[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
going to be even more powerful: an Establishment. We only need a few years. Meanwhile, we make
investments and alliances. Take a look at the way brilliant people have been attracted to Naples these
last few years! It's not been just to the WWO. or the European Government Centre. It's been to my
clinic! In another five years, we'll be able to step in and rule Europe - and from there it's just a short step
to America and Africa.'
'You see,' Caterina said, 'he is mad, Clem, that sort of sane madness I told you about. But he daren't
shoot! He daren't shoot, in case they locked him up for life - and that's a long time for him!'
Recognizing the wild note in his wife's voice, Yale told her to sit down and drink another beer. 'I'm going
to take Theo round to see the whales. Come on, Theo! I want to show you what you're up against, with
all your fruitless ambitions.'
Theo gave him a sharp look, as if speculating whether he might yield useful information if humoured,
evidently concluded that he would and rose to follow Yale. As he went out, he looked back towards
Caterina. She avoided his glance.
It was dazzling to be out in the bright sun again. The crowd was still hanging about the helicopter,
chatting intermittently with the pilot, Thomas. Ignoring them, Yale led Devlin past the machine and round
the lagoon, blinding in the glare of noon. Devlin gritted his teeth and said nothing. He seemed diminished
as they exposed themselves to a lansdcape almost as bare as an old bone, walking the narrow line
between endless blue ocean and the green socket of lagoon.
Without pausing, Yale led on to the north-west strip of beach. It sloped steeply, so that they could see
nothing of the rest of the island except the old Portuguese fort, which terminated their view ahead. Grim,
black, and ruinous, it might have been some meaningless tumescence erupted by marine forces. As the
men tramped towards it, the fort was dwarfed by the intervening carcasses of whales.
Five whales had died here, two of them recently. The giant bodies of the two recently dead still
supported rotting flesh, though the skulls gleamed white where the islanders had stripped them for meat
and cut out their tongues. The other three had evidently been cast up here at an earlier date, for they
were no more than arching skeletons with here and there a fragment of parched skin flapping between rib
bones like a curtain in the breeze.
'What have you brought me here for?' Theo was panting, his solid chest heaving.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
'To teach you humility and to make you sweat. Look on these works, ye mighty, and despair! These
were blue whales, Theo, the largest mammal ever to inhabit this planet! Look at this skeleton! This chap
weighed over a hundred tons for sure. He's about eighty feet long.' As he spoke, he stepped into the
huge rib cage, which creaked like an old tree as he braced himself momentarily against it. 'A heart beat
right here, Theo, that weighed about eight hundredweight.'
'You could have delivered Fifty Amazing Facts of Natural History, or whatever you call this lecture, in
the shade.'
'Ah, but this isn't natural history, Theo. It's highly unnatural. These five beasts rotting here once
swallowed krill far away in Antarctic waters. They must have gulped down a few mouthfuls of copepod
at the same time - copepods that had picked up the Baltic virus. The virus infected the whales. By your
admission, that can only have been five years ago, eh? Yet it is long enough to ensure that more blue
whales - they were practically extinct from over-fishing as you know - survived the hazards of immaturity
and bred. It would mean too that the breeding period of older specimens was extended. Yet five years is
not enough to produce a glut in whales as it is in herrings.'
'What are blue whales doing near the Laccadives in any case?'
'I never found a way to ask them. I only know that these creatures appeared off shore here at full moon,
each in a different. month. Caterina could tell you - she saw them and told me all about it in her letters.
My son Philip was here with her when the last one arrived. Something drove the whales right across the
Equator into these seas. Something drove them to cast themselves up on to this beach, raking their [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl ocenkijessi.opx.pl
going to be even more powerful: an Establishment. We only need a few years. Meanwhile, we make
investments and alliances. Take a look at the way brilliant people have been attracted to Naples these
last few years! It's not been just to the WWO. or the European Government Centre. It's been to my
clinic! In another five years, we'll be able to step in and rule Europe - and from there it's just a short step
to America and Africa.'
'You see,' Caterina said, 'he is mad, Clem, that sort of sane madness I told you about. But he daren't
shoot! He daren't shoot, in case they locked him up for life - and that's a long time for him!'
Recognizing the wild note in his wife's voice, Yale told her to sit down and drink another beer. 'I'm going
to take Theo round to see the whales. Come on, Theo! I want to show you what you're up against, with
all your fruitless ambitions.'
Theo gave him a sharp look, as if speculating whether he might yield useful information if humoured,
evidently concluded that he would and rose to follow Yale. As he went out, he looked back towards
Caterina. She avoided his glance.
It was dazzling to be out in the bright sun again. The crowd was still hanging about the helicopter,
chatting intermittently with the pilot, Thomas. Ignoring them, Yale led Devlin past the machine and round
the lagoon, blinding in the glare of noon. Devlin gritted his teeth and said nothing. He seemed diminished
as they exposed themselves to a lansdcape almost as bare as an old bone, walking the narrow line
between endless blue ocean and the green socket of lagoon.
Without pausing, Yale led on to the north-west strip of beach. It sloped steeply, so that they could see
nothing of the rest of the island except the old Portuguese fort, which terminated their view ahead. Grim,
black, and ruinous, it might have been some meaningless tumescence erupted by marine forces. As the
men tramped towards it, the fort was dwarfed by the intervening carcasses of whales.
Five whales had died here, two of them recently. The giant bodies of the two recently dead still
supported rotting flesh, though the skulls gleamed white where the islanders had stripped them for meat
and cut out their tongues. The other three had evidently been cast up here at an earlier date, for they
were no more than arching skeletons with here and there a fragment of parched skin flapping between rib
bones like a curtain in the breeze.
'What have you brought me here for?' Theo was panting, his solid chest heaving.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
'To teach you humility and to make you sweat. Look on these works, ye mighty, and despair! These
were blue whales, Theo, the largest mammal ever to inhabit this planet! Look at this skeleton! This chap
weighed over a hundred tons for sure. He's about eighty feet long.' As he spoke, he stepped into the
huge rib cage, which creaked like an old tree as he braced himself momentarily against it. 'A heart beat
right here, Theo, that weighed about eight hundredweight.'
'You could have delivered Fifty Amazing Facts of Natural History, or whatever you call this lecture, in
the shade.'
'Ah, but this isn't natural history, Theo. It's highly unnatural. These five beasts rotting here once
swallowed krill far away in Antarctic waters. They must have gulped down a few mouthfuls of copepod
at the same time - copepods that had picked up the Baltic virus. The virus infected the whales. By your
admission, that can only have been five years ago, eh? Yet it is long enough to ensure that more blue
whales - they were practically extinct from over-fishing as you know - survived the hazards of immaturity
and bred. It would mean too that the breeding period of older specimens was extended. Yet five years is
not enough to produce a glut in whales as it is in herrings.'
'What are blue whales doing near the Laccadives in any case?'
'I never found a way to ask them. I only know that these creatures appeared off shore here at full moon,
each in a different. month. Caterina could tell you - she saw them and told me all about it in her letters.
My son Philip was here with her when the last one arrived. Something drove the whales right across the
Equator into these seas. Something drove them to cast themselves up on to this beach, raking their [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]