"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

He looked up from the map and stared out the window. And I stared out
the window, too. The glass in our windows is thick and leaded. And beyond
the windows--the Zone. There it is, just reach out and you can touch it.
From the thirteenth Boor it looks like it could fit in the palm of your
hand.
When you look at it, it looks like any other piece of land. The sun
shines on it like on any other part of the earth. And it's as though nothing
had particularly changed in it. Like everything was the way it was thirty
years ago. My father, rest his soul, could look at it and not notice
anything out of place at all. Except maybe he'd ask why the plant's
smokestack was still. Was there a strike or something? yellow ore piled up
in cone-shaped mounds, blast furnaces gleaming in the sun, rails, rails, and
more rails, a locomotive with flatcars on the rails. In other words, an
industry town. Only there were no people. Neither living nor dead. You could
see the garage, too: a long gray intestine, its doors wide open. The trucks
were parked on the paved lot next to it. He was right about the trucks--his
brains were functioning God forbid you should stick your head between two
trucks. You have to sidle around them. There's a crack in the asphalt, if it
hasn't been overgrown with bramble yet. Forty yards. Where was he counting
from? Oh, probably from the last pylon. He's right, it wouldn't be further
than that from there. Those egghead scientists were making progress. They've
got the road hung all the way to the dump, and cleverly hung at that!
There's that ditch where Slimy ended up, just two yards from their road.
Knuckles had told Slimy: stay as far away from the ditches as you can, jerk,
or there won't be anything to bury. When I looked down into the water, there
was nothing. This is the way it is with the Zone: if you come back with
swag--it's a miracle; if you come back alive--it's a success; if the patrol
bullets miss you--it's a stroke of luck. And as for anything else --that's
fate.
I looked at Kirill and saw that he was secretly watching me. And the
look on his face made me change my mind. The hell with them all, I thought.
After all, what can those toads do to me? He really didn't have to say
anything, but he did.
"Laboratory Assistant Schuhart," he says. "Official-and I stress
official--sources have led me to believe that an inspection of the garage
could be of great scientific value. I am suggesting that we inspect the
garage. I guarantee a bonus." And he beamed like the June sun.
"What official sources?" I asked, and smiled like a fool myself.
"They are confidential. But I can tell you." He frowned. "Let's say, I
found out from Dr. Douglas."
"Oh," I said. "From Dr. Douglas. What Dr. Douglas?"
"Sam Douglas," he said dryly. "He died last year."
My skin crawled. You so-and-so fool. Who talks about such things before
setting out? You can beat these eggheads over the head with a two-by-four
and they still don't catch on. I stabbed the ashtray with my cigarette butt.
"All right. Where's your Tender? How long do we have to wait for him?"
In other words, we didn't touch on the subject again. Kirill phoned PPS
and ordered a flying boot. I looked over his map to see what was on it. It
wasn't bad. It was a photographic process--aerial and highly enlarged. You
could even see the ridges on the cover that was lying by the gates to the