Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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The skipper mopped his forehead with a large blue bandanna. “Very snug work,” he said.

“Snug!” the mate cried. He turned away, and the skipper smiled a brief smile.

They slid past a small ketch riding at anchor. The native hands took down sail and the schooner nosed up to a rickety pier that jutted out from the beach. Lines were made fast to palm trees. From the fringe of jungle above the beach a white man came down, walking briskly in the noonday heat.

He was very tall and thin, with knobby knees and elbows. The fierce Melanesian sun had burned out but not tanned him, and his nose and cheekbones were peeling. His horn-rimmed glasses had broken at the hinge and been repaired with a piece of tape. He looked eager, boyish, and curiously naive.

One hell-of-a-looking treasure-hunter, the mate thought.

“Glad to see you!” the man called out. “We’d about given you up for lost.”

“Not likely,” the skipper said. “Mr. Sorensen, I’d like you to meet my new mate, Mr. Willis.”

“Glad to meet you, Professor,” the mate said.