JК
Ribofunk :: Филиппо Пол Ди
Страница: 47 из 156Gathering up Charmaine-who of course had to complain I was interrupting her S amp;M vid of "HotPurple Pain"-I signed out a Skoda Skooter and a Taligent poqetpal and got ready to carry out my assignment.
Riding north through city streets, Charmaine behind me on the saddle-seat, her pinchy insectlegs digging into my ribs as she hugged me, I pondered why Captain Ozturk had chosen me for this mission-it bugged me. Was it a prelude to promotion, a mark of my devotion? Or just sheer chance, no cause for flights of romance?
When no answer came clear, I pushed the question to the rear and motored on.
Soon we arrived at the point on the shore opposite the Rivermouth Colony, roughly six blocks south of Oak Street Beach, where lucky franches basked in the heat.
Charmaine and I stood on the low grocrete jetty painted with the EC insigni a a nd reserved for official use-vehicle moorings and Eater feedings and such-and I pointed out the Eater habitat to her, some half-klick offshore.
Shading her eyes against the lake-sparkle, Charmaine said, "Wow, that's big! You know, I never bothered to come look at this before. Kinda like a New Yorker never visiting Television City. Is it made out of-rocks?"
"Stones, mud, trees, driftwood, old car parts-whatever the Eaters can scavenge from the lake. They're master builders."
There was a note of pride in my voice that was there by choice. After all these years of working with the Eaters, I had become one of their virtue-repeaters. The splices were honest, humble, and dutiful. And despite naysayers, I even believed they were beautiful.
And to think that without a terrorist act, the Eaters would be fiction, not fact!
Twenty years ago, the first designer-waterweed invasion of the GLB had occurred. The initial invader had been a modified Canadian pondweed, Elodea canadensis, introduced into the St. Lawrence Seaway. Its repro-rate was low-mag compared to what followed: Elodea took a whole week to double its initial biomass. Well, the GLB eradicated by lo-tech smart-chem means the infestation of pondweed, only to find itself attacked by an even fiercer milfoil-alligator weed cultivar. They zapped that too, but it was just the edge of the wedge.
For next came the infamous water-hyacinth/kariba-weed splice.
Within days the entire GLB was declared a disaster zone of plus-minus one kilonader.
Now, a youngster like Sis, who hadn't even been born at the time of the disaster, might wonder just how much trouble
a little nontoxic flowering aquatic plant could cause.
Riding north through city streets, Charmaine behind me on the saddle-seat, her pinchy insectlegs digging into my ribs as she hugged me, I pondered why Captain Ozturk had chosen me for this mission-it bugged me. Was it a prelude to promotion, a mark of my devotion? Or just sheer chance, no cause for flights of romance?
When no answer came clear, I pushed the question to the rear and motored on.
Soon we arrived at the point on the shore opposite the Rivermouth Colony, roughly six blocks south of Oak Street Beach, where lucky franches basked in the heat.
Charmaine and I stood on the low grocrete jetty painted with the EC insigni a a nd reserved for official use-vehicle moorings and Eater feedings and such-and I pointed out the Eater habitat to her, some half-klick offshore.
Shading her eyes against the lake-sparkle, Charmaine said, "Wow, that's big! You know, I never bothered to come look at this before. Kinda like a New Yorker never visiting Television City. Is it made out of-rocks?"
"Stones, mud, trees, driftwood, old car parts-whatever the Eaters can scavenge from the lake. They're master builders."
There was a note of pride in my voice that was there by choice. After all these years of working with the Eaters, I had become one of their virtue-repeaters. The splices were honest, humble, and dutiful. And despite naysayers, I even believed they were beautiful.
And to think that without a terrorist act, the Eaters would be fiction, not fact!
Twenty years ago, the first designer-waterweed invasion of the GLB had occurred. The initial invader had been a modified Canadian pondweed, Elodea canadensis, introduced into the St. Lawrence Seaway. Its repro-rate was low-mag compared to what followed: Elodea took a whole week to double its initial biomass. Well, the GLB eradicated by lo-tech smart-chem means the infestation of pondweed, only to find itself attacked by an even fiercer milfoil-alligator weed cultivar. They zapped that too, but it was just the edge of the wedge.
For next came the infamous water-hyacinth/kariba-weed splice.
Within days the entire GLB was declared a disaster zone of plus-minus one kilonader.
Now, a youngster like Sis, who hadn't even been born at the time of the disaster, might wonder just how much trouble
a little nontoxic flowering aquatic plant could cause.