"Arinn Dembo - Sisterhood Of Skin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dembo Arinn)

vessels
and glands, much more suggestive of a uterus than any kind of gastric organ.
The
presence of Jones' personal affects seems to suggest that they serve to store
indigestible items until they can be expelled. I have recovered stones from
two
of the other stomachs; these are coated with a thick, nacreous fluid. Do the
silkies form pearls in order to protect the delicate alimentary canal?

The intestines are fascinating and also very unusual; the walls are covered
with
filaments, which seem to serve a double purpose: they absorb nutrients from
digested food (an ungodly amount of "fish" in the silkie's gut, in various
stages of digestion, they must feed several hours a day) and they also seem to
"feel" the food, palpate it as it passes through the digestive tract. The
filaments are loaded with nervous tissue, and the area is incredibly blood
rich
and sensitive. (NOTE: An ingestible poison may be the best way to deal with
these animals, should they become a serious problem.) The spinal cord is only
inches away from the gut; the nerve fibers are dense in the area, a thick
springy webbing which I was not able to examine in fine detail.

The error I made in destroying its skull when I killed it may have been a
blessing in the end. If there had been a brain intact, I might have spent all
my
available time examining it, trying to determine its potential intelligence --
I
might not have gotten to the rest of the body at all. The Company
xenobiologists
would have plumbed the secrets of its carcass in a lab many light years from
here.

I'll send a full report to the Captain, along with my recommendations: I don't
think the elder Jones needs to be informed of the silkie's payload. The man
seems to be teetering dangerously; I'd hate to think that the revelation would
destabilize him further. I'd like to keep him functioning for another three
weeks, until we can bring the load in. It's the biggest haul on this circuit,
our first virgin ocean. Even after three hundred years (subjective time) to
restock themselves, the fish parks can't yield the bounty that we're taking
now;
four cubic miles of fish in a net, two nets full to brimming every week . . .
A
world never yields its maidenhead twice.

***
Woke up after the first shift when my fever broke. Still weak. I can't face
the
Captain; I've logged my report.

I dreamed of my father. I saw his face, the two paradoxical halves of it; I