"Frederik Pohl - The Man Who Ate The World (v1.1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

The robots turned back to face each other. "Mr. President! I demand that the Defense Secretary explain the loss of the Graf Zeppelin and the 456th Bomb Group!"
The Defense Secretary nodded to the Commissioner of Public Safety. "Mr. Trumic threw them away," it said sorrowfully.

Once again, that sighing electronic drone from the assembled robots.
The Council fussed and fiddled with its papers, while the situation map on the wall flared and dwindled, flared and dwindled.
The Defense Secretary cleared its throat again. "Mr. President, there is no question that the, ah, absence of an effective air component will seriously hamper, not to say endanger, our prospects of a suitable landing. Nevertheless-and I say this, Mr. President in full knowledge of the conclusions that may-indeed, should-be drawn from such a statement nevertheless, Mr. President I say that our forward elements will successfully complete an assault landing-"
"Mr. President!" The breathless whisper of the blonde stenographer again. "Mr. President Mr. Trumie is in the building!"
On the situation map behind it the Pentagon-the building they were in-flared scarlet.
The Attorney General, nearest the door, leaped to its feet. "Mr. President, I hear him!"
And they could all hear now. Far off, down the long corridors, a crash. A faint explosion, and another crash, and a raging, querulous, high-pitched voice. A nearer crash, and a sustained, smashing, banging sound, coming toward them.
The oak-paneled doors flew open with a crash, splintering.
A tall, dark male figure in gray leather jacket, rocket-gun holsters swinging at its hips, stepped through the splintered doors and stood surveying the Council. Its hands hung just below the butts of the rocket guns.
It drawled: "Mistuh Anderson Trumie!"
It stepped aside. Another male figure-shorter, darker, hobbling with the aid of a stainless steel cane that concealed a ray-pencil, wearing the same gray leather jacket and the same rocket-gun holsters-entered, stood for a moment, and took position on the other side of the door.
Between them, Mr. Anderson Trumie shambled ponderously into the Council Chamber to call on his Council.
Sonny Trumie, come of age. He wasn't much more than five feet tall, but his weight was close to four hundred pounds. He stood there in the door, leaning against the splintered oak, quivering jowls obliterating his neck, his eyes nearly swallowed in the fat that swamped his skull, his thick legs trembling as they tried to support him.

"You're all under arrest!" he screeched. "Traitors! Traitors!"

He panted ferociously, glowering at them. They waited with bowed heads. Beyond the ring of councilmen, the situation map slowly blotted out the patches of red as the repair robots worked feverishly to fix what Sonny Trumie had destroyed.
"Mr. Crockett!" Sonny cried shrilly. "Slay me these traitors!"
Wheep-wheep, and the guns whistled out of their holsters into the tall bodyguard's hands. Rata-tat-tat, and two by two, the nineteen councilmen leaped, clutched at air and fell as the rocket pellets pierced them through.
"That one, tool" Mr. Trumie pointed at the sweet-faced blonde.
Bang. The sweet young face convulsed and froze; it fell, slumping across its little table.
On the wall, the situation map flared red again, but only faintly-for what were twenty robots?
Sonny gestured curtly to his other bodyguard. It leaped forward, tucking the stainless steel cane under one arm, putting the other around the larded shoulders of Sonny Trumie.

"Ah, now, young master," it crooned. "You just get ahold o' Long John's arm now--"
"Get them fixed," Sonny ordered abruptly. He pushed the President of the Council out of its chair and, with the robot's help, sank into it himself. "Get them fixed right you hear? I've had enough traitors! I want them to do what I tell them!"

"Sartin sure, young master. Long John'll be pleased to-"

"Do it now! And you, Davey, I want my lunch!"
"Reckoned you would, Mistuh Trumie. It's right hyar." The Crockett robot kicked the fallen councilmen out of the way as a procession of waiters filed in from the corridor.
Sonny ate.
He ate until eating was pain, and then he sat there sobbing, his arms braced against the tabletop, until he could eat more.
The Crockett robot said worriedly: "Mistuh Trumie, moughtn't you rear back a mite? Old Doc Aeschylus, he don't hold with you eatin' too much, you know."
"I hate Doc!" Trumie said bitterly.
He pushed the plates off the table. They fell with a rattle and a clatter, and they went spinning away as he heaved himself up and lurched alone over to the window.

"I hate Doc!" he brayed again, sobbing, staring through tears out the window at his kingdom with its hurrying throngs and marching troops and roaring waterfront. The tallow shoulders tried to shake with pain. He felt as though hot cinderblocks were being thrust down his throat the ragged edges cutting, the hot weight crushing.
" Take me back," he wept to the robots. "Take me away from these traitors. Take me to my Private Place!"

"As you see," said Roosenburg, "he's dangerous."
Garrick looked out over the water, toward North Guardian. "I'd better look at his tapes," he said.
The girl swiftly picked up the reels and began to thread them into the projector. Dangerous. This Trumie indeed was dangerous, Garrick conceded. Dangerous to the balanced, stable world, for it only took one Trumie to topple its stability. It had taken thousands and thousands of years for society to learn its delicate tightrope walk. It was a matter for a psychist, all right.
And Garrick was uncomfortably aware that he was only twenty-four.
"Here you are," said the girl.
"Look them over," Roosenburg suggested. "Then, after you've studied the tapes on Trumie, we've got something else. One of his robots. But you'll need the tapes first."
"Let's go," said Garrick.