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

counted the other one. Just as he was putting it back into his pocket,
Throaty came back.
"You're lucky, son," he announced, sitting opposite Redrick once more.
"Do you know what a perpetuum mobile is?"
"Nope, we never studied that.
"And you don't need to," Throaty said. He pulled out another pack.
"That's the price for the first specimen," he said, pulling off the
wrapping. "For each new one you'll get two packs like this. Got it, son? Two
apiece. But only on the condition that no one except you and I ever know
about it. Are we agreed?" Redrick put the money in his pocket silently and
stood up.
"I'm going," he said. "When and where for the next time?"
Throaty also rose.
"You'll be called. Wait for a call every Friday between nine and
nine-thirty in the morning. You'll get regards from Phil and Hugh and a
meeting will be set up
Redrick nodded and headed for the door. Throaty followed, and put his
hand on his shoulder.
"I want you to understand one thing," he continued. "All this is very
nice, charming, and so on, and the hoop is simply marvelous, but above all
we need two things: the photos and the container filled up. Return our
camera to us, but with exposed film, and our porcelain container, but not
empty. Filled. And you'll never have to go into the Zone again.
Redrick shook Throaty's hand from his shoulder, unlocked the door, and
went out. Without turning he walked down the thickly carpeted hallway and
sensed the unwavering blue angelic gaze fixed on the back of his neck. He
didn't wait for the elevator but walked down from the eighth floor.
Outside the Metropole he called a cab and went to the other side of
town. The driver was a new one, someone Redrick didn't know, a beak-nosed,
pimply fellow. One of the hundreds that had poured into Harmont in the last
few years to look for exciting adventures, untold riches, world fame, or
some special religion. They poured in and ended up as chauffeurs,
construction workers, or thugs--thirsting, wretched, tortured by vague
desires, profoundly disillusioned, and certain that they had been tricked
once again. Half of them, after hanging around for a month or two, returned
to their homes, cursing, and spreading the word of their disillusionment to
all the countries of the world. A very few became stalkers and quickly
perished before they had caught onto the tricks of the trade. Some managed
to get a job at the institute, but only the best-educated and smartest of
them, who could at least work as lab assistants. The rest wasted evening
after evening in bars, brawled over some difference of opinion, girls, or
just because they were drunk, and drove the municipal police, the army, and
the guards out of their minds.
The pimply driver reeked of liquor a mile away, and his eyes were
rabbit red, but he was very excited and told Redrick how that morning a
stiff from the cemetery showed up on their block. "He came back to his
house, and the house had been locked up for years, and everyone had
moved--his widow, an old lady now, and his daughter and her husband, and
their children. He had died, the neighbors said, some thirty years ago, that
is, before the Visitation, and now there he was. He walked around the house,