"Walter Jon Williams - Surfacing (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

Our hunger is unabated, Anthony typed. But we will wait for the non-breathers ' return.


WE CANNOT WAIT LONG. TONIGHT WE AND THE NORTH MUST BEGIN THE JOURNEY TO OUR FEEDING TIME.


The voice of Air Human rumbled through the water. It sounded like a distant, throbbing engine. OUR FINEST GREETINGS, ANTHONY. I AND TWO NOTCHES WILL TRAVEL NORTH TOGETHER. THEN WE AND THE OTHERS WILL FEED.


20 Walter Jon Williams


Annoyance slammed into Anthony. Philana had abducted his whale. Clenching his teeth, he typed a civil reply:


Please give our kindest greetings to our hungry brothers and sisters in the north.


By the time he transmitted his speech his anger had faded. Two Notches' departure was inevitable in the next few days, and he'd known that. Still, a residue of jealousy burned in him. Philana would have the whale's company on its journey north: he would be stuck here by Las Madres without the keen whale ears that helped him find the Dwellers.


Two Notches' reply came simultaneously with a programmed reply from Philana. Lyrics about greetings, hunger, feeding, calves, and joy whined through the water, bounced from the cold layer. Anthony looked at the hash his computer made of the translation and laughed. He decided he might as well enjoy Two Notches' company while it lasted.


That was a strange message to hear from our friend, Two Mouths, he typed. "Notch" and "mouth" were almost the same phrase: Anthony had just made a pun.


Whale amusement bubbled through the water. TWO MOUTHS AND I BELONG TO THE MOST UNUSUAL FAMILY BETWEEN SURFACE AND COLD WATER. WE-ALL AND AIR BREATHE EACH OTHER, BUT SOME OF US HAVE THE BAD FORTUNE TO LIVE IN IT.


The sun warmed Anthony's shoulders in spite of the cool air. He decided to leave off the pursuit of the Dwellers and spend the day with his humpback.


He kicked off his shoes, then stepped down to his cooler and made himself a sandwich.


The Dwellers never came out from beneath the cold layer. Anthony spent the afternoon listening to Two Notches tell stories about his family. Now that the issue of hunger was resolved by the whale's decision to migrate, the cold layer beneath them became the new topic of conversation, and Two Notches amused himself by harmonizing with his own echo. Sings of Others arrived in late afternoon and announced he had already begun his journey: he and Two Notches decided to travel in company.


NORTHWARD HOMING! COLD WAT BRING! REUNION JOYOUS! The phrases dopplered closer to Anthony's boat, and then Two Notches broke the water thirty feet off the portbeam, salt water pouring like Niagara from his black jaw, his scalloped fins spread like wings eager to take the air ... Anthony's breath went out of him in surprise. He turned in his chair and leaned away from the sight, half in fear and half in awe ... Even though he was used to the whales, the sight never failed to stun him, thrill him, freeze him in his tracks.


Two Notches toppled over backwards, One clear brown eye fixed on An-


SURFACING 21


thony. Anthony raised an arm and waved, and he thought he saw amusement in Two Notches' glance, perhaps the beginning of an answering wave in the gesture of a fin. A living creature the size of a bus, the whale struck the water not with a smack, but with a roar, a sustained outpour of thunder. Anthony braced himself for what was coming. Salt water flung itself over the gunwale, struck him like a blow. The cold was shocking: his heart lurched. The boat was flung high on the wave, dropped down its face with a jarring thud. Two Notches' flukes tossed high and Anthony could see the mottled pattern, grey and white, on the underside, distinctive as a fingerprint . . . and then the flukes were gone, leaving behind a rolling boat and a boiling sea.