"Anthony Wall - The Eden Mission" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wall Anthony)

PREFACE
Not so long ago, the term "greenhouse effect" meant little to most people. Something to do with gardening ...? How different now! Now that the environment is a matter of major concern, now that we are becoming ecologically educated.

But how much has changed, really changed, in recent years? Certainly politicians and scientists have made a start on trying to curb the worst abuses to our world. And, happily, some of those mentioned in my novel are declining. Others, though, are on the increase. So, far from being able to relax, conservationists are busier than ever.

Underlying all this are enormous problems: the widening gap between rich and poor, the fact that four-fifths of global resources are consumed by one-fifth of the population, the arrival each second of three new mouths to feed.

What of the solutions? Perhaps the main hope, idealistic though it may seem, is that humanity will see sense. The Earth, not money, is the only true wealth. It's our collective home to be shared with our fellows and fellow creatures.

Maybe the rich must become poorer, accept a lowering of their material standards, so that the poor can become richer. Maybe the technology that helped get us into this mess cannot get us out, and humankind will have to return to a simpler way of life. Maybe ...

What do you think? What you think matters--yours is the generation that will need to be wiser and more responsible than previous generations. In your hands may rest the fate of the whole planet. Anthony Wall, 1995


The Eden Mission

1. Victims

Suddenly the grasses shivered, but there was no wind. Silence, stillness, then more movement and the sound of a soft, gargling growl. The tall stems parted ... and a fiery face thrust forward. Orange and white and black-barred, it was a face to strike terror into man and beast, a face like a warrior's daubed with war paint. A hungry tigress on the prowl. As fast, as fierce, but bigger and more beautiful than her tan-coloured cousin the lioness.

The great striped cat, perfectly camouflaged, crouched and stared intently at the lake. Her pale yellow-green eyes did not blink. Out there, under the water, lay the body of a deer she had chased, caught and killed. But then she had been robbed of her prize. She intended to get it back.

An hour earlier, just before dawn, the tigress had stalked a group of sambur deer filing down from the hills to drink at the cool lake and munch the green feast of water lilies spread over the surface. For twenty minutes the tigress crept closer and closer, soundlessly placing one huge paw in front of the other. Then, when she was forty feet away, she tensed her haunches like springs and exploded into a bounding charge.

Tail erect, ears forward, she crashed through the reeds, splashed through the water. Deer darted to right and left in a frenzy of white spray. But one stag, blindly panicking, turned towards the tigress. A fatal mistake. With a flying leap she brought the deer down, breaking his neck in a single bite.

The stag weighed 500 pounds, the tigress only 350, yet she would wade to land with him. She hauled her prey shorewards.

Then it happened. The tigress felt a sudden tug. The sambur slipped from her jaws ... and was dragged under water. Crocodile snouts nudged her heels. Wasting no time, she fled to the lake's edge--minus her meal.

Twice in the hour since then, she had paddled back to try to retrieve the deer, snarling and swatting the water. But on each occasion she had lost her nerve. Finally, with an echoing roar of fury and frustration, the tigress retreated to the high grass.

Now she watched and waited. She refused to surrender the hard-won meal, her first catch in many tries. The tigress was very hungry. But her three cubs, fidgeting beneath a saja tree, were hungrier.

Once, there had been four of them, born blind in a cave six months ago. They grew sleek and fat on their mother's milk until the day they were ready to venture out with her and start learning how to hunt for themselves. It was then that their father, a swaggering giant of 550 pounds, seized one of the cubs and devoured it behind a bush. He tried again--but the tigress was alert, and spat a challenge that froze him in his tracks. Though he outweighed her by 200 pounds, he knew she would fight to the death to defend her young. The tiger had backed down and slunk off.

Turning from the lake, the tigress checked that the three cubs were safe before resuming her long vigil. The sun was high and hot, and she panted heavily. All around could be heard the buzz, hum, click, fizz and rattle of insects.

Ranee, as she was known by the wardens of this Indian nature reserve, was a splendid specimen. Nearly nine feet long, seven years old, in her prime. She should live to the age of eleven, maybe twice that. For the next seventeen months she would devote herself to rearing and teaching the cubs. The wardens could easily recognise Ranee by the stripes and squiggles on her cheeks and eyebrows--as distinctive as human fingerprints--quite different from those of her massive mate and the five other tigresses in his scattered harem.

By now the temperature had soared to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Ranee still watched and waited. A snake slithered past her paw. She recoiled slightly, remembering a painful incident as a cub, but the snake trickled away through a crack in the ground and was gone.

In the late afternoon Ranee's patience was rewarded. The sambur buck floated to the surface. But it was surrounded by crocodiles --their teeth, ideal for gripping, could not tear off the firm flesh. Ranee glared, summoning her courage. The deer's body beckoned, fifty yards from the rim of the lake.

Quivering with anticipation, Ranee dashed forward. She swam strongly, ignoring the crocodiles, grabbed the sambur by the throat and began her return journey. Their two heads bobbed up and down between the water lilies. At last Ranee landed her catch.

Laboriously she hauled the deer towards her cubs.

Crack!