"BRYANT, Edward - Shark (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bryant Edward)

"Relics?" said Inga uncertainly.

"War surplus. Leftovers. Look." Folger picked up a dried, leathery rectangle from the table and tossed it to Per. He looked at the object, turning it over and over.

"Came from a killer whale. Got him last winter with a harpoon and shaped charge. Damn thing had stove in three boats, killed two men. Now read the other side."

Per examined the piece of skin closely. Letters and
numerals had been deeply branded. "USMF-343. "

"See?" said Folger. "Weapons are still out there.

He was part of the lot the year before I joined the Institute. Not especially sophisticated, but he had longevity.,

"Do you encounter many?" said Inga.

' Folger shook his head. "Not too many of the originals."

The ketch had been found adrift with no one aboard. It had put out early that morning for Dos, one of the two small and uninhabited companions of Tres Rocas. The three men aboard had been expecting to hunt seal. The fishermen who discovered the derelict, also found a bloody axe and severed sections of tentacle as thick as a man's forearm.

So Folger trolled along the route of the unlucky boat in his motorized ski# for three days. He searched a vast area of choppy, gray water, an explosive harpoon never far from his hand. Early on the fourth afternoon a half-dozen dark-green tentacles poked from the sea; on the port side of the boat. Folger reached with his; left hand for the harpoon. He didn't see the tentacle: from starboard that whipped and tightened around his: chest and jerked him over the side.

The chill of the water stunned him. Folger had d= quick, surrealistic glimpse of intricately weaving tentacles. Two eyes, each as large as his fist, stared with-, out malice. The tentacle drew him toward the beak.

Then a gray shadow angled below Folger. Razor teeth scythed through flesh. The tentacle was cut; Folger drifted. ;

The great white shark was at least ten meters long., Its belly was uncharacteristically dappled. The squid wrapped eager arms around the thrashing shark. The two fish sank into the darker water below Folger.

Lungs aching, he broke the surface less than a meter from the skit. He always trailed a ladder from the boat. It made things easier for a one-armed man. ,

"Would you show us the village?" said Inga.

"Not much to see."
"We would be pleased by a tour anyway. Have you time?"

Folger reached for his coat. Inga moved to help him put it on. "I can do it," said Folger.

"There are fine experts in prosthesis on the Continent," said Per.

"No, thanks," said Folger.

"Have you thought about a replacement?"

"Thought about it. But the longer I thought, the better I got without one. I had a few years to practice."

"It was in the war, then?" asked Inga.

"Of course it was in the war."

On their way out, they passed the kitchen. Maria looked up sullenly over the scraps of bloody mutton on the cutting board. Her eyes fixed on Inga until the blonde moved out of sight along the hall.