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

care, nothing was going to hurt it here. Then old Tender broke. We hadn't
even gotten to the first pylon when he started gabbing. All the greenhorns
usually run off at the mouth in the Zone: his teeth were chattering, his
heart thumping, his memory fading, and he was embarrassed and yet he
couldn't control himself. I think it's like a runny nose with them. It
doesn't depend on the person at all--it just flows and flows. And what
nonsense they babble! They flip out over the landscape or they express their
views on the Visitors, or they talk about things having no relation to the
Zone--like Tender, who got all wound up over his new suit and couldn't stop.
How much he had paid for it, how fine the wool was, how the tailor changed
the buttons for him....
"Shut up."
He looked at me pitifully, flopped his lips, and went on: how much silk
it took for the lining. The gardens had ended by now, the clayey lot that
used to be the town dump was under us. And I felt a light breeze. Except
there was no wind at all, and suddenly there was a gust and the tumbleweed
scattered, and I thought I heard something.
"Shut up, you bastard!" I said to Tender.
No, he couldn't shut himself up. He was on the pockets now. I had no
choice.
"Stop the boot!" I said to Kirill.
He braked immediately. Good reflexes, I was proud of him. I took Tender
by the shoulder, turned him toward me, and smacked him in the visor. He
cracked his nose, poor guy, against the glass, closed his eyes, and shut up.
And as soon as he was quiet, I heard it. Trrr, trrr, trrr... · Kirill looked
over at me, jaws clenched, teeth bared. motioned for him to be still. God,
please be still, don't move a muscle. But he also heard the crackle, and
like all greenhorns, he had the urge to do something immediately, anything.
"Reverse?" he whispered. I shook my head desperately and waved my fist right
under his visor -cut it out. Honest to God, with these greenhorns you never
know which way to look, at the field or at them. And then I forgot about
everything. Over the pile of old refuse, over broken glass and rags, crawled
a shimmering, a trembling, sort of like hot air at noon over a tin roof. It
crossed over the hillock and moved on and on toward us, right next to the
pylon; it hovered for a second over the road-- or did I just imagine
it?--and slithered into the field, behind the hushes and the rotten fences,
back there toward the automobile graveyard.
Damn those eggheads! Some thinking to lay the road over the dump! And I
had been really sharp myself--what was I thinking of when I raved over their
stupid map?
"Low speed forward," I said to Kirill.
"What was that?"
"The devil knows. It was, and now it's gone. Thank God. And shut up,
please, you're not a human being now, do you understand? You are a machine,
my steering wheel." I suddenly realized that I was running off at the mouth.
"Enough. Not another word."
I wanted another drink. Let me tell you, these diving suits were
nonsense. I lived through so much without a damn suit and will live through
so much more, but without a big glug at a moment like this --well, enough of
that!