"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

tears.
"You're all right," Curt said shakily.
He helped Simon raise his head and
held a glass to his lips. "Can you drink
this? It will clear away the fog, give
you strength."
Simon drank, and the act of
drinking had wonder in it.
The potion counteracted the
remaining effects of the anaesthetic.
Sight and hearing cleared, and he had
his mind under control again. He lay
still for some time, trying to adjust
himself to the all but forgotten
sensations of the flesh.
The little things. The crispness of a
sheet against the skin, the warmth, the
pleasure of relaxed lips. The memory
of sleep.
He sighed, and in that, too, there
was wonder. "Give me your hand,
Curtis. I will stand."
Curt was on one side, Otho on the
other, steadying him. And Simon
Wright, in the body of John Keogh,
rose from the table where he had lain
and stood upright, a man and whole.
By the doorway, Harker fell
forward in a dead faint.
Simon looked at him, the strong
stocky man crumpled on the floor, his
face gray and sick. He said, with a
queer touch of pity for all humanity, "I
told him it would not be easy."
But even Simon had not realized
just how hard it would be.
There were so many things to be
learned all over again. Long used to a
weightless, effortless ease of
movement, this tall rangy body he
now inhabited seemed heavy and
awkward, painfully slow. He had great
difficulty in managing it. At first his
attempts to walk were a series of
ungainly staggerings wherein he must
cling to something to keep from
falling.
His sense of balance had to undergo
a complete readjustment. And the
dullness of his sight and hearing