reliable one just because we have this greenhorn. I said it once and I'll
say it again: it's too risky."
"Drop it, Hoofer," said Green. "It's our work. Old plan, new plan -
what's the difference? They're all risky. What else can you expect? We can't
do our job without taking some risk, and these pills reduce it. When we hit
them at ten o'clock, those guys under the tower won't know what happened. At
ten they're probably drinking whiskey and singing their lungs out. That's
when we strike. Maybe they haven't even loaded their guns; they're too
drunk. Yes, I like the plan. Right, Mac?"
"I feel the same way," said Forester. "If this plan is a surprise to
me, imagine what it'll be for the legionnaires. Green is right: they won't
know what hit them. Besides, those pills will give us an extra five minutes.
And before you know it, Mac will have that tower knocked out and everything
will be great. Oh, it damn well will be great!" he said suddenly, as if
struck by a new idea. "And we'll be the first guys in the underground to
topple a tower. Just think how long it will take them to repair it! We'll
live like human beings for at least a month without attacks from that
son-of-a-bitch tower."
"Hoofer, I'm afraid you misunderstood me," said the General. "Nothing
has really changed in this plan. We're just launching a surprise attack,
with additional help from Ordi. And our withdrawal will vary only slightly
from the usual procedure."
"If you're worried that Mac won't be able to drag us all out of there,"
said Ordi, "don't forget, he'll have to get only one of us, at most two.
He's strong enough to do it."
"Yes," agreed the General. "That's true."
The General was in love with Ordi. Only Maxim was aware of his
feelings, but he realized that it was an old and hopeless love. It had begun
when Gel was still alive, but now it seemed even more hopeless. He was not a