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

Herman smiled. That was the question. He had no idea, but could only guess
that it had something to do with Aqualand. That had to be the place, and the time
had to be near. The cetaceans were getting anxious, sloppy, making mistakes. He’d
smelled the seawater in the diner minutes before the orca had actually punctured the
past. They were getting careless.

Dr. Cutler looked up from his notepad. “What do you think this man from the
future wants you to do?”

Herman was about to tell Dr. Cutler to piss off, that he’d had enough of the
inquisition for the time being, but he was interrupted.

Ishmael walked into the room.

He had not used the door, but had simply materialized as if he had walked
around a corner that hadn’t quite been there. He stood next to Dr. Cutler, with a
toothpick in his stubby fingers, picking at something bloody that was between his
front teeth. Herman jumped up from his seat and did an instant 360, looking for the
attacker, certain that another orca was about to materialize. Nothing popped out of
the air.

“Inquiries are best made at the source,” said Ishmael.
 Herman did not understand. He hadn’t asked Ishmael a thing. He stared into
Ishmael’s bulging eyes, trying to make contact, desperately wanting to understand.
His life might depend on that understanding.

But Ishmael wasn’t looking at him.

He was staring down at Dr. Cutler.

“Urrrrf.”

Herman looked at Dr. Cutler. The man had turned the color of nonfat milk —
pale white with a bluish tint.

“Urrrrf,” he said again.

Herman fell into his chair.

“You can see him,” he said, not asking a question, but stating an obvious fact.
No one had ever seen Ishmael except for himself. Ishmael had always walked some
ultratight sliver of reality that had been tuned only to his brain.

“Ishmael?” asked Dr. Cutler.

Herman was impressed, actually amazed. Dr. Cutler’s eyes were as big as golf
balls, some muscle in his left cheek was twitching like a metronome on speed, and
his fingers were doing a slam dance across the tabletop, but he had not gone
screaming out of the room, or simply fainted away.