"Kate Wilhelm - Day Of The Sharks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

water as the tide flows in like a river.

"Twelve feet deep here," Bill says. "It's shallow up in the fingers. Point's
the place to be." His boat is thirty-five feet, two-forty horsepower
Westinghouse...

Gary gazes at the gently moving water and doesn't listen to Bill cataloguing
his treasures. Objects and wielders, he thinks. They all were objects and
wielders of objects last night. Changing roles as easily as they changed their
clothes. Even his too-brief contact with Shar was object and wielder, and he
does not know who played which part.

Suddenly he recalls the scene when he first visited Veronica in the hospital.
She was stupefied from Thorazine, or something they gave her. Her voice was
singsong. "I don't think there are any people, Gary. Nowhere. They're all
gone, and I don't know where they went. I'm so afraid." She did not sound
afraid, only dull and drug-stupid.

Later, Bill will make his pitch, Gary knows. _Hit a little snag, old buddy.
You know how it goes_. He knows. He drinks the strong black coffee, thinking
how distant his head has become, throbbing like drums not quite heard, but
felt as pressure. Across the bay the land has not been developed yet and shows
a low green, irregular skyline, a fitting place for the drums to originate
from. He watches a boat sail up the channel, nearly all the way across the
bay.

"We'll just rest up this afternoon," Bill says. "Take life easy, that's the
motto down here. Not like your big city, eh?"

No one replies. Veronica is nibbling on a piece of toast; some color has come
back to her face, but it is probably only the beginning of a sunburn. Shar's
gaze meets Gary's and she lets her eyes close slightly, a very faint smile on
her mouth.

"And tomorrow, bright and early, we'll take the boat out," Bill says. "Do a
little fishing out in the gulf." He pours more coffee and lights a cigarette.

"What's that?" Veronica says suddenly, sitting upright. She points. "A shark,
or something."

They all look as a dark form breaks the smooth surface of the water, arches
up, and vanishes again. It is on their side of the channel, several hundred
yards out.

"I'll be damned," Bill says. "One of those whales. I thought they all died."
He watches and when it breaks the water again, he nods in satisfaction. "It's
a false killer whale."

"Killer whale? Here?" Gary asks.