"Robert A. Metzger - Planet of the Dolphins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

Vegas had seen less than two inches of rain in the last year. It was bone-dry,
dusty, dirty, everything coated in grit and sand. But now it rained in buckets, barrels,
dump trucks.

Oceans.

Herman could not breathe. The salt water beat at him, blinding him, filling his
nose and mouth. The torrent pushed him down against the alley floor, driving his
face into the asphalt.

“Herman Melville!”

It was a bellow so resonant that it almost cracked his skull. Herman pushed
himself up on hands and knees and sucked down a breath. The water was
elbow-deep but quickly receding. He looked down the alley, toward the glow, just
past a wheelless, rusted-out hulk. A jewel of impossible colors and infinite angles
hung there.

“Herman Melville!” screamed the jewel.

Herman stood and almost had time to turn. But the jewel unfolded itself, the
hidden dimensions uncurling, time itself unraveling, Here and now touched there and
elsewhen.

“Help me!”

There was a flash of black and white, the beating of a fluke, the glint of an
ivory tooth, and then it hung in front of him, nestled in a crystal web, all of it
hovering about a foot above the alley floor.

“No,” whispered Herman, as he stood, mesmerized, staring into the unblinking
eye of Orcinus orca.

“Herman Melville!” roared the killer whale. It reached out from the floating
crystalline cage with flippers that were not flippers at all, but stubby arms -and long
slender fingers. “This planet will be ours!” bellowed the whale. It beat its tail and the
crystalline cage was propelled down the alley.

“No!” screamed Herman.

He turned, tried to run, but his feet rose up from the ground as the whale’s
slender fingers wrapped around his waist and jerked him up. He was pulled through
the crystalline slats of the cage. Herman pounded at the whale’s rubbery
black-and-white face. But it did no good. The mouth opened, revealing glistening
teeth and a pink gullet. Herman was shoved chest-deep into the whale’s mouth.

Jaws snapped down.

Inversion.