"Jack Williamson - The Happiest Creature" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"
Don't be mean about it, darling." Her pajamas were coming open again, but she
didn't seem to care. "Come on in, and let's forget about Gabriel. He has been so
good about everything, and I know he won 't make us any trouble."
"I'll make the trouble." He seized her bare arm. "Come along."
"Darling, don 't!" She hung back, squirming. "You 're hurting me!"
He made her shut up, and dragged her out of the house. She wanted to go back
for a robe, but he threw her into the car and climbed over her to the wheel. He
waited for her to try to get out, so that he could slap her down, but she only
whimpered for a Kleenex and sat there sniffling.
Old balloon-belly had ruined everything.
He tried angrily to clash the gears, as he started off, as if that would damage the
outsiders, but the Hydramatic transmission wouldn't clash, and anyhow the saucer
ship was probably somewhere out beyond the moon by now.
"There 's Gabriel, " Carmen sobbed. "There, crossing the street, going to work.
Don't hurt him, please!"
He gunned the car and veered across the pavement to run him down, but Carmen
screamed and twisted at the wheel. Gabriel managed to scramble out of the way. He
stopped on the sidewalk, hatless and breathless but grin-ning stupidly.
"Sorry, mister. Guess I wasn't looking— " Then Gabriel saw who he was. "Why,
Casey! We 've been expecting you back. Seems you're the lucky one, after all."
Gabriel had started toward the car, but he stopped when he saw the gun. His voice
went shrill as a child's. "What are you doing?"
"Just gut-shooting another dirty greaser, that 's all."
"Darling!" Carmen snatched at the gun. "Don't—" He slapped her down.
"Don't strike her!" Gabriel stood gripping the door of the car with both hands. He
looked sick. His twitching face was bright with sweat, and he was gasping hoarsely
for his breath. He was staring at the gun, his wide eyes dull with horror.
"Stop me!"
He smashed the flat of the gun into Carmen's face, and grinned at the way Gabriel
flinched when she screamed.
This was more the way he wanted everything to be. "Just try and stop me! "
"I—I won't fight you," Gabriel croaked faintly. "After all, we're not animals. We're
civilized humans. I know Carmen loves you. I'm stepping out of the way. But you
can't make me fight—"
The gun stopped Gabriel.
Queerly, though, he didn't fall. He just stood there like some kind of rundown
machine, with his stiffened hands clutching the side of the car.
"
Die, damn you! "
Casey James shot again; he kept on shooting till the gun was empty. The bullets
hammered into the body, but somehow it wouldn't fall. He leaned to look at the
wounds, at the broken metal beneath the simulated flesh of the face and the hot
yellow hydraulic fluid running out of the belly, and recoiled from what he saw,
shaking his head, shuddering like any trapped and frightened beast.
"That—thing!"
With a wild burst of animal ferocity, he hurled the gun into what was left of its
plastic face. It toppled stiffly backward then, and something jangled faintly inside
when it struck the pavement.
"It—it ain't human! "