Bain, Darrell & Berry, Jeanine Gates 03 World of the Sex Gates
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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
windows and driving off the iguanas who had come out to watch. Others glided
among the buildings and took up their positions on the barely covered
rooftops. Behind them, in the centre of the lagoon, the beaten water churned
uneasily, occasionally throwing up the snow-white belly of a dead alligator
crushed by the hydroplane.
As the advancing armada headed towards the creek on his left, Kerans scrambled
down the fire escape and splashed down the sloping roof to the catamaran.
Before he could reach it the heavy wash set up by the hydroplane had rocked
the craft adrift, and it floated off into the oncoming mass. Within a few
seconds it was engulfed, up-ended by the press of alligators fighting to get
into the creek and cut to pieces in their snapping jaws.
A large caiman bringing up the rear spotted Kerans waist-deep among the
horse-tails and
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rowned%20World.txt veered towards him, its eyes steadying. Its rough scaly
back and the crest along its tail flexed powerfully as it surged through the
water. Quickly Kerans retreated up the slope, slipping once to his shoulders,
reached the fire escape as the caiman lumbered out of the shallows on its
short hooked legs and lunged at his leaping feet.
Panting, Kerans leaned on the rail, looking down at the cold unblinking eyes
which regarded him dispassionately.
"You're a well-trained watchdog," he told it ungrudgingly. He eased a loose
brick from the wall and launched it with both hands at the knob on the end of
the caiman's snout, grinning as it bellowed and backed off, snapping irritably
at the horse-tails and a few drifting spars of the catamaran.
After half an hour, and a few minor duels with the retreating iguanas, he
managed to cross the intervening two hundred yards of shoreline and reach
Beatrice's apartment house. She met him as he stepped out of the elevator,
wide-eyed with alarm.
"Robert, what's happening?" She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed her
head against his damp shirt. "Have you seen the alligators? There are
thousands of them!"
"_Seen_ them--I was damn nearly eaten by one on your doorstep." Kerans
released himself and hurried over to the window, pushed back the plastic
vanes. The hydroplane had entered the central lagoon and was circling it at
speed, the shoal of alligators following in its wake, those at the tail
breaking off to station themselves at points around the shore. At least thirty
or forty had remained in the lagoon below, and were cruising about slowly in
small patrols, occasionally swerving on a careless iguana.
"Those devilish things must be their watch-guards," Kerans decided. "Like a
tame troupe of tarantulas. Nothing better, when you come to think of it."
Beatrice stood beside him, nervously fingering the collar of the jade silk
shirt she wore over her black swimsuit. Although the apartment was beginning
to look ramshackle and untidy, Beatrice continued to tend her own appearance
devotedly. On the few occasions when Kerans called she would be sitting on the
patio or before a mirror in her bedroom, automatically applying endless layers
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of patina like a blind painter forever retouching a portrait he can barely
remember for fear that otherwise he will forget it completely. Her hair was
always dressed immaculately, the make-up on her mouth and eyes exquisitely
applied, but her withdrawn, isolated gaze gave her the waxen, glacé beauty of
an inanimate mannequin. At last, however, she had been roused.
"But who are they, Robert? That man in the speed-boat frightens me. I wish
Colonel Riggs was here."
"He'll be a thousand miles away by now, if he hasn't already reached Byrd.
Don't worry, Bea. They may look a piratical crew, but there's nothing we can
give them."
A large three-decker paddle-boat, paddles set fore and aft, had entered the
lagoon, and was slowly moving over to the three scows drawn up a few yards
from where Riggs' base had been moored. It was loaded with gear and cargo,
decks crammed with large bales and canvas-swathed machinery, so that there was
only six inches of freeboard amidships.
Kerans guessed that this was the group's depot ship, and that they were
engaged, like most of the other freebooters still wandering through the
Equatorial lagoons and archipelagoes, in pillaging the drowned cities,
reclaiming the heavy specialised machinery such as electrical power generators [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
