"Eric Brown - Pithecanthropus Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Eric)

in the job. Visions of my time among the proto-humans returned to me, and
I could concentrate on nothing for fear of that first, insidious tickle
that would prefigure another seizure.
I was considering whether to check off sick when Anton, my boss, gave me
the excuse to leave. His thin, high voice summoned me to the Chapel of
Rest. "Hey Chester, boy. Get yourself down here and take a look at
this..." Now Anton is sick - it's a combination, I suppose, of being
reared in the subterranean hives of Ganymede and spending half a lifetime
in the business of death. From time to time he'd summon me to the nether
regions of the complex to show me what he considered a particularly
interesting corpse.
I took the down-chute to the Chapel of Rest and found him in the
preparations room. Sickly organ music played. Anton stood beside an open
cask, garbed in the black cloak and top hat of the Morticians' Guild.
He looked up when I entered. He frowned. "You look ill, Chester. Is
something bothering you?" He gave me the swift appraisal usually reserved
for sizing up a new corpse.
"I'm fine," I lied. "What is it, Anton?"
He gestured towards the cask. "Not a pretty sight, Chester."
Anton had an aptitude for the understatement. The body, that of a man in
his fifties, had met a violent end. I clutched the edge of the cask for
support.
"What... what happened to him?"
"In my opinion," Anton said, "he was eaten alive." He pointed to the thigh
bone. "Observe the teeth marks. Much of his entrails are missing - ditto a
large proportion of his brain..."
I managed a feeble chuckle. "Eaten? On Sol station?"
Anton looked at me. "And why not? For the past week the bigship Hanumati
has been docked here, refuelling before its run to the Out-there. Haven't
you noticed all the boosted-animals in the bars and night clubs? Obviously
one of these, a boosted leopard or tiger, suffered a computer malfunction
and reverted to type. I always said that augmentation was unnatural. And
now look..." He gestured again at the body.
I refrained from doing so. "I don't feel so well," I said, and slipped to
the floor in a cold faint.
When I came to my senses, Anton was slapping my face back and forth with a
clammy hand. "I thought you looked rather pale, Chester. Take the day off.
And a word of advice - see a medic."
I took my leave of the funeral parlour and wandered home in a daze. Sight
of the corpse had served to focus my mind on the fact of my own mortality
- and on my singular predicament. In the cubby, I lay tossing and turning
in a torment of indecision. If I did take Anton's advice and consulted a
medic, then my worst fears might be confirmed. On the other hand, there
was always the chance that my 'seizures' had a perfectly innocent
psychological explanation. A trip to the medic might put my mind at
ease...
I decided to make an appointment first thing in the morning.

27th May, 2060.
Proxmire Industrial Solar Satellite.