"Damon Knight - The Last Word" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

topsoil; there was nothing left but the bare, riven rock, cratered like the moon. The sky shed a sickly
purple light, full of lightnings that flickered like serpents’ tongues. Well, I had paid a heavy price, but Man
was gone.

Not quite. There were only two left, a man and a woman. I found them alive and healthy, for the time
being, on a crag that overhung the radioactive ocean. They were inside a transparent dome, or field of
force, that kept out the contaminated air.

You see how near I had come to final defeat? If they had managed to distribute that machine widely
before my war started … But this was the only one they had made. And there they were inside it, like
two white mice in a cage.

They recognised me immediately. The woman was young and comely, as they go.

“This is quite an ingenious advice,” I told them courteously.

In actuality, it was an ugly thing, all wires and tubes and so on, packed layers deep under the floor, with
a big semi-circular control board and a lot of flashing lights. “It’s a pity I didn’t know about it earlier; we
might have put it to some use.”

“Not this one,” said the man grimly. “This is a machine for peace. Just incidentally, it generates a field
that will keep out an atomic explosion.”

“Why do you say ‘just incidentally’?” I asked him.

“It’s only the way he talks,” the woman said. “If you had held off another six months, we might have
beaten you. But now I suppose you think you’ve won.”

“Oh, indeed,” I said. “That is, I will have, before long. Meanwhile, we might as well make ourselves
comfortable.”

They were standing in tense, aggressive attitudes in front of the control board, and took no notice of my
suggestion. “Why do you say I ‘think’ I’ve won?” I asked.

“It’s just the way I talk. Well, at least we gave you a long fight of it.”

The man put in, “And now you’re brave enough to show yourself.” He had a truculent jaw. There had
been a good many like him in the assault planes, on the first day of the war.

“Oh,” I said, “I’ve been here all the time.”
“From the very beginning?” the woman asked.

I bowed to her. “Almost,” I said, to be strictly fair.

There was a little silence, one of those uncomfortable pauses that interrupts the best of talks. A tendril of
glowing spray sprang up just outside. After a moment, the floor settled slightly.

The man and woman looked anxiously at their control board. The coloured lights were flashing. “Is that
the accumulators?” I heard the woman ask in a strained, low voice.