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

quietly, to himself. "I can't tell what they are. That--that
could have 'been a tree 'and that a bit of fence. The smaller
ones may be bodies--animals, logs, anything. There is a
different world above The Falls and in that world some-
thing terrible is happening. And we don't even know
about it. We don't even know that world is there."
He struck again and again on the stone until his fist
hunt.
The sun 'shone on the water 'and he saw the change,
just here and there at first, an altering and shifting.
"Why--the water seems to be changing color. Pink it
is--no, red. More and more of it. There, for an instant, it
was all red. The color of blood."
He spun about to face the dim room and tried to smile
but his lips were drawn back hard from his teeth when he
did.
"Blood? Impossible. There can't be that much blood in
the whole world. What is happening up there? What is
happening?"
His scream did not disturb Bodum, who only nodded
has head in agreement.
"111 show you something,"' he said. "But only if you
promise not to write about it. People might laugh at me.
I've been here over forty years and that is nothing to
laugh about."
"My word of honor, not a word. Just show me. Perhaps
it has something to do with what is happening."
Bodum took down a heavy bible and opened it on the
table next to the lamp. It was set in very black type,

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serious and impressive. He turned pages until he came to
a piece of very ordinary paper.
"I found this on the shore. During the winter. No one
had been here for months. It may have come over The
Falls. Now I'm not saying it did--but it is possible. You
will agree it is possible?"
"Oh, yes--quite possible. How else could it have come
here?" Carter reached out and touched it. "I agree, or-
dinary paper. Torn on one edge, wrinkled where it was
wet and then dried." He turned it over. "There is lettering
on the other 'aide."
"Yes. But it is meaningless. It is no word I know."
"Nor I, and I speak four languages. Could it have a
meaning?"
"Impossible. A word like that."
"No human language." He shaped his lips 'and spoke
the letters aloud. "Aich--Eee--Ell--Pea."