"Nick Pollotta - That Darn Squid God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pollotta Nick)

which certainly seemed to substantiate his theory about its origins. With extreme fastidiousness, the
professor made one last minute correction in the ship's placement. Yes. Good enough.
"On my mark, gentlemen, hose the ark with water," Einstein said, assuming a firing stance. "Ready,
aim..."
 The encircling crowd was plainly delighted beyond words, while the stunned Lord Carstairs lowered
his gasogene. "Are you sure this is prudent?" he asked in real concern.
"Fire!" Prof. Einstein cried, triggering his dispenser. A sparkling gush of effervescence splashed onto
the minuscule craft. The stream of water hit it squarely, yet not a single drop of liquid rolled off the vessel
to land on the table. Then an ominous creaking sound came from the wooden boat.
"All of you! Act now!" Einstein barked, over the hissing spray of carbonated water. "Spray quickly,
or the ship will tear itself apart!"
It was more the whipcrack tone of the professor's voice than anything else that made the other
members comply. In an orchestrated attack, several streams of carbonated water went gushing onto the
relic, washing over it from stern to bow and back again.
As the pressure in the gasogenes eventually become exhausted, the rush of soda water slowed to a
trickle, the last dribbles falling from the spouts to spot the India rug.
"Astonishing," Duke Farthington whispered, staring at the little boat. It was barely damp. Definitely,
something strange was going on here.
With a bizarre sucking noise, the pools of moisture around the craft disappeared into the hull, and
before the startled eyes of the club members, the desiccated craft began to swell like some impossible
sponge. With incredible speed, the expanding ship outgrew the display table, the enlarging pushing aside
a vacant chair and smashing a lamp.
"Get back!" Colonel Pierpont cried out, throwing both hands skyward and accidentally knocking off
his pince-nez glasses.
No further prompting was needed for the startled club members to dive for safety. With a loud
crack, the display table broke apart and crashed to the floor. Rapidly, the ark continued to increase in
size in every direction, all the while creaking and groaning as if was being tortured on the high seas. Five
yards, ten, twenty yards in length it reached, before the rate of growth noticeably slowed.
"By Jove!" Baron Edgewaters roared, crouching behind an ottoman. "Look at that! The bloody thing
actually is Noah's Ark!"
"Indubitably," somebody said from the other side of the craft.
"This is dehydration on a scale unheard of in the entire civilized world!" added another unseen
member from the general vicinity of the prow.
"Or England," a patriotic chap added, from behind the window curtains.
"Congratulations, Benjamin!" Lord Danvers boomed from under the liquor cart.
Wriggling from their hiding places, the entire assemblage gathered around Lord Carstairs and gave
him a thunderous round of applause. Beaming in unabashed pleasure, Carstairs suddenly took on a
pained expression and pointed in horror. Everybody turned just in time to see the still slowly expanding
prow of the vessel nose into the trough of the bubbling fountain.
"Bloody hell," Prof. Einstein whispered, taking a step backwards.
There came a loud slurping noise, closely followed by a mighty groan of tormented wood, and the
ark exploded into double its size. More than fifty yards in length, the vessel loomed over the scrambling
men as it continued to grow, rapidly filling the Great Hall. With the sound of shattering stone, the fountain
noisily collapsed and the ship settled over the stony remains, precipitating a great column of water that
washed over the ship and yielded yet another massive spurt of growth.
"The mains!" Lord Carstairs shouted to the staff members who were staring in wonder through the
doorway. "Turn off the water mains!"
Obediently, one of the servants spun about and dashed down the hall.
His mind swirling with dire mathematics, Prof. Einstein could only scowl at the monstrosity forming
before them. _Two and seven of every animal on the earth. How big would the Ark get? Answer: too