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

My Kirill was cured. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
"Let's go have a smoke."
He stuffed the empty into the safe, slammed the door, and locked it
with three and a half turns, and we went back into the lab. Ernest pays 400
in cash for an empty empty, and I could have bled him dry, the son of a
bitch, for a full one, but believe it or not, I didn't even think about it,
because Kirill came back to life before my eyes and bounded down the steps
four at a time, not even letting me finish my smoke. In short, I told him
everything: what it was like, and where it was, and the best way to get at
it. He pulled out a map, found the garage, put his finger on it, and stared
at me. Of course, he immediately figured it out about me--what was there not
to understand?
"You dog, you," he said and smiled. "Well, let's go for it. First thing
in the morning. I'll order the passes and the boot for nine and we'll set
off at ten and hope for the best. All right?"
"All right," I said. "Who'll be the third?"
"What do we need a third for?"
"Oh no," I said. "This is no picnic with ladies. What if something
happens to you? It's in the Zone," I said. "We have to follow regulations."
He gave a short laugh and shrugged.
"As you wish. You know better."
You bet I did! Of course, he was just trying to humor me. The third
would be in the way as far as he was concerned. We would run down, just the
two of us, and everything would be hunky-dory, no one would suspect anything
about me. Except for the fact that I knew that people from the institute
didn't enter the Zone in two's. The rule is: two do the work and the third
watches, and when they ask him about it later, he tells.
"Personally, I would take Austin," Kirill said. "But you probably don't
want him. Or is it all right?"
"Nope," I said. "Anybody but Austin. You can take Austin an- other
time."
Austin isn't a bad guy, he's got the right mix of courage and
cowardice, but I feel he's doomed. You can't explain it to Kirill, but I can
see it. The man thinks he knows and understands the Zone completely. That
means he's going to kick off soon. He can go right ahead, but without me,
thanks.
"All right, then," Kirill said. "How about Tender?" Tender was his
second lab assistant. An all-right kind of guy, on the quiet side.
"He's a little old," I said. "And he has kids.
"That's all right. He's been in the Zone before."
"Fine," I said. "Let's take Tender.
He stayed to pore over the map and I made a beeline for the Borscht,
because I was starving and my throat was parched.
I got back to the lab in the morning as usual, around nine, and showed
my pass. The guard on duty was the lanky bean pole of a sergeant that I beat
the hell out of last year when he made a drunken pass at Guta.
"Fine thing," he said to me. "They're looking for you all over the
institute, Red." I interrupted him right there, polite-like.
"I'm not Red to you," I said. "Don't try that palsy-walsy stuff on me,
you Swedish dolt."