"MD Spenser - Humano Morphs 4 Air Morph One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spenser M D)

That takes a lot of shoveling, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that cow doody is extremely heavy stuff.
And the sound Ч how can I describe it?
You know the slurping sound you make when you're trying to suck the last bit of milkshake through your straw from the very bottom of your cup?
It drives my mom crazy when I make that sound. Whenever she's around I make the sound a little louder just to see if I can annoy her.
Well, to understand the sound in the milking center, you have to start with one kid's milkshake slurp and then multiply it. By a lot.
The cows were hooked up to milking machines, which sucked the milk out of their udders and through stainless steel pipes off to storage containers and the pasteurization center, and so forth.
Two thousand cows stood lined up in that giant hall.
So that meant the noise in the milking center sounded like eight thousand kids standing side by side, all simultaneously trying to slurp the last few drops of milkshakes through their eight thousand straws in a pulsating rhythm.
That's a lot of slurping.
Miss Smith was talking quite loudly, trying to make herself heard over the roar of the slurps. She started explaining how the diet of each cow was scientifically designed to make that specific cow produce the most milk.
Then she went into food analysis. She discussed complex carbohydrates and the difference between different kinds of sugars, like glucose and dextrose and fructose. She described the proteins contained in gluten, and the peculiarities of the digestive systems of cows.
I tried to pay attention. I knew Freddy would want to discuss all this fascinating information when we got out of there, and I liked it when he paid attention to the stuff that interests me.
But it was no use. My mind wandered. I looked at the ceiling. I checked for dirt under my fingernails. I gazed out the window at the fields beyond. That was when I saw it. In the middle of one of the fields, I spotted a small lagoon. The water looked clear enough. I saw reflected in the surface the blue of the sky and some dark clouds moving in from the west.
That's funny, I thought. The weather was clear as a bell when we arrived.
Then, on the far bank of the lagoon, I noticed a large black form. It lay there motionless.
I squinted, trying to adjust my eyes to the light.
The form had prongs of a sort stuck out stiffly from it.
I realized then that it was a cow, lying on its side with its legs splayed. The cow, obviously, was quite dead.
I started to point out the window. My lips moved to ask a question, but no sound came.
Then, as I stared out the window, a meadow-lark landed in the grass a few feet from the lagoon. The little bird turned its head this way and that, hopped toward the lagoon, and strutted proudly along the water's edge.
Then it turned its head both ways, leaned forward and dipped its beak in the water to drink. Then it opened its beak and seemed to choke. It tried to fly, but could not. Instead, it staggered around in a circle Ч then fell over stone dead under the darkening sky.


Chapter Seven

Freddy could not believe what I was telling him.
I had been so shocked by what I had seen through the window that I had said nothing about it at the time, and I had asked no questions.
I remembered how hard Miss Smith had stared at Freddy when he had asked what seemed like a reasonable question. Something inside me said it would be better if Miss Smith didn't even know what I had seen. So I didn't ask her.
I plodded through the rest of the tour in a daze, wondering why there might be a pool of poison water in the field outside the milk plant.
By the time we left, with Miss Smith waving at us and smiling without looking happy, the dark clouds had covered the sky completely. It wasn't raining hard, just spitting a bit. Little raindrops pelted us as we headed for the bus.
Now Freddy and I sat in my room under the
gaze of various presidents, discussing what I had seen. I had Mount Rushmore tacked on one wall. And I had posters of Washington, Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy taped to the other three walls.
"None of it makes any sense," Freddy said. "None of it Ч not the heavy security, not the people in space suits, and least of all the poisonous lagoon in the field."
"And you know what else?" I said. "I looked at the walls of that place as we walked in the front door, and they had to be three feet thick. Who ever heard of a dairy barn with walls like that? It's like a bomb shelter, for Pete's sake! I'll tell you what I think Ч scientists sure have a weird way of making milk."
We argued back and forth a little after that.
Freddy said we had to find a way to figure out what was really going on at the factory. I said that was impossible, because no one could possibly understand science, probably not even the scientists themselves.
Freddy was quiet and insistent. I was loud and skeptical.
I suggested a game of checkers. Freddy said we had to find out.
I suggested listening to some music. Freddy said we had to find out.
I suggested going downstairs for a snack.
Freddy said we had to find out.
Finally, I exploded.
"Why?" I demanded. "I don't care what's going on at that state-of-the-art milk factory? Why do we have to find out?"
"Because," Freddy said very quietly, "it might be dangerous."
"All the more reason to stay away!" I shouted in exasperation.
"All the more reason to find out," Freddy said calmly. I hate it when he stays calm when we're arguing.
"Well, how?" I asked. "How are two twelve-year-old kids going to find out what's going on out there, as you put it?"
"There's only one way," Freddy said. "And that's the scientific method. Look, that factory is in the flood plain. If some part of their process is producing poison, and the waters rise Ч as one day they will Ч it could pollute the river. Fish could die, and maybe even the raccoons and deer and bear that drink from the river."
He smiled a wry smile.
"And the river belongs to all of us," he added. "Particularly, if I may say so, Native Americans like me."