"James Tiptree Jr - The Color of Neanderthal Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

Well, I have heard people say that about white sharks. I resolve to watch out for any "big fish."
The storm is closer and closer, but still nothing stirs around us. Half the sky is shuttered with black
roiling cloud, yet here it is impossibly bright and calm. The barometer must be falling through the deck, it
is suddenly a little hard to breathe. I check it; yes, it's at the lowest point I've seen it. This is going to be
ferocious.
We watch quietly, gripped by the drama of the scene. The water-animal has now disappeared.
Just as it seems that nothing will ever happen, a shudder runs through the world. Still in total calm, the
sea wrinkles itself like the skin of a great beast. A tiny puff of cool wind lifts our hair. And a few big
drops of rain, or perhaps hailstones, plop into the surface of the water and onto the beach.
And then, with a rush and a bellow, the storm hits.
In a moment the flat water has reared itself into a thousand billows two meters high, running unbroken
from shore to shore. The breeze becomes a blast of wind against us. In the last rays of sunlight, a million
specks of diamond flash from the waves into darkness. And then the sun is eclipsed by cloud, the world
is twilight-dark.
Eerily, the papyrus plants all bend over with a whipping sound before we feel the wind that bent them.
And then it hits, and the boat bangs up and down as if it will tear from the earth.
We scramble back from the dune-top and get under cover of the boat, holding it down over our
heads. Then the sky opens, and tons of water dump on us, drumming intolerably on the boat. I am sure it
is hail that will tear the boat, but when I stick out a hand, it is not. The world is in uproar around us.
Kamir is going excitedly "Whoo! Whee!"тАФI can barely hear her over the storm, but I can see her
eyes flashing blue fire and her little back fin standing straight up.
"This is not boring?" I yell.
"No!" Laughing, grinning with excitement.
"ButтАФ" I begin and am drowned out by a crack! of lightning, and thunder like a gigantic bolt of
tearing silk. Then the cracks and flashes and roars and rumbles are all about us. The strikes seem to be
hitting the beach and the dunes. I see Kamir's fin suddenly clamp itself into her back, and her laughter
changes to a squeal. I realize she hasn't seen, or has forgotten, the lightning part of a storm. She hangs on
to my arm, quaking as each bolt hits. And then, somehow, she is in my arm, her face pressed against my
chest, while I hang on to the boat for dear life with the other arm.
"It won't hit us, the boat will stop it," I howl at her.
Water is coursing down the sides of the hollow we are in. Down below, the beach has disappeared
under a wilderness of sinister yellow-gray breakers that are striking and tearing against the dunes, and
throwing spray to mingle with the rain on us.
 But by degrees, the wind changes from a wild whirl to a steady blow, driving the rain across us, and I
am able to release my aching arm and rope the boat more securely.
That was, I think, my last chance to escape.
But I do not take it. That arm joins the other around the slender quivering Kamir, and she clamps her
whole body against me. For warmth.
Her back is cold. I rub it to warm her, cannot resist fingering the pretty little fin, which makes her
giggle. I rub, stroke, but the coolness seems to be in her skin. It feels thick, a pale green velour over soft
curves. I try to concentrate on its interest, its prevention of dehydration. Yes, I see there are tiny pores,
but how they function is beyond me. I am stroking rhythmically now, unable to keep from enjoying the
exquisite forms of her back and flanks.
And oh! Warmth comes, but not the warmth I wanted. Her shivers have turned into unmistakable,
sinuous wiggles under my hand. She is whispering something, her free hand feeling for my swim trunks.
And, gods! Her silken loincloth seems to have come undoneтАж Tom Jared, what are you doing? Stop
now, you fool. This is no girl, but a grown alienтАФa god-lost fish!
There is no stopping. I have only time to glimpse what seems to be an organ on the front of her lower
belly, a solid mounded track running up to her navel, like a newly-healed scar. My body has taken me
over, relieved me of the cold swim trunks, and is longing to press into her.