"David Brin - Thor Meets Captain America" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

Thor Meets Captain America

a novella by David Brin
Copyright © 1986 (revised 12/98), by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

1.
Loki's dwarf rolled its eyes and moaned pitifully as the sub leveled off at periscope depth.
With stubby fingers the gnarled, neckless creature pulled its yellow-stained beard and stared
up at the creaking pipes.
A thing of dark forest depths and hidden caves, Chris Turing thought as he watched the
dwarf.
It wasn't meant for this place.
Only men would choose such a way to die, in a leaking steel coffin, on a hopeless attempt
to blow up Valhalla.
But then, it wasn't likely that Loki's dwarf had been given much choice in being here.
Why, Chris wondered suddenly -- not for the first time.
Why do such creatures exist? Wasn't evil doing well enough in the world before they came
to help it along?
The submarine's engines rumbled and Chris shrugged aside the thought. Imagining a world
without Aesir and their servants in it was as hard as remembering a time without war. He sat
strapped in a crash seat listening to the swishing of icy Baltic water just behind a tissue-thin
bulkhead -- and watched the gnome huddle atop a crate of hydrogen bomb parts. It drew its
clublike feet up away from the sloshing brine on the deck, scrunching higher on the black box.
Another moan escaped the dwarf as the Razorfin's periscope went up, and more water gurgled
in through pressure relief lines.
Major Marlowe looked up from the assault rifle he was reassembling for the thirtieth time.
"What's eating the damn dwarf now?" the marine officer asked.
Chris shook his head.
"Search me. The fact that he's out of his element, maybe? After all, the ancient Norse
thought of the deep as a place for sunken boats and fishes."
"I thought you were some sort of expert on the Aesir. And you aren't sure why the thing is
foaming at the mouth?"
"I said I don't know. Why don't you go over and ask him yourself?"
Marlowe gave Chris a sour glance. "Sidle up to that stench and ask Loki's damn dwarf to
explain its feelings? Hmph. I'd rather spit in an Aesir's eye."
From the left side of the cabin, Zap O'Leary leaned out and grinned at Marlowe.
"Dig it, daddyo. There's an Aes over by the scope, dope. Be my guest. Write him runes in
his spitoon."
The eccentric technician gestured toward the Navy men clustered around the sub's
periscope. Next to the Skipper stood a hulking figure clad in furs and leather, towering over
the submariners.
Marlowe blinked back at O'Leary in bewilderment. The marine seemed less offended than
confused. "What did he say?" he asked Chris.
Chris wished he weren't seated between the two.
"Zap suggests that you test it by spitting in Loki's eye."
Marlowe grimaced. O'Leary might as well have suggested he stick his hand into a
scram-jet engine. One of the marines crammed into the passageway behind them made the
mistake of dropping a cartridge into the foul water. Marlowe vented his frustration on the poor
grunt with rich profanity.
The dwarf moaned again, hugging his knees and pressing against the sealed crate.