"Walter M. Miller - Dumb Waiter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

"You got any idea about how much sweat dripped on the drafting boards before they got h
plans drawn? How many engineers slaved over her, and cussed her, and got drunk when the
piece of the job was done?"
Ferris was sneering faintly. "You know, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Well that's all too bad, boy. But she's no good to anybody now. She's a hazard to life an
limb. Why, you can't go inside the city without—"
"She's a machine, Ferris. An intricate machine. You don't destroy a tool just because you
finished with it for a while." They glared at each other in the hot sunlight.
"Listen, boy—people built Central. People got the right to wreck her, too."
"I don't care about rights," Mitch snapped. "I'm talking about what's sensible, sane. B
nobody's got the right to be stupid."
Ferris stiffened. "Watch your tongue, smart boy." "I didn't ask for this conversation."
Ferris released the handlebars. "Get off the bicycle," he grunted ominously.
"Why? You want to settle it the hard way?"
"No. We're requisitioning your bicycle. You can walk from here on. The Sugarton crowd nee
transportation. We need good men, but I guess you ain't one. Start walking."
Mitch hesitated briefly. Then he shrugged and dismounted on the side away from Ferris. T
big man held the shotgun
cradled lazily across one forearm. He watched Mitch with a mocking grin.
Mitch grasped the handlebars tightly and suddenly rammed the front wheel between Ferris
legs. The fender made a tearing sound. The shotgun exploded skyward as the big man fell bac
He sat down screaming and doubling over. The gun clattered into the road. He groped for it with
frenzied hand. Mitch kicked him in the face and a tooth slashed at his toe through the boot leathe
Ferris fell aside, his .mouth spitting blood and white fragments.
Mitch retrieved the shotgun and helped himself to a dozen shells from the other's pockets, th
mounted the bicycle and pedaled away. When he had gone half a mile, a rifle slug spanged off t
pavement beside him. Looking back, he saw three tiny figures standing beside Ferris in t
distance. The "Sugarton crowd" had come to take care of their own, no doubt. He pedaled ha
to get out of range, but they wasted no more ammunition.
He realized uneasily that he might meet them again if they came to the city intending to sabota
Central. And Ferris wouldn't miss a chance to kill him, if the chance came. Mitch didn't believe
was really hurt, but he was badly humiliated. And for some time to come he would dream
pleasant ways to murder Mitch Laskell.

Mitch no longer whistled as he rode along the deserted highway toward the sun-drench
skyline in the distance. To a man born and bred to the tune of mechanical thunder, amid vistas
concrete and steel, the skyline looked good—looked good even with several of the buildin
twisted into ugly wreckage. It had been dusted in the radiological attack, but not badly bombe
Its defenses had been more than adequately provided for—which was understandable, since
was the capi-tal and the legislators appropriated freely.
It seemed unreasonable to him that Central was still working. Why hadn't some group
engineers made their way into the main power vaults to kill the circuits temporarily? Then
remembered that the vaults were self-defending and that there were probably very few technicia
left who knew how to handle the job. Technicians had a way of inhabiting industrial regions, an
wars had a wav of destrovine those re gions. Dirt farmersusually had the best survival value.
Mitch had been working with aircraft computers before he became displaced, but a city
Central Service Coordinator was a far cry from a robot pilot. Centrals weren't built all at onc
they grew over a period of years. At first, small units were set up in power plants and waterwor
to regulate voltages and flows and circuit conditions automatically. Small units replac