(eng) Mike Resnick - Lucifer Jones SSC by Voyages NC

Author:Voyages NC [NC, Voyages]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4

King and Mrs. Kong

I used to think blue was a pretty nice color. Eleven days out from Caruso’s island, where I had my previous adventure which I’m sure you’ve all read a few dozen times by now and maybe memorized as well, I decided that blue was the most boring color in the universe and points west. And of all the blues there were, the blue of the Pacific Ocean was the boringest.

I’d left the island atop a wooden door, which at least didn’t take in no water, since it didn’t have no sides to it. It didn’t take in no sharks neither, but not for lack of trying. There was one big one that I named Basil, who must have been tired of swimming, because he kept trying to hop onto the door, and didn’t seem to pay me no never-mind when I kept hitting him across the nose with my paddle. Finally he just kind of fell into step or whatever legless killer fish fall into and paced the door for a couple of days.

Eventually I spotted an island that had a bunch of canoes on the beach, so I headed toward shore, and Basil came in right alongside of me, and I could see a bunch of men staring at me, and when I got to within ten yards of shore they all cleared out, yelling and screaming, which I figured meant they hadn’t been staring at me after all, but were staring at Basil.

The door hit the beach, and I got up and walked straight ahead until I was standing firmly on the sand. Basil wriggled onto the door, guv me a grateful look–well, as grateful as a shark with an IQ in single digits can muster–and didn’t even try to bite my leg off when I walked over, put my foot on the edge of the door, and shoved it out to sea. Last I saw of Basil, he was sunning himself and looking like he was no more interested in hopping into the water than I was.

I was going to ask one of the natives if I could borrow a canoe, but none of ‘em would come near me, so I finally I just hollered out a thanks which sent most of ‘em scurrying inland, pushed a canoe off the beach and into the water, jumped in, and began paddling for all I was worth, just in case they changed their minds.

No one threw any spears nor shot any arrows at me, and finally I slowed my pace and just started drifting. After a week I was getting mighty sick of blue again, and I actually found myself missing Basil, who wasn’t much of a conversationalist but was a mighty good listener. Now and then some fish what wasn’t sharks would get a little too close, and I’d grab ‘em and toss ‘em into the far end of the canoe until they’d breathed their last. It didn’t take me long to decide that all

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