"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Probationers (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Under the bright middle-eastern starts a flat, almost glaciered plateau
shimmered. Far ahead, where the highway was leading, clouded glares flashed
up and searchlight rays scurried, displacing gigantic hazy silhouettes from
the dark. From time to time a weak thundering blare rolled across the
plateau.
"Space ships", - Yura thought with pleasure. Of course, he knew, that
Mirza-Charlie, like all other cosmodromes on Earth, was used only for
intra-planetary communication, that real planetary vessels, the photon
rockets types such as "Cheous", "John Brown", "Yang-Tze" are too immense and
powerful to take off directly from Earth, but these dark contours over the
horizon also seemed quite formidable.
- Rockets, rockets, - the policeman spoke leisurely. - How many people
fly out there, - he raised a blue fluorescent baton to the dark sky. -
Everyone with their dreams. And how many of them return in sealed zinc
coffins! Right here, by this very crossing, we assemble the honorary guard.
Their determination takes your breath away. And nevertheless, over there
must be, - he raised the baton again, - there must be someone, who really
dislikes this determination...
The horizon suddenly lit up with a blinding flash, a long fiery stream
hit the sky and dispersed into a fountain of sparks. The bitumen under their
feet trembled. The policeman brought the watch to his eyes.
- Twelve past twenty, - he said. - The nightly lunar.
There was thunder in the sky. The booming peals weakened as they faded
away and finally died altogether.
- I got to go, - said Yura. - What's the quickest way to get into town?
- Keep walking, - replied the policeman. - At the turn to the warehouse
hail down any car.

When at ten-thirty Yura reached the hotel, he looked somewhat
dishevelled and bewildered. Mirza-Charlie at night was totally unlike
Mirza-Charlie during the day. Down the streets, bisected by sharp dark
shadows, the cars moved in a solid tide. The flashing billboards lit up the
crowds on the side walk. The doors of all cafes and bars were wide open.
Inside the music roared and the air was bluish with tobacco smoke. Drunk
foreigners were trudging down the street, hugging, in threes or fours,
bawling unfamiliar songs. Across every twenty-thirty steps the police stood
with stony faces under the helmets worn low. Through the pulsing crowd,
trios of solid young lads wearing red armbands moved calmly and leisurely.
Yura saw how one such patrol walked inside a bar, and immediately the
silence fell and even the music stopped playing. The patrolmen had bored and
squeamish faces. From another bar, much closer to the hotel, the two with
tiny moustaches threw out onto the street some unfortunate soul and began
kicking him. The poor fellow was screaming loudly in French: "Patrol! Help!
Murder!" Yura, clenching his teeth with loathing, already took aim for a
punch into the ear of a whiskered man, when he was unceremoniously shoved
aside and a long strapping arm with a red band grabbed one of the whiskered
men by the collar. The other whiskered fellow crouched and jumped into a
bar. The patrol negligently passed the catch into the arms of approaching
police, and they, twisting the men's arms behind his back, almost in a rush,
dragged him into the nearest side-street. Yura managed to notice, how one of