"Bradbury, Ray & Hasse, Harry - The Pendulum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

(Later): It has come! I knew it! Vast, surging activity out there . . . the
humans, soft from an aeon of luxury and idleness, could not even escape . . .
those who tried, in their rocket planes, were brought down by the pale, rosy
electronic beams of the robots . . . others of the humans, more daring or
desperate, tried to sweep low over the central robot base and drop thermite
bombs--but the robots had erected an electronic barrier which hurled the bombs
back among the planes, causing inestimable havoc....
The revolt was brief, but inevitably successful. I suspect that all human life
except mine has been swept from the earth. I begin to see, now, how cunningly
the robots devised it.
The humans had gone forward recklessly and blindly to achieve their Utopia; they
had designed their robots with more and more intricacy, more and more finesse,
until the great day when they were able to leave the entire operation of the
city to the robots--under the guidance perhaps of one or two humans. But
somewhere, somehow, one of those robots was imbued with a spark of intelligence;
it began to think, slowly but precisely; it began to add unto itself, perhaps
secretly; until finally it had evolved itself into a terribly efficient unit of
inspired intelligence, a central mechanical Brain which planned this revolt.
At least, so I pictured it. Only the robots are left now--but very intelligent
robots. A group of them came yesterday and stood before my swinging pendulum and
seemed to confer among themselves. They surely must recognize me as one of the
humans, the last one left. Do they plan to destroy me too?
No. I must have become a legend, even among the robots. My pendulum still
swings. They have now encased the operating mechanism beneath a protective
glassite dome. They have erected a device whereby my daily parcel of food is
dropped to me mechanically. They no longer come near me; they seem to have
forgotten me.
This infuriates me! Well, I shall outlast them too! After all, they are but
products of the human brain . . . I shall outlast everything even remotely
human! I swear it!
(MUCH LATER): Is this the end? I have seen the end of the reign of the robots!
Yesterday, just as the sun was crimsoning in the west, I perceived the hordes of
things that came swarming out of space, expanding in the heavens . . . alien
creatures fluttering down, great gelatinous masses of black that clustered
thickly over everything....
I saw the robot rocket planes criss-crossing the sky on pillars of scarlet
flame, blasting into the black masses with their electronic beams--but the alien
things were unperturbed and unaffected! Closer and closer they pressed to earth,
until the robot rockets began to dart helplessly for shelter.
To no avail. The silvery robot ships began crashing to earth in ghastly
devastation, like drops of mercury splashing on tiles....
And the black gelatinous masses came ever closer, to spread over the earth, to
crumble the city and corrode whatever metal was left exposed.
Except my pendulum. They came dripping darkly down over it, over the glassite
dome which protects the whirring wheels and roaring bowels of the mechanism. The
city has crumbled, the robots are destroyed, but my pendulum still moves, the
only moving thing on this world now . . . and I know that fact puzzles these
alien things and they will not be content until they have stopped it....
This all happened yesterday. I am lying very still now, watching them. Most of
them are gathering out there over the ruins of the city, preparing to leave--