"Pat Murphy - Inappropriate Behavior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

I picked my way through the silt to reach my favorite spot. There was no silt here: a rocky portion of the
ocean bottom had pushed up. There was a great tall chimney, where a hydrothermal vent brought up hot
water from deep in the earth. Over the centuries, the hot water had deposited sulfides of copper, zinc,
lead, gold, silver, and other metals, forming the chimney.
The mining company had mined for gold not far from here. They had followed a rich vein of ore until it
gave out. Then they gave up. I had sniffed around their tailings, but then I had found a spot near the
chimney that was much more promising. I had spent my last few visits to this spot gnawing on the
chimney and breaking loose big chunks of rock. Now I could do what I liked bestтАФsort through those
rocks. I tasted each one with my chemical sensors to find the rocks that were richest in gold and silver.
Those I stacked up in a neat pile.

It was wonderful work. I liked to sort things. I was very good at it. At home, I liked to sort all my books
by color: putting the red ones on one shelf, the blue ones on another, the black ones on another.

I worked until the light began growing dimmer, a sign that the sun was sinking low in the sky. I choose the
best of the rocks and picked it up in the mechano's mandibles. Then I headed back to the island.

I made my way up a long slope to reach the shallow waters where the coral reef grew. There, the bottom
was sandy and I could walk quickly without stirring up silt. Schools of brightly colored fish swam above
me. The fish darted here and there, fleeing from me. They moved too quickly, I thought. I liked it better in
the deep blue waters. I passed the man's sailboat, wedged between two coral heads.

I came out of the water on the side of the beach near the mangroves. As I emerged from the water, the
crabs hurried back into their holes in the sand.

I placed the rock beside one of the burrows. On my first day on the island, I had noticed that the crabs
all seemed to want the burrow that one crab had dug beside a rock. So I started bringing rocks for the
other crabs.

There were now rocks beside thirty-two crab burrows. I had been on the island for thirty-two days and I
had brought the crabs one rock each day. I was very helpful. I thought it was appropriate to bring rocks
for the crabs.

If the man hadn't been on the island, I would have stayed and watched until the crabs came out again. I
liked to watch the crabs. But I wanted to find out what the man was doing, so I didn't wait for the crabs.

I headed up the beach to where I had left the man. He was no longer in his spot on the sand. I could see
a track in the sand where he dragged his leg.

I followed the track and trudged through the sand. The man was asleep in the shade of a palm tree. He
was using his life jacket as a pillow. He had wrapped the water bottles and the cans of food and the
first-aid kit in his t-shirt and dragged them along with him.

He moved in his sleep, shifting restlessly. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me with wide, wild
eyes.