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

money. Of course, on the other hand, if you think about it, an empty really
is something mysterious and maybe even incomprehensible. I've handled quite
a few of them, but I'm still surprised every time I see one. They're just
two copper disks the size of a saucer, -about a quarter inch thick, with a
space of a foot and a half between
There's nothing else. I mean absolutely nothing, just empty space. You
can stick your hand in them, or even your head, if you're so knocked out by
the whole thing-just emptiness and more emptiness, thin air. And for all
that, of course, there is some force between them, as I understand it,
because you can't press them together, and no one's been able to pull them
apart, either.
No, friends, it's hard to describe them to someone who hasn't seen
them. They're too simple, especially when you look close and finally believe
your eyes. It's like trying to describe a glass to someone: you end up
wriggling your fingers and cursing in frustration. OK, let's say you've got
it, and those of you who haven't get hold of a copy of the institute's
Reports--every issue has an article or. the empties with photos.
Kirill had been beating his brains out over the empties for almost a
year. I'd been with him from the start, but I still wasn't quite sure what
it was he wanted to learn from them, and, to tell the truth, I wasn't trying
very hard to find out. Let him figure it out for himself first, and then
maybe I'd have a listen. For now, I understood only one thing: he had to
figure out, at any cost, what made one of those empties tick--eat through
one with acid, squash it under a press, or melt it in an oven. And then he
would understand everything and be hailed and honored, and world science
would shiver with ecstasy. For now, as I saw it, he had a long way to go. He
hadn't gotten anywhere yet, and he was worn out. He was sort of gray and
silent, and his eyes looked like a sick dog's-they even watered. If it had
been anyone else, I would have gotten him roaring drunk and taken him over
to some hard-working girl to unwind. And in the morning I'd have boozed him
up again and taken him to another broad, and in a week he would have been as
good as new--bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Only that wasn't the medicine for
Kirill. There was no point in even suggesting it--he wasn't the type.
So there we were in the repository. I was watching him and seeing what
had happened to him, how his eyes were sunken, and I felt sorrier for him
than I ever had for anyone. And that's when I decided. I didn't exactly
decide, it was like somebody opened my mouth and made me talk.
"Listen," I said. "Kirill."
And he stood there with his last empty on the scales, looking like he
was ready to climb into it.
"Listen," I said, "Kirill! What if you had a full empty, huh?"
"A full empty?" He looked puzzled.
"Yeah. Your hydromagnetic trap, whatchamacallit . . . Object 77b. It's
got some sort of blue stuff inside."
I could see that it was beginning to penetrate. He looked up at me,
squinted, and a glimmer of reason, as he loved to call it, appeared behind
the dog tears.
"Hold on," he said. "Full? Just like this, but full?"
"Yes, that's what I'm saying."
"Where?"