"Kate Wilhelm - Scream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

woman. Corrie was softer than Delia, her hips a bit rounder, her breasts bouncier, not much, but Delia's
never moved at all. Corrie had more of a waistline. My thoughts were confusing to me, and I tried to
think of something else, but that damn statue kept intruding. I should have talked to her, I found myself
thinking. And she would have looked at me with contempt. She would have looked at any of our men
with contempt except, possibly, Trainor.

I watched and listened to Trainor then, speaking with Bernard. Trainor was tall and broad shouldered,
his hair white, face browned by the sun, very lean and very muscular.

"Have you ever seen any wild animals as far north as the cape?" Bernard asked, sketching. His fingers
were swift and sure: that characterized him all the way, actually. He was soft looking, but he moved with
a sureness always. A dilettante artist, photographer, in his mid-thirties, rich enough not to work. There
had been a mild affair with Corrie, but nothing serious. I didn't know why he was here.

"Deer," Trainor said in answer to his question. "There's a lot of things up in the brush. Foxes, rabbits,
muskrats, possum."

"Anything big? I heard that lions were let loose, or escaped around West Palm Beach. Did they live,
multiply?"

"Can't say."

"Heard there were panthers."
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"Can't say."

"How about Indians? You must know if any of them are left in the swamps." Bernard's pencil stopped,
but he didn't look at Trainor.

"Could be. Don't go inland much. No way to get inland, hard going by boat, hyacinths, thick enough to
walk on. Too much stuff in the water everywhere. St. John's River used to be open, but not now."

"How about fish then? See any porpoises?"

"They come and go. Don't stay around long. Hear they're thick down around South America and in the
Caribbean. Might be."

I watched Bernard for a long time. What was he after? And Trainor? I had a feeling that the seven
people who had come to the city had seven different reasons, and that mine was the only simple one.
Orders. When you work for the government and an undersecretary says go, you go. Why were the
others here?

In bed later, I couldn't sleep. The odors all came back in triple strength after dark. I could feel the mold
growing around me, on me, in my bedroll. The humidity was a weight on my chest. I finally got up again,
drenched with sweat, my bed soaked through, and I went back to the second floor where I interrupted
Delia and Bernard in a quiet conversation. I got a beer and sat down near the window, my back to them