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

"And a starfish," Justin said, voice flatter than a chipmunk trying to cross the track at the Indy 500.

The nurse cast a sideways glance into the pan. "So it is."

"Nurse!" shouted the obstetrician. Something long and flippety-floppety was doing the hootchie-kootchie in his gloved hands. The nurse got one of the empty pans under it just in time. It twitched and writhed like a fish out of water, which it was, even if it looked eely in the extreme.

Next came the clams.

"What is going on here?" Justin bawled, or tried to. It came out at whimper-volume and soon dwindled to a piteous mewling.

"Uh," said the obstetrician, who had his hands full with the appearance of a fish who looked like he had robbed a sporting goods store of its entire supply of ping-pong paddles.

"Sir, what do you do for a living?" the assistant ob-gyn asked.

"I'm a commodities broker."

"And, um, you get a lot of exposure to radiation with that? Toxic chemicals? Known mutagens?"

"Only the Wall Street Journal. God damn it, why is this happening?"

Making one last valiant try in the name of Rational Cause, the assistant ob-gyn ignored the question in favor of inquiring, "Maybe you lived in New Jersey?"

"No! And we never lived near Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Bikini Atoll, or any movie house running an all-night Godzilla marathon either! Now you tell me what this is all about!"

"Jesus Christ, how the fuck many legs does this thing have?" his harried colleague sighed from the region of South Jennifer. Something went *clang!* into a pan, then scrabble-scrabble-scrabble.

"Don't you know what's causing this?" Justin asked, his eyes narrow.

"Oh, well .... "The very idea of being caught without a ready answer held a more primal terror for any medico worth his sal volatile than even the threat of a lawsuit. "It's probably all her fault," the assistant said.

"It is not!" Jennifer decreed. "Whatever it is, it isn't!"

In vain.

"I told you you should have had that pregnancy test earlier!" Justin snarled. Even though the doctor was currently scooping scorpions out of Jennifer's abdomen, Justin suddenly felt much better about the whole situation. Having someone he could blame for it all worked wonders. "God knows what you ate or drank or smoked or snorted during those critical first two weeks!"

"And God knows how you spent those critical first two years at Yale fucking up your germ plasm!" Jennifer countered fiercely. "Better living through chemistry my ass! Did you think you were made of mitochondria?"

"Unworthy vessel!"

"Semen third class!"

"I want a full investigation!" Justin told the room.

"I want a divorce," Jennifer announced from the far side of the drapes.

"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," said the anesthesiologist, who was by nature and avocation a fairly laidback kinda gal.

"Huh?" said Jennifer.