"Peter Watts - Bulk Food" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

"As I said, there are no orca steaks available," Finch begins.
"But I can offer you some beluga sushi from my private stock."
Doug takes a hop forward. Another. It's almost impossible to
get beluga. And this isn't the black-market, Saint-Lawrence
beluga, the stuff that gives you mercury poisoning if you eat it
more than twice a year. This is absolute primo Hudson Bay
beluga. The only people harpooning them are a few captive Inuit
on a natural habitat reserve out of Churchill, and even they only get
away with it because they keep pushing the aboriginal rights angle.
Nobody's figured out Belugan yetтАФfrom what Doug's heard,
belugas are probably too stupid to even have a languageтАФso
nobody needs to cut a deal with them.
22 Peter Watts

The box in Finch's hands costs about what Doug would make in
a week.
"Will this be acceptable?" Bob Finch asks politely.
Doug tries to be cool. "Well, I suppose so."
He's almost sure they don't hear the squeak in his voice.

***

To the untrained eye, it looks like rambunctious play. In fact,
the cavorting and splashing and bellyflopping is a synchronized
and complex behavior. Co-operative hunting, it's called. First
reported from the Antarctic, when a pod of killer whales was seen
creating a mini-tidal wave to wash a crabeater seal off an ice floe.
Definite sign of intelligence, that, the first mate's been told. He
squints through his binoculars and the intermittent fog until the
whales finish.
The first mate pulls open the wheelhouse hatch and climbs
inside. The captain throws Dipnet into gear, singing:
And they'll know we are sisters by our love, by ourтАФ
The mate picks up the tune and rummages in a locker, surfaces
with a bottle of Crown Royal. "Good show today." He raises the
bottle in salute.

***

Doug Largha safely departed, Bob Finch extracts a pair of
wineglasses from the shelves beneath the coffee table. He fills
them from a convenient bottle of Chardonnay while Anna Marie
taps a panel beside the flatscreen. The distant gurgling of Juan de
Fuca fills the room once more.
Finch presents the activist with her glass. "Any problems on
your end?"
Hamilton snorts, still fiddling one-handed with the controls.
"You kidding? Turnover in the movement has always been high.
And nobody turns down a chance to commune with the whales. It's
a real adventure for them." The wall monitor flickers into