extent of his unhappiness — the twelve-year-old lad glided along a wall, and gloom, the host of these halls, closed in on him.
The lantern on his helmet had been switched off, and he was able to distinguish ahead a dim, reddish spot. That was the glow of heated metal. The spot was slowly moving away, crossing the hall diagonally. Simeon shivered. 'So, I hit it!' he thought, leaning against the wall and raising the MG .
A series of light-blue suns cut open the darkness. A wall of silent flame shot up in front of him. Simeon instinctively screwed up his eyes not to lose his sight, and that was why he didn't see the retaliatory salvos rush at him from out of the gloom. A part of the wall was transformed into fountains of hot splashes.
He remained intact, but was totally blinded and lost the power of movement for some seconds. All of a sudden, three floodlights filled the depths of the hall, cutting the viscous darkness with oblique columns of light, and a MONSTER set out against Simeon.
The incandescent walls and the floodlights now illumined the scene well enough for him to see the adversary that he had just tried to knock out with his manual weapon.
A ten-foot high square platform was gliding easily just above the deck without touching it at all. Formerly there had been four sloping plasmatron turrets placed on it — now there remained only three, and one of them, half cut off by a burst, was emitting a crimson glow.
On the whole, the construction looked rather shabby: half of its shutters and hatches were broken off, a slide was protruding out of the launching silo, askew on its end a rocket blocked the mechanism, the plates of radar antennas were misshapen. The machine's armor, pierced and molten in some places, had lost its original luster long ago, but three machine-guns peering out of their sockets were in good working order: helped by a sole undamaged video camera, they were stubbornly and purposefully seeking out their target. Horrified, Simeon suddenly realized that it was getting really tough, as he was being attacked by an Automatic Planetary Scout which, although shabby, still remained one of the biggest and dangerous robots.
He crawled aside, continuing to observe the giant.
Color rings were floating before his eyes, but he was already able to discern some objects around. To the right of him, there was a lift trunk, to the left – the glowing wall, the robot – ahead of him, behind him – a short tunnel leading to a small sealed shack, where his father and himself had lived over the last several years. Remembering his father, the boy was again overwhelmed with a burning hatred for all mechanical creatures. He shouldered his weapon, but at the same moment, lowered it. It was impossible to destroy the scout with one shot, and he wouldn't have time to get off another one, as the robot's electronic reaction was equivalent to a death sentence.
Only one reasonable solution remained: to run away, to try to slip away from the machine in the depths of the spaceships and to lead it away from the shack as far as possible.
The vortex of thoughts that flashed through the boy's mind resulted in one action: he half-rose and, taking an acrobatic jump, dived into the cargo lift trunk. A double explosion blazed behind, but Simeon was already safely dropping through a broad dark tunnel, and the robot had missed its target. Having rolled head over heels onto the lower deck, he started running. A belated fear drove him farther and farther, along narrow corridors and across huge, dark halls until he completely lost sense of time and distance.
At last he stopped, breathing heavily and, grasping at a wall so as not to fall, rested his helmet visor against a bulkhead. No vibration was felt, and he calmed down a bit. His excitement subsided, he was ready to drop; he gave an involuntary sob and almost collapsed on the floor. Taking a glance at the oxygen pressure sensor he understood that he had to go on by all means and felt
The lantern on his helmet had been switched off, and he was able to distinguish ahead a dim, reddish spot. That was the glow of heated metal. The spot was slowly moving away, crossing the hall diagonally. Simeon shivered. 'So, I hit it!' he thought, leaning against the wall and raising the MG .
A series of light-blue suns cut open the darkness. A wall of silent flame shot up in front of him. Simeon instinctively screwed up his eyes not to lose his sight, and that was why he didn't see the retaliatory salvos rush at him from out of the gloom. A part of the wall was transformed into fountains of hot splashes.
He remained intact, but was totally blinded and lost the power of movement for some seconds. All of a sudden, three floodlights filled the depths of the hall, cutting the viscous darkness with oblique columns of light, and a MONSTER set out against Simeon.
The incandescent walls and the floodlights now illumined the scene well enough for him to see the adversary that he had just tried to knock out with his manual weapon.
A ten-foot high square platform was gliding easily just above the deck without touching it at all. Formerly there had been four sloping plasmatron turrets placed on it — now there remained only three, and one of them, half cut off by a burst, was emitting a crimson glow.
On the whole, the construction looked rather shabby: half of its shutters and hatches were broken off, a slide was protruding out of the launching silo, askew on its end a rocket blocked the mechanism, the plates of radar antennas were misshapen. The machine's armor, pierced and molten in some places, had lost its original luster long ago, but three machine-guns peering out of their sockets were in good working order: helped by a sole undamaged video camera, they were stubbornly and purposefully seeking out their target. Horrified, Simeon suddenly realized that it was getting really tough, as he was being attacked by an Automatic Planetary Scout which, although shabby, still remained one of the biggest and dangerous robots.
He crawled aside, continuing to observe the giant.
Color rings were floating before his eyes, but he was already able to discern some objects around. To the right of him, there was a lift trunk, to the left – the glowing wall, the robot – ahead of him, behind him – a short tunnel leading to a small sealed shack, where his father and himself had lived over the last several years. Remembering his father, the boy was again overwhelmed with a burning hatred for all mechanical creatures. He shouldered his weapon, but at the same moment, lowered it. It was impossible to destroy the scout with one shot, and he wouldn't have time to get off another one, as the robot's electronic reaction was equivalent to a death sentence.
Only one reasonable solution remained: to run away, to try to slip away from the machine in the depths of the spaceships and to lead it away from the shack as far as possible.
The vortex of thoughts that flashed through the boy's mind resulted in one action: he half-rose and, taking an acrobatic jump, dived into the cargo lift trunk. A double explosion blazed behind, but Simeon was already safely dropping through a broad dark tunnel, and the robot had missed its target. Having rolled head over heels onto the lower deck, he started running. A belated fear drove him farther and farther, along narrow corridors and across huge, dark halls until he completely lost sense of time and distance.
At last he stopped, breathing heavily and, grasping at a wall so as not to fall, rested his helmet visor against a bulkhead. No vibration was felt, and he calmed down a bit. His excitement subsided, he was ready to drop; he gave an involuntary sob and almost collapsed on the floor. Taking a glance at the oxygen pressure sensor he understood that he had to go on by all means and felt
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