"Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope" - читать интересную книгу автора

stump's lying his head off--he comes in the morning eats half a pot and
starts, wool on yer nose, laying down the law: that's not right, you
shouldn't do that. ... I ask him: who are you to tell me what's right and
what's wrong, wool on yer nose? He doesn't say, he doesn't know himself. . .
. Mutters on about some City."
"We'll set off the day after tomorrow," said Kandid. "What are we
waiting for then?" burst out Buster. "Why the day after tomorrow? I can't
sleep at night in my house, the leaven is stinking, let's go this evening,
somebody once waited and waited, they gave him round ears and he's stopped
waiting, never waited since. . . . The old woman's cursing there's no life,
wool on yer nose! Listen, Dummy, let's take my old woman with us maybe the
robbers would take her, I'd give her up all right!"
"The day after tomorrow we'll go," repeated Kandid patiently. "You're a
good fellow, making up so much leaven, from New Village, you know. . . ."
He failed to finish; from the fields came shouting.
"Deadlings! Deadlings!" roared the elder. "Women home! Run off home!"
Kandid looked around. Between the trees on the extreme edge of the
field stood the deadlings: two blue and quite close, one yellow a bit
farther off. Their heads with the round eye-holes and the black slash of a
mouth slowly revolved from side to side. Their huge arms hung loosely along
the length of their bodies. The earth where they stood was already smoking,
white trailers of steam mingled with gray-blue smoke.
The deadlings knew a thing or two and so behaved with extreme caution.
The yellow one had the whole of his right side eaten away by grass-killer
while the blue ones were covered in rashes caused by ferment burns. In
places, the skin had died off and hung in rags. While they stood and stared
about them, the shrieking women fled to the village and the menfolk,
muttering threats, crowded together with pots of grass-killer at the ready.
Then the elder spoke. "What are we standing here for, I ask you? Let's
go, why stand here?" Everyone moved slowly forward, spreading out into a
line, toward the deadlings. "Get them in the eyes," the elder kept shouting.
"Try and splash them in the eyes. Best get the eyes, not much good if we
can't get their eyes. . . ."
The line sang out ominously. "Ooh-hoo-hoo, get out! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Nobody was inclined to get too close.
Buster, picking the dried mud from his beard, walked next to Kandid and
shouted louder than the others; between shouts he argued with himself.
"No, no-o-o, we're wasting our time, wool on yer nose, they won't stay,
they'll run in a minute. . . . Deadlings are they? Rubbish, I'd say, they
won't stay. . . . Hoo-hoo-hoo! You lot!"
Coming within twenty paces of the deadlings, the men stopped. Buster
hurled a clod of earth at the yellow one, but with surprising agility it
stuck out its broad palm and deflected the clod to one side. Everybody
started hooting and stamping their feet, some displayed the pots and made
threatening motions toward the deadlings. Nobody wanted to waste the fluid
and nobody wanted to drag all the way to the village for more. The deadlings
were battered and wary, they could be got rid of this way.
So it turned out. Steam and smoke thickened under the deadlings' feet,
they were faltering. "Well that's it" was said along the chain. "They've
given ground, they'll turn in a minute. . . ."