"Kress, Nancy - Wetlands Preserve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Lisa had to agree with him. Just last night she'd heard two women at the grocery store speculating about what could be going on "down to the Preserve, with all them crazy tree-huggers." And the off-duty soldiers went in and out of Flaherty's, the town's most popular bar. She'd seen them.

"I think we can leave security to the professionals whose job it is," Paul said smoothly, "and get on with our own job. First, a really exciting report from Dr. Mary Clark of Harvard."

"Thanks, Paul," Dr. Clark said. "Hang onto your hats, guys. We've finished the water analyses. Our alien footed snakes are not the only extraterrestrials in the Preserve."

Gasps, chatter, shouted questions. Dr. Clark held up her hand, eyes gleaming at the sensation she'd produced. "There are one-celled organisms with the same non-DNA genetic structure out there in the swamp water. There are also multi-celled organisms and some primitive worms."

Over the fresh buzz, someone called out, "Nothing in between? In evolutionary terms?"

"No," Dr. Clark said, "and of course we still don't understand that."

No one did. It was the central mystery about the alien snakersЧhow had whoever sent them known what environment they would find when the craft landed? Had the snakers been chosen because, miraculously, they were perfectly adapted to a swamp environment at this latitude? That could be true only if their planet of origin were very similar to Earth, which seemed too much of an unlikely coincidence. (In fact, as the NASA rep had said, the odds against it were so high that the possibility was meaningless.)

Had the snakers been engineered for this environment? But that argued a detailed knowledge of an Earth swamp ecosystem, and how could the genetic engineers have that unless they'd been here? If they had, why not just appear themselves? Why send these non-sentient but apparently harmless creatures as forerunners?

And now these much more primitive non-DNA creatures. Too primitive to serve as food for the snakers, which in any case were eating sedges and Lemna minor just fine. And that brought the questions full circle to the central issue: How could the snakers be metabolizing food they had not evolved to metabolize?

The rest of the meeting produced no answer. The Harvard geneticist gave a long and detailed progress report of the research into the peculiar, scattered genetic structures in the alien cells. Lisa listened intently. After forty-five minutes she discerned the central point: Nobody knew anything definitive.

There were other reports and what promised to be an intense give-and-take, but she couldn't stay. She had to get Carlo from Mrs. Belling. Paul turned his head as she went out the door, and she saw him frown.

But, then, Paul had a wife looking after his children.




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Danilo showed up while she was feeding Carlo. He opened the apartment door, walked in, and dropped his knapsack on the floor. Carlo sang out, "Hi, Uncle Danilo!" and Lisa was stuck being semi-polite.
"I brought some veggies," Danilo said. "Did you know you have an organic farmer just the other side of town?"

"No," Lisa said. "I don't shop around much."

"Good stuff. No pesticides, no fertilizers. I thought I'd make a salad. Do you like salad, Carlo?"

"Yes!" said Carlo, who liked everything.

"I got some peaches and cherries, too."

Lisa's mouth filled with sweet water. She made herself say, "Thank you, Danilo. But you should knock, you know. It's good manners." She looked pointedly at Carlo.

"You're right. I will. Carlo, watch this."

Danilo tossed cherries in the air, caught them in his mouth, mimed exaggerated satisfaction. Carlo laughed, and so Danilo hammed it up more, until the little boy was whooping with laughter. "Now Carlo's turn."

"Pit them first, Danny," Lisa said quickly. He had always swallowed the cherry pits. Oh God, Danny Е it had just slipped out.

Danilo played with Carlo all evening. It wasn't until Carlo was in bed that Lisa could throw Danilo out. "You can't do this."