"Stanislaw Lem - The Offer Of King Krool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

was a boom, a puff of yellow smoke, and something came rocketing out, a form as blurry as a
tornado and with the general consistency of a sandstorm; it arced through the air so fast that
¹one really got a good look at it anyway.
Whatever it was flew a hundred paces or more and landed without a sound; the curtain
that had been wrapped around it floated to the earth, glass bells tinkling oddly in that perfect
silence, and lay there like a crushed strawberry.
Now everyone could see the beast clearly—though it wasn't clear at all, but looked a little
like a hill, rather large, fairly long, its color much like its surroundings, a clump of dried-up
weeds. The King's huntsmen unleashed the whole pack of automated hounds (mainly Saint
Cybernards and Cyberman pinschers, with an occasional high-frequency terrier); these hurled
themselves, howling and slavering, at the crouching beast. The beast didn't rear back, didn't
roar, didn't even breathe fire, but only opened its two eyes wide and reduced half the pack to
ashes in a trice.
“Oho! Laser-eyed, is it?” cried the King. “Hand me my trusty duralumin doublet, my
bulletproof buckler, my halberd and arquebus!” Thus accoutered and gleaming like a
supernova, he rode out upon his fearless high-fidelity cyber steed, came nigh the beast and
smote it such a mighty blow that the air crackled and its head tumbled neatly to the ground.
Though the retinue dutifully hallooed his triumph, the King took ¹delight in it; greatly angered,
he swore in his heart to devise some special torment for those wretches who dared to call
themselves constructors. The beast, however, shook another head out of its severed neck,
opened its new eyes wide and played a withering beam across the King's armor (which,
however, was proof against all manner of electromagnetic radiation). “Well, those two weren't
a total loss,” said the King to himself, “though this still won't help them.” And he recharged his
charger and spurred it into the fray.
This time he swung full and cleaved the beast in twain. The beast didn't seem to mind—in
fact, it positioned itself helpfully beneath the whistling blade and gave a grateful twitch as it
fell. And small wonder! The King took another look: the thing was twinned instead of twained!
There were two spitting images, each a little smaller than the original, plus a third, a baby
beast gamboling between them—that was the head he had cut off earlier: it now had a tail
and feet and was doing cartwheels through the weeds.
“What next?” thought the King. “Chop it into mice or little worms? A fine way to hunt!” And
with great ire did he have at it, hewing with might and main until there were ¹end of little
beasts underfoot, but suddenly they all backed off, went into a huddle, and there stood the
beast again, good as new and stifling a yawn.
“H'm,” thought the King. “Apparently it has the same kind of stabilization mechanism
that—what was his name again? —Pumpington—that Pumpington tried to use. Yes, I dealt
with him myself for that idiotic trick... Well, we'll just wheel out the antimatter artillery...”
He picked one with a six-foot bore, lined it up and loaded it himself, took aim, pulled the
string and sent a perfectly silent and weirdly shimmering shell straight at the beast, to blow it
to smithereens once and for all. But nothing happened—that is, nothing much. The beast only
crouched a little lower, put out its left hand, long and hairy, and gave the King the finger.
“Bring out our biggest!” roared the King, pretending not to notice. And several hundred
peasants pulled up a veritable giant of a cannon, all of eighty-gauge, which the King aimed
and was just about to fire—when all at once the beast leaped. The King lifted his sword to
defend himself, but then there was ¹more beast. Those who saw what happened next said
later that they were sure they had taken leave of their senses, for as the beast flew through
the air, it underwent a lightning transformation, the grayish hulk divided up into three men in
uniform, three policemen, who, still aloft, were already preparing to do their duty.
The first policeman, a sergeant, got out the handcuffs, maneuvering his legs to keep
upright; the second held on to his plumed shako with one hand, so it wouldn't blow off, and