You could have warned me, Roger grumbled. Id grab a piece of iron.
Why in advance think about the unpleasant? Joe said philosophically. And about your reputable piece of iron, in the salon, under Franzoiss leather jacket.
Everything with her?
A bucket of cartridges, all in grease.
Okay. Sit down. There is nothing to do.
The helicopter laid a bend over a strip of forest, dropped to the tops of power lines and rushed along the highway, scattering dust clouds and crumpled cardboard boxes. This maneuver was practiced by the Solari brothers, claiming that he introduces the inhabitants of an unfamiliar place to a state of panic.
Local if they are, will they take us for a van of bandits?
Yes.
Will they barricade the road?
Correctly.
And we meanwhile we will make a semicircle, and we will calmly milk the gas tanks on the opposite end of the city?
Exactly.
Will this help?
I do not know.
Again!
Roger snatched up the notebook and began to scribbly scoop the oiled pages with the stub of a chemical pencil.
Whole crop circles, Joe cursed softly. Hedgehogs in the mating season rush around the spikelets and display meaningless patterns. Its time to shoot them, poison parasites with dead fertilizers Transform-10. The colonies of people they caused considerable damage. When do you, Roger, stop believing in the messages from above?
These drawings are all more complicated. Thats a warning, Josh.
From whom?
Of aliens, of course. Look at these ovals, connected by curved lines. If we imagine that they are signs of reason, entering infinity, denoted by three rhombuses
Joe pulled the handle so hard that the facade of the multi-storey building seemed to be a continuation of the highway for a moment. A flock of smoldering pigeons flew from the split windows. In the salon of the helicopter something terrible crashed into the wall, rolled over the skin and spread in the air with a long reverberating ringing.
Im going to throw up now, Roger groaned. How tiresome these maneuvers are!
And I was hoping you would be distracted from gloomy thoughts, the senior pilot smiled humorously. But, look, look, is it not a gas station near the e supermarket?
Its a garbage carrier, Roger said quickly. If the books do not lie, on such wheelbarrows they used to transport containers with waste.
What for?
Well, that did not interfere near the house.
Is not it easier to burn garbage in the yard? Or to prikopat? And it is better to leave it in reserve?
Im not stuck, either, Roger sighed. Well, there are wild rats in the garbage. Or poisonous insects.
Its easier to negotiate with rats than with pigs, Joe authoritatively stated, thrust his hand into the socket of the wiring and, taking out the cracked polarizing glasses from there, hoisted it to his nose. You know, Laurie and Peak are our faithful friends. You can not talk about all rats scornfully. This is the first sign of non-tolerance.
The right canned food! Roger, dismantling the inscriptions on the tags, sat with the butt of a plywood box, which, dryly grunted, showed lines of cans with coiled labels.
A dirty trick, Joe sniffed. Of course, they are spoiled.
Why? Roger on a cowboy stuck a knife in the jar, licked the blade. For thirty or even fifty years of storage nothing happens to them. Botulinum toxins, they develop when Look, beans, kidney beans, sweet corn, mushrooms, soybeans and even he lowered his voice pork. Yes, here, probably, any such forbidden remains. Lets check.
Roger quickly galloped along the steep escalator to the top floor. Here he saw the crooked racks, stationery, faded cards and rolling globes rolling on the hollowed-out floor.
Oops! The pilot exclaimed exultantly. He threw the shooter behind his back, squatted and, surprisingly like a large rat, began to raptly heave piles of papers.
Why do we need this waste paper? We must firmly stand on the ground. We take the most calorie food and quickly leave.
Look, there are beautiful heifers, brand new cars, tricky equipment. Roger was shocked with a bunch of magazines. And there are articles about aliens. Nonsense, of course, but amusing. The world of the past is just a colored dream after a glass of antifreeze.
After an hour the salon filled with trophies; banks, bottles and yellowed leaves, on which schemes of organic molecules alternated with photos of seductive beauties. Roger screwed the buckets, filled with engine oil, so that they do not roll over.
Its done, said Joe contentedly. We fly home, clever.
Wait!
Solari!? Dugong! Luke! Roger cheerfully cursed, with a grating put the shooter on the fuse. What are you doing here?
We want to, Luke replied rudely. How are you?
They were going to look out for your bodies and spare parts, but there was no kerosene. Actually, here we are about this. Alla and Ellina managed to make new friends. So, with your cowboy misfortune?
Nothing special, Luke grumbled. The injector seems to be clogged. The reducer thunders like gravel. Banks flow. Our aircraft needs urgent repairs, and you will help us. Pilots are brothers, after all. Do not you want to look at the malfunction? Luke looked inquiringly at the aviators.
The pilots circled the enchanting barkhans from cars, iron, rusty shields, lampposts, garbage cans and wire twisted by flames mixed with past shocks.
When Dugonja was behind Roger, he very deftly grasped the machine gun by the belt and swung it aside. A metal thing, with a grunt like a vicious cursing, jumped off the concrete curb and dived under the belly of a long truck.
You are what? Roger produhdalal was dumbfounded.
Yes, brother, Solyar smiled apologetically. We were instructed to do it without stupidity. In general, we all were lucky. Welcome to the Citizens Society of Winville.
Piles of wooden cubes on the streets, as if by a click of an ultrasonic whistle, inaudible by the human ear, roared and twitched. Earlier they could be taken for piles of rubbish, in artistic disorder piled along the roadside. But that was the house of the novus. Soon new people appeared themselves. For some time they were ominously silent. Then they moved towards the pilots, fingering almost synchronously, like a multi-legged insect.
When the night fell with a huge black sack, the mills wheel stopped with a vile squeak. Joe unbuttoned the harness strap and waved to the corner of the pit without a hitch, on the gray heap of rags and papers that served as a bed. In a second the old pilot snored.
Roger, left alone, realized that he would not sleep today. I wanted to chat uncontrollably. How did the people get here? What is the future facing? He knew that in three or four weeks such work would be silenced, he would walk like a blind horse, without a glimpse of thought, in a circle, twirl the grindstone of the mill, swallow dust, wipe the sweat. Without rest, without sleep, until it falls, forever throwing back the hooves.
He threw back the strap, sighed sadly and sat down on the box of canned food.
Adhere to the bottle with a broken neck.
Its an ugly drink, he said deliberately loudly, rinsed his throat and poured water into a pitcher for washing.
Joe was speechless.