"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автораcounted 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 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, |
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