"Timothy Zahn - Manta's Gift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

The seconds ticked by. A new set of creaks joined the howl of the wind outside, and a glance at the
depth indicator showed they had officially beaten Keefer and O'Reilly's record.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Timothy%20Zahn%20-%20Manta's%20Gift.htm (8 of 298) [10/18/2004 3:39:27 PM]
Manta's Gift



They were also nearly to the theoretical pressure limit of their own hull. Not only were they about to
die, he thought bitterly, but they were going to get to watch the countdown to that death.

Something flashed past the window, illuminated briefly by their exterior lights. "What was that?"

"One of our thirty-meter wonders," Chippawa said. "Got some pictures as he went past."

Lost in his own last thoughts, Faraday had forgotten all about the grocery-warehouse creatures that
had chased off Dark Eye. "Anything good?" he asked, trying to force some interest.

"I'd say we've found the top of the food chain," Chippawa said. "Look at thisтАФit's got a bunch of
those manta-ray things hanging onto its underside."

Like remoras on a shark, Faraday thought with a shiver. Waiting to pick up the scraps from the big
boy's kill. "So the smaller ones who ran past us were scouts or something?"

"Could be," Chippawa said. Something moved up into their lights from belowтАФ

And Faraday was slammed violently against his armrest as the Skydiver came to a sudden halt. For a
few seconds he lay helplessly there, gazing at an incredibly lumpy brownish-gray surface outside the
window. Then, with a sort of ponderous inevitability, the Skydiver rolled over into an upright
position again.

"Have we hit bottom?" Faraday asked, knowing even before the words were out of his mouth that it
was a stupid question. There was little if anything that could be called "bottom" on a gas-giant world
like Jupiter. Somewhere below them there might be a rocky center or a supercompressed core of
solid hydrogen, but the Skydiver would never survive long enough to get anywhere near that.

What had happened was obvious. Obvious, and frightening.

They had landed on top of Predator Number Two.

"We're still going down," Chippawa grunted. "These things must really be delicate. We're not that
heavy, especially with one of the floats deployed."

"I guess we're heavy enough," Faraday said, rubbing the side of his neck as he gazed out the
window.

His first impression, just before they'd hit, had been that the predator's skin was lumpy. Only now, as
he had time to study it, did he realize just how incredibly lumpy it actually was.