"Harry Harrison - By the Falls (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"I was sent here." Carter coughed the shouting was
irritating his throat. "And I of course know you, Mr.
Bodum--that is I know you by reputation. You're the
Man by The Falls."
"Forty-three years now," Bodum said with solid pride,
"I've lived here and have never been away for a single
night. Not that it has been easy. When 'the wind is wrong
the spray is blown over the house for days and it is hard
to breathe--even the fire goes out. I built the chimney
myself--there is a bend part way up with baffles and
doors. The smoke goes up but if water comes down the
baffles stop it and its weight opens the doors and it drains
away through a pipe to the outside. I can show you Where
it drains--black with soot the wall is there."
While Bodum talked Carter looked 'around the room at
the dim furniture shapes barely seen in the wavering light
from the fire and at the two windows set into the wall.
"Those windows," he said. "You put them in yourself?
May I look out?"
"Took a year apiece, each one. Stand 'on that bench.
It will bring you to the right level. They're armored glass,
specially made, 'solid as the wall around 'them now that
I have them anchored well. Don't be afraid. Go right up
to it. The window's safe. Look how 'the glass is anchored."
Carter was not looking at the glass but at The Falls
outside. He had not realized how close the building was
to 'the falling water. It was perched on the very edge of
the diff and nothing was to be seen from this vantage
point except the wall of blackened wet granite to his right
and the foaming maelstrom of the bay far below. And
before him, above him, filling space, The Falls. All the
thickness of wall and glass could not cut out their sound
completely and when he touched the heavy pane with his
fingertips he could feel The vibration of the waiter's impact.
The window did not lessen the effect The Falls had
upon him but it enabled him to stand and watch 'and
think, as he had been unable to do on the outside. It
was very much like 'a peephole into a holocaust of water

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a window into a cold hell. He could watch without being
destroyed--but the fear of what was on the other side did
not lessen. Something black flickered in the falling water
and was gone.
"There--did you see that," he called out. "Something
came down The Falls. What could it possibly 'be?"
Bodum nodded wisely. "Over forty years I have been
here and I can show you what comes down The Falls."