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Theo, till the next full moon. You may see another cetaceous suicide.'
There were crabs working in the sand among the barred shadows of the rib cage, burrowing and
signalling to each other. When Devlin spoke, anger was back in his voice.
'Okay, you clever trawlerman, tell me the answer to the riddle. It's been revealed to you alone, I
suppose, why they killed themselves?'
'They were suffering from side effects, Theo. The side effects of the immortality disease. You know the
Baltic virus seems to bring long life - but you haven't had time to find out what else it brings. You've been
in so much of a hurry you abandoned scientific method. You didn't want to get any older before you
infected yourself. You didn't allow a proper trial period. You may be going to live a thousand years -but
what else is going to happen to you ? What happened to these poor creatures so awful that they could
not bear their increase of years? Whatever it was, it was terrible, and soon it will be overtaking you, and
all your conspirators sweating it out uneasily in Naples!'
The silencer was extremely effective. The pistol made only a slight hiss, rather like a man blowing a
strawberry pip from between his teeth. The bullet made a louder noise as it ricochetted off a bleached rib
and sped over the ocean. Suddenly Yale was full of movement, moving faster than he had moved in
years, lunging forward. He hit Devlin before he fired again. They fell into the sand. Yale on top. He got
his foot over Devlin's arm, grasped him by both hands by the windpipe, and bashed his head repeatedly
in the sand. When the gun slid loose, he stopped what he was doing, picked up the weapon, and climbed
to his feet. Puffing a little, he brushed the sand from his old jeans.
'It wasn't graceful,' he said, glaring down at the purple-faced man rolling at his feet. 'You're a fool!' With
a last indignant slap at his legs, he turned and headed back for the coral-built house.
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Caterina ran out in terror at the sight of him. The natives surged towards him, thought better of it, and
cleared a way for him to pass.
'Clem, Clem, what have you done? You've not shot him?'
'I want a glass of lemonade. It's all right, Cat, my love .. He isn't really hurt.'
When he was sitting down at the table in the cool and drinking the lemonade she mixed him, he began to
shake. She had the sense not to say anything until he was ready to speak. She stood beside him, stroking
his neck. Presently they saw through the window Devlin coming staggering over the dunes. Without
looking in their direction, he made his way over to the helicopter. With Thomas's aid, he climbed in, and
in a few moments the engine started and the blades began to turn. The machine lifted, and they watched
in silence as it whirled away over the water, eastwards towards the Indian sub-continent. The sound of it
died and soon the sight of it was swallowed up in the gigantic sky.
'He was another whale. He came to wreck himself here.'
'You'll have to send a signal to London and tell them everything, won't you?'
'You're right. And tomorrow I must catch some jewfish. I suspect they may be picking up the infection.'
He looked askance at his wife. She had put on her dark glasses, while he was gone. Now she took them
off again and sat by him, regarding him anxiously.
'I'm not a saint, Cat. Never suggest that again. I'm a bloody liar. I had to tell Theo an awful lie about why
the whales ran themselves up our beach.'
'Why?'
'I don't know! Whales have been beaching themselves for years and nobody knows why. Theo would
have remembered that if he hadn't been so scared.'
'I mean, why lie to him? You should only lie to people you respect, my mother used to say.'
He laughed. 'Good for her! I lied to scare him. Everyone is going to know about the immortality virus in
a few weeks, and I suspect they're all going to want to be infected. I want them all scared. Then perhaps
they'll pause and think what they're asking for - the length of many lifetimes living with their first lifetime's
inadequacies.'
"Theo's taking your lie with him. You want that to circulate with the virus?'
He started to clean his spectacles on his handkerchief. 'I do. The world is about to undergo a drastic and
radical change. The more slowly that change takes place, the more chance we - all living things, I mean, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]