"Arcady And Boris Strugatsky. Prisoners of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора

Council and quickly put the entire episode out of his mind.
He shook his fingers squeamishly, dried them in the sand, and squatted
on his haunches. He tried to picture the inhabitants of this planet, hardly
a happy place. Somewhere beyond the forest lay a city of dirty factories;
decrepit reactors emptying radioactive wastes into the river; ugly houses
beneath metal roofs, with endless walls and few windows; and buildings
separated by litter-strewn alleys. And the people? Probably dressed heavily,
encased in thick, coarse material, with high white uncomfortable collars
cutting into their necks.
Suddenly he noticed footprints in the sand. They had been made by bare
feet. Someone had scrambled down the bank to the river, someone, he
imagined, with large feet, heavy, pigeon-toed, and clumsy. Undoubtedly
humanoid, but with six toes on each foot. He had scrambled down the bank,
hobbled along the sand, plunged into the radioactive waters, and swum to the
opposite shore, into the bulrushes.
Like a bolt of lightning, a brilliant blue flash lit up everything
around him. Above the riverbank there was a thunderous crash followed by
sizzling and crackling. Maxim jumped up. Dry earth rained down and something
sped through the sky with a menacing whine and dropped into the river,
raising a spray mixed with white steam. He realized what had happened, but
not why, and he was not surprised to see a swirling column of scorching
smoke rising like a giant corkscrew into the phosphorescent firmament from
the spot where his ship had been standing. The ship had exploded: its
ceramic shell glowed violet, flames danced through the grass around it,
bushes flared up, and the gnarled trees were enveloped in smoky fire.
Intense heat struck him, and Maxim shielded his face with his palm as he
backed away.
"Oh, God, no! No! Why?" He tried to reconstruct what had happened.
"Some big ape came along, got inside, lifted up the deck, found the
batteries, picked up one of the strange-looking boulders, and bambam! What a
boulder - three tons! And with one swing. A powerful animal, all right. It
wounded my ship with its pebbles twice in the stratosphere and finished it
off down here. Incredible! Bet it never happened before. Now what? I'll be
missed soon, of course, but nobody will think that the ship could vanish and
its pilot survive. Damn it!"
He turned from the fire and walked away rapidly along the river. The
entire area glowed red. His shadow on the grass, shortening and lengthening,
rushed ahead of him. Sparse and musty woods began on his right, and the
grass became soft and moist. It occurred to him that the fire could overtake
him and he would be forced to make his escape by swimming - a most
unpleasant prospect. But as the red glow grew dim and died out, he realized
that the ship's fire-fighting system, unlike himself, had understood the
problem and done its job well. He vividly pictured its sooty tanks
protruding absurdly from the hot fragments, emitting dense pyrophage clouds.
They must be very pleased with their performance.
"Easy now," he thought. "Don't panic. Take your time. You've plenty of
it. They can look for me forever. There's no ship, and it will be impossible
to find me. Until they are absolutely convinced of my death, mother won't be
told anything. And I'll figure something out."
He passed a small cool bog, forced his way through some bushes, and