"Esther M. Friesner - Sea-Section" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

"Why do you want to know?" Jennie demanded petulantly. She was still nursing a
grudge over the fact that she had wasted all those weeks going to LaMaze
classes, hearing a bunch of bimbos in Birkenstocks rhapsodize over becoming one
with the pain, only to wind up spread-eagled on this damn table, slit open like
a tax refund, and stuck full of more diagnostic equipment than a Porsche getting
a tune-up. Thanks to an excellent anesthesiologist she was becoming one with a
whole lot of chemicals instead of her authentic womanhood. Now she'd have to
take up ceramics instead. And to think her baby sister dropped those ugly brats
of hers one-two-three, after maybe fifteen minutes of labor, like some refugee
from a Pearl Buck novel!

"Maybe you'd better show him the rest," the assisting obstetrician murmured.

"What rest?" Justin was on point again.

"Over here, sir," said a nurse at the foot of the table.

"No, dammit!" the chief ob-gyn cried, having as loud a hissy fit as a surgical
mask would allow. "He is not allowed on this side of the drapes!"

"I demand to see what you're talking about!" Justin discovered that it was
impossible for him to throw up and holler at the same time and resolved to use
this knowledge. "This is my son we're talking about here, and if something's the
matter -- "

"What's the matter?" Jennifer yelled. "Is something the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter, dear," the nurse taking the head-end of the table cooed
by rote. "You just relax."

"-- I am going to sue!"

And there was silence in the O.R. for the space of a moment as the dreaded
s-word worked its arcane sorcery.

"Oh, what the hell," the obstetrician said, shrugging green-gowned shoulders.
"Let him see."

"Over here, sir," the nurse said, motioning for Justin to join her.

He did so slowly, cautiously, hoping that what he was about to see would not be
too bloody. There was just so much you could ask of a man who's only had one cup
of coffee. The nurse was still beckoning him. She stood before a table well
removed from the Main Event. On it were arranged several stainless steel pans
similar to the one which had received the trilobite. Justin looked into the
first of these. Something with tentacles looked back.
"Squid," said the nurse. "Though damned if I know why it's stuck in that shell."
Something oozed its way out from under the squid. "Snail," the nurse remarked.
"There's some worms in there too, somewhere, and there was an ememonee --