"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Infernal Sky (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

She started swimming for the shore, but then
turned back, treading water, and completed my edu-
cation: "There are no civilians any longer, Fly. Every
survivor is a soldier in this war."
I gave her that point. After all, she hadn't said
everyone was a marine. I could accept the idea that all
terrestrial life-forms had volunteered for grunt duty
on the front line. The whole planet was the front line.
Floating on my back for a moment, I let Arlene's
words wash over me. The heat of the sun and the cool
of the water threatened me with sleep. We hadn't had
very much of that in the past month. I'd always been
naturally buoyant, but I wasn't going to risk taking a
doze in the ocean. It would be funny if a guy who had
survived spider-minds and steam demons drowned a
short distance from his best buddy.
I swam to shore, where Arlene was waiting for me,
pointing to something behind me. I looked around
and for a moment thought she was referring to the
cloud the admiral had noticed earlier, but it had
vanished. She was interested in the black fin a hun-
dred yards away from us.
"There's someone for your terrestrial army," I said.
At the time I thought it was a shark.
"Do you think we'll ever get Jill to eat seafood?"
she asked.
"I doubt it. Speaking of Jill, let's check up on her."
I'm lonely. I'm bored. I thought when we got to
Hawaii I'd find some kids my own age. Everyone here
is either an adult or a little kid. Some of them don't
even call me Jill. They call me "the teenager."
At first they made a big fuss. The admiral gave me a
medal. They were short on the real thing, so he used
some old golf ribbon he'd won years ago, but it meant
a lot to him, so I was polite. I was uncomfortable at
the way everyone looked at me, but it was still kind of
nice. The pisser was, no one would get off my age after
that.
Except for Dr. Forrest Ackerman. He was probably
crazy, but he was nice to me. "You're a genius," he
kept repeating. "I prefer the company of geniuses."
He looked like Vincent Price from an old horror
movie, complete with neat little mustache. I might
not have remembered that movie except that the
doctor considered himself a monster expert. "Let the
others call them 'the enemy,'" he said, winking.
"They're more comfortable with the old language.
'The enemy' refers to something human. We face
principalities and powers. We're monster-fighters."
I had no idea what he meant by principalities and