"Gordon R. Dickson - The Last Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

him. No normal human being could play roulette with the chance of being turned into either a high-grade
moron or a genius, no matter how remote those chances were, without concern about the results. And in
EttтАЩs case, there was Wally, to whom the full-scale destruction of intelligence had actually come. Wally,
his brother, to whom it had happened just that way, in this same procedure. Wally, who in the dice game
of life, had crapped outтАж


CHAPTER TWO

What had happened to Wally, in fact, had been part of the general joke of existence, Ett thought, still
watching himself in the mirrored ceiling. If his brother had never decided to try the RIV, Ett himself would
have lived out his life happily without ever thinking twice of gambling with a drug that might either expand
or cripple his inherent intelligence. But Wally, hoping to get back a woman he had lostтАФa woman who in
EttтАЩs opinion was not worth three months out of his brotherтАЩs life, let alone the as-yet-unlived two thirds
of his lifetimeтАФ had chosen the gamble; and now the chain of resulting events had brought Ett in turn to
this room. Wally had always been unlucky in the women to whom he had been attracted. He was three
years older than Ett, but they had looked alike enough to be twins, once they had become fully adult. So
Wally had not even had the excuse that he was physically unattractive to the opposite sex. Because Ett
had been lucky. The women who had liked him had always turned out to be better for him than he had
secretly thought he deservedтАФ but it had never seemed to work that way for Wally.

It had been as if there was some sort of reverse magic in Wally that always tripped him up. This last love
of his had been someone called Maea Tornoy, whom Ett had met only once, and for no more than a
minute or two. At that time Ett had been favorably impressed with her, and thought that maybe Wally had
found what he had been looking for all these years. Maea had appeared both clever and beautifulтАФadmit
it, Ett told himself now, even in that short moment of meeting it had been clear to him that she was a good
deal more clever than Wally. Enough so, that Ett had wondered a little even then at her interest in his
brother. Now it seemed clear that the extent of the interest had only been the amusing of herself for a few
weeks, before WallyтАЩs open-hearted and obvious admiration had begun to bore her. When it had, she
had dropped him.

тАЬIтАЩm not intelligent enough to interest her,тАЭ Wally had written Ett in a last letter, painful to readтАФ тАЬthatтАЩs
the problem.тАЭ And so Wally had decided on a gamble that might make him into what he assumed Maea
wanted. He had taken his physical exams and put in an application for the same RIV treatment Ett was
taking now.

Afterward, when the first signs of a negative reaction had appeared, he had been taken quickly and
discreetly to a pleasant, large, brick building surrounded by parklike grounds, located outside

Hiloon theBigIsland ; a place staffed by gentle-voiced people to care for him. The deterioration of his
intelligence did not happen all at once, but came on over a period of weeks, by small jumpsтАФ and as
soon as Wally had realized clearly the end condition toward which he was inexorably bound, he had
hanged himself.

Upon Ett, who had masqueraded as a lotus-eater all his life, with his secret inner fires grimly banked and
controlled, the word of WallyтАЩs action had come like a sledgehammer, utterly smashing his belief of more
than twenty years that he could stand apart from the world. For all that time he had kept his mask in
place successfully, even before Wally, even in the face of his brotherтАЩs unceasing attempts to convert him
to a realization that he must live in society as it wasтАФadapt himself to it.