"Julian May - Dune Roller" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

more golden than that of mere sun on water. He reached out the net to stir the loose sand away.

It was not a pebble or a piece of chipped glass as he had supposed; instead, he fished out a
small, droplike object shaped like a marble with a tail. It was a beautiful little thing of pellucid amber
color, with tiny gold flecks and streaks running through it. Sunlight glanced off its smooth sides, which
were surprisingly free of the surface scratches that are the inevitable patina of flotsam in the
sand-scoured dunes.

He tapped the bottom of the net until the drop fell into an empty collecting bottle and admired it
for a minute. It would be a pretty addition to his collection of Useless Miscellanea. He might put it in a
little bottle between the tooled brass yak bell and the six-inch copper sulfate crystal.

He was collecting his equipment and getting ready to leave when the boat came. It swept up out
of the north and nosed in among the sand bars offshore, a dignified, forty-foot Matthews cruiser
named Carlin, which belonged to his friend, Kirk MacInnes.

"'Hoy, Mac!" Dr. Thorne yelled cordially. "Look out for the new bar the storm brought in!"

A figure on the flying bridge of the boat waved briefly and howled something unintelligible around
a pipe clamped in its teeth. The cruiser swung about and the mutter of her motors died gently. She lay
rocking in the little waves a few hundred feet offshore. After a short pause a yellow rubber raft
dropped over the stern.

Good old Mac, thought Thorne. The little ex-engineer with that Skye terrier moustache and the
magnificent boat visited him regularly, bringing the mail and his copy of the Biological Review, or
bottled goods of a chemistry designed to prevent isolated scientists from catching cold. He was a
frequent and welcome visitor, but he had always come alone.

Previous to this.

"Well, well," said Dr. Thorne, and then looked again.

The girl was sitting in the stern of the raft while MacInnes paddled deftly, and as they drew closer
Thorne saw that her hair was dark and curly. She wore a spotless white playsuit, and a deep blue
handkerchief was knotted loosely around her throat. She was looking at him, and for the first time he
had qualms about the Hawaiian shorts.

The yellow flank of the raft grated on the stony beach. MacInnes, sixty and grizzled, a venerable
briar between his teeth, climbed out and wrung Thorne's hand.

"Brought you a visitor this time, Ian. Real company. Jeanne, this gentleman in the shorts and
fishing creel is Dr. Ian Thorne, the distinguished writer and lecturer. He writes books about dune
ecology, whatever that is. Ian, my niece, Miss Wright."

Thorne murmured politely. Why, that old scoundrel. That sly old dog. But she was pretty, all
right.

"How engaging," smiled the girl. "An ecologist with a leer."

Dr. Thorne's face abruptly attempted to adopt the protective coloration of his shorts. He said,