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

"It's too dangerous. We don't know what the beast is; it might attack on sight."

I was watching Bernard. His face tightened, became older, harsher. He was going. "Drop it, Evinson," I
said. "They know about me. The only water I'll find is the river, which I already stumbled across,
remember. And Bernard is right. If there's anything, we should go out and try to find it."

Evinson grumbled some more, but he couldn't really forbid it, since this was what the expedition was all
about. Besides, he knew damn well there was no way on earth that he could enforce any silly edict.
Sulkily he left us to plan our foray.

****

It was impossible to tell how the waterways had been laid out in many places. The water had spread,
making marshes, and had changed its course, sometimes flowing down streets, again vanishing entirely,
leaving dry beds as devoid of life as the Martian canals. Ruined concrete and sand lay there now. And
the ruins went on and on. No frame houses remained; they had caved in, or had been blown down, or
burned. A trailer court looked as if someone had taken one corner of the area and lifted it, tipping the
chrome and gaudy-colored cans to one side. Creepers and shrubs were making a hill of greenery over
them. We rowed and carried the boat and our stuff all day, stopped for the storms, then found shelter in
a school building when it grew dark. The mosquitoes were worse the farther we went; their whining
drowned out all other noises; we were both a mass of swollen bites that itched without letup. We saw
nothing bigger than a squirrel. Bernard thought he glimpsed a manatee once, but it disappeared in the
water plants and didn't show again. I didn't see it. There were many birds.

We were rowing late in the afternoon of the second day when Bernard motioned me to stop. We drifted
and I looked where he pointed. On the bank was a great gray heron, its head stretched upward in a
strange but curiously graceful position. Its wings were spread slightly, and it looked like nothing so much
as a ballerina, poised, holding out her tutu. With painful slowness it lifted one leg and flexed its toes, then
took a dainty, almost mincing step. Bernard pointed again, and I saw the second bird, in the same pose,
following a ritual that had been choreographed incalculable ages ago. We watched the dance of the birds
in silence, until without warning Bernard shouted in a hoarse, strange voice, "Get out of here! You fucking
birds! Get out of here!" He hit the water with his oar, making an explosive noise, and continued to
scream at them as they lifted in panicked flight and vanished into the growth behind them, trailing their
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long legs, ungainly now and no longer beautiful.

"Bastard," I muttered, and started to row again. We were out of synch for a long time as he chopped at
the water ineffectually.

We watched the rain later, not talking. We hadn't talked since seeing the birds' courtship dance. I had a
sunburn that was painful and peeling; I was tired, and hungry for some real food. "Tomorrow morning we
start back," I said. I didn't look at him. We were in a small house while the rain and wind howled and
pounded and turned the world gray. Lightning flashed and thunder rocked us almost simultaneously. The
house shook and I tensed, ready to run. Bernard laughed. He waited for the wind to let up before he
spoke.