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

between the disks. We could see that it wasn't an empty at all, but
something like a vessel, like a glass jar with blue syrup. We looked at it
some more and then clambered into the boot and set off on the return trip
without messing around.
These scientists sure have it easy! First of all, they work in
daylight. And second, the only hard part is getting into the Zone, On the
way back, the boot drives itself. In other words, it has a mechanism, a
coursograph, I guess you'd call it, that controls the boot and drives it
exactly along the course it took coming in. As we floated back, it repeated
all our maneuvers, stopping and hovering for a bit, and then continuing. We
went over each of my nuts and bolts. I could have gathered them up if I had
wanted to.
My greenhorns were in a great mood, of course. They were turning their
heads every which way and their fear was almost all gone. They started
gabbing. Tender was waving his arms around and threatening to come right
back after dinner to lay the road to the garage. Kirill plucked at my sleeve
and started explaining his graviconcentrate phenomenon to me--that is, the
mosquito mange spot. Well, I set them straight, but not right away. I calmly
told them about all the jerks who blew it on the way back. Shut up, I told
them, and keep your eyes peeled, or the same thing will happen to you that
happened to Shorty Lyndon. That worked. They didn't even ask what had
happened to Shorty Lyndon. We floated along in silence and I only thought
about one thing. How I would unscrew the cap. I was trying to picture my
first gulp, but the web kept glistening before my eyes.
In short, we got out of the Zone, and we were sent into the
delouser--the scientists call it the medical hangar--along with the boot.
They washed us in three different boiling vats and in their alkaline
solutions, smeared us with some gunk, sprinkled us with some powder, and
washed us again, then dried us off and said, OK, friends, you're free!
Tender and Kirill dragged the empty. There were so many people who had come
to gawk that you couldn't push your way through them. And it was so typical.
They were all just watching and grunting words of welcome, but not one was
brave enough to lend a hand to the tired returnees. All right, that was none
of my business. Now nothing concerned me any more.
I pulled off my special suit, threw it on the floor--let the bastard
sergeants pick it up--and headed straight for the showers, because I was
sopping wet from head to toe. I locked myself in a stall, got my flask,
unscrewed the cap, and attached myself to it like a lamprey. I sat on the
bench, my knees empty, my head empty, my soul empty. Gulping down the strong
stuff like it was water. Alive. The Zone had let me out. It let me out, the
bitch. The damn, treacherous bitch. I was alive. The greenhorns could never
appreciate that. Only a stalker could. Tears were streaming down my cheeks,
from the booze or what, I don't know. I sucked the flask dry. I was wet, and
the flask was dry. It didn't have that one last gulp that I needed, of
course. But that could be fixed. Everything could be fixed now. Alive. I lit
a cigarette. I sat there and felt that I was coming round. The bonus pay
came into my mind. That was a good deal we had at the institute. I could go
right now and pick up the envelope. Or maybe they'd bring it to me here in
the showers.
I started undressing slowly. I took off my watch, and saw that we had