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Reef Apes [MultiFormat]
eBook by Dave Smeds
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$0.85 |
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$0.72 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: The reef apes may have been a hit with the audience, but to Louis they were merely the latest step in a carefully planned career path. Nothing was going to stop him from getting what he wanted...
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's SF, 1992
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2006
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [268 KB], eReader (PDB) [44 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [24 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [22 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [79 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB], hiebook (KML) [116 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [89 KB], iSilo (PDB) [19 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [25 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [71 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [35 KB]
Words: 6670
Reading time: 19-26 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
The audience loved it when the reef ape killed the researcher.
Louis Sheldon listened to the commotion and smiled. He backed up the replay to let those who had been caught unaware get a better look.
Click. The primate troop gambolled in the shoals, cleaving to amorphous family units, with young adult males roaming farther afield. Barely four feet tall, the females resembled Ituri pygmies, except for the long, Rapunzel-style tresses that their babies clung to as they floated in the surf. The largest males fell shy of five feet in height, but corded muscle draped their brown bodies from neck to ankle.
The researcher, a lean, wiry man with Nordic features, towered over the apemen, but nevertheless gave them plenty of room. He waded along the fringes of the troop, taking care not to truly mingle. The creatures ignored his familiar presence.
With one exception. The alpha male, perched on a spur of reef just above tide level, monitored the man with a baleful, irrational glare. The researcher failed to notice the surveillance, nor did he see that the creature was picking obsessively at a raw, pus-swollen foot.
The human passed a bit too near a particular reef ape female. With a covetous shriek, the alpha male launched from his rock. He careened through the waist-deep water toward the researcher, who barely had time to turn before he was seized by the neck. Vertebrae cracked. The researcher's eyes glazed.
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