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

"_False_ killer whale. Harmless, just looks like the real thing. Listen, let
me tell you what I saw a few weeks ago. Damnedest thing I ever saw in my life.
Over near Fort Myers. I was driving along, heard this report on the car radio
about whales beaching themselves. So I thought, what the hell, I'd go have a
look. Beach was crowded with people by the time I got there, but nothing was
happening. I keep binoculars in the car, you know? So I got them out, and
watched. There was a line of those animals out there in the water, quarter of
a mile offshore, just laying there in the water. Not moving a muscle. No surf,
no wind, as calm as that bay is right now. I kept watching, beginning to get
bored with the whole thing, you know? They weren't doing a damn thing. Just
laying there. Then, by God, they started to move in. All at once, all
together, like a goddam chorus line. And they kept coming, and kept coming
until they were in water too shallow to swim in and they began to roll. People
were jumping in from everywhere, yanking on them, trying to get them turned
around, headed back out. Some people had rowboats, a couple of motorboats,
people in the water up to their necks, just trying to get those things back
out to sea. And while they're working with this bunch, another bunch was
starting in, the females and young. They'd been waiting half a mile offshore
for some kind of a damn signal, or something, and now they were coming in.
People kept getting the first ones turned around, and those whales would just
sort of swerve a couple of feet to one side or the other and back they'd come
in to shore. It went on for hours. Some of the boats towed a couple of the big
males out to sea again, I guess hoping that the others would follow them. They
didn't."

His voice is low, awed, his gaze following the movements of the whale in the
bay. "They got a lot of them out to sea again, but a dozen of them made it in.
They died on the beach. Mass suicide. The damnedest thing I ever saw."

No one speaks for several moments, then Veronica says, "Why?" Her voice is
tight and high. "Were they sick?"

"Marine biologists couldn't find anything wrong. No sharks in the water. No
storms to mix them up, and it was too deliberate to think they just made a
mistake, misjudged the depth of the water. No one knows why."

"That's crazy!" Veronica cries, jumping up. "There has to be a reason. There's
always a reason!" The shrillness of her voice is startling. She clamps her
lips and runs up the dock, back inside the house.

"God, I'm sorry," Bill says, his big face contrite. "I shouldn't have told
that story. It... it haunts me."

"Forget it," Gary says. "What happened to the rest of the whales? You thought
they all died?"

"That's the worst part," Bill says soberly. "The next day they found them down
in the Keys. Beached on one of the islands down there."

Shar stands up. "I'll go do something about lunch. The caterers must be gone