"Steven Gould - Blind Waves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

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Beenan: Vomitar debajo del agua
^┬╗
Once upon a time in America, PatriciaтАЩs father told her, you could say what you
wanted in public, buy cheap land in the mountains, and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service wasnтАЩt the second largest division of the armed forces.
That was before the Antarctic Volcano field. That was before the Ronne-Filchner
ice shelf slid.
That was a hundred feet of water ago.
This is now.
Terminal Lorraine was fifty miles from the Houston dikes, inbound, seventy feet
of water under her keels, passing over Fort Jacinto Military Reservation, the old
northeastern tip of Galveston Island. The sky was mostly clear, blue diamond with
white puffy cumulus clouds scudding northward, and the sun beat down hot enough
to make the deck uncomfortable. A trio of oceangoing shrimp boats were passing to
the north on their way out to the deep water. A giant container ship had passed them
earlier, headed for Houston, and was slowly shrinking in the east.
 Patricia couldтАЩve saved time by passing more to the south, but their escort and
client, the hundred-foot-long workboat Amoco Mechanic, drew a lot more water
than Terminal Lorraine did and they didnтАЩt want to risk running into the top of one
of the old Baylor Medical School buildings.
Terminal Lorraine handled rough water pretty well, for a trimaran, but when the
wind and seas aligned on her rear she developed a corkscrewing motion that got
Patricia every time.
Toni, PatriciaтАЩs new crew, was telling her a joke, and Patricia was listening
carefully, trying to distract herself from simulcasting lunch.
тАЬSo, during the Deluge, the mayor of San Francisco sees the water rise and he
says, тАШOh, my god!тАЩ The mayor of New York sees the streets filled with water and
he says, тАШOh, my god!тАЩ The mayor of Miami sees water everywhere and he says,
тАШOh, my god!тАЩ Then the mayor of New Orleans watches the fish swim through his
office and says, тАШI do declare. Humid, today, eh?тАЩ тАЭ
Patricia had heard it before, but she laughed anyway. Toni did a great Cajun
accent and Patricia was still trying to get her to relax.
The fathometer dropped back to 140 feet, meaning they were past the old
shoreline and over Bolivar Roads, the historic mouth of Galveston Bay. The Amoco
boat turned again, following the old Texas City ship channel, and Patricia adjusted
the sails, letting the thick Dacron rope run through her fingers, while Toni brought
the boat around to the new heading, then recleated the sheets. Toni had been aboard
only for the last two days, and Patricia was mostly happy with her, but she wished
her regular crew couldтАЩve come.
Terminal LorraineтАЩs two outer hulls were elegant forty-foot-long fiberglass
blades, each sporting a single unstayed mast forty feet high. She carried fully
battened тАЬjunkтАЭ sails, Kevlar-reinforced Mylar with composite ribs that stretched the
width of the sail. They were easy to handle single-handed since they were
self-reefing; in high winds the crew just lowered them a span or two and the bottom
battens stacked neatly.
The pitch was a little better on the new heading, Patricia faced into the wind and