"Edmond Hamilton - The Futuremen Collection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

Creation, they modeled the synthetic man after the hu-
man body, but simplified the pattern. Otho has no ap-
pendix or other such superfluous organs which in the
human body are atrophied and useless. The android's
physical make-up is streamlined for efficiency. To
more than one Earthman, he has seemed almost diabol-
ic - for his ironic, twisted mental outlook occasionally
leads to strange results.
The skeleton around which the synthetic man's
flesh was molded is composed, not of rigid bones, but
of artificial bones that are many times stronger and so
flexible that they can be bent double without breaking.
This fact, and the great strength of his artificial muscle-
tissues, gives Otho his wonderful agility and speed. The
fact that he is a superman has alienated him from nor-
mal beings, and at times, through sheer loneliness, the
android will assume a human disguise and visit Earth
incognito.
The android can run faster, jump higher, and move
more quickly in an emergency than almost any other
creature in the System. It was Otho who taught Captain
Future speed and skill in the days when Curt Newton
was a boy upon the moon.
It was he who taught Curt the method of super ju-jit-
su which he had evolved, and which enables him to
overpower an ordinary man in a twinkling. But, though
Captain Future is capable of faster action than any oth-
er human in the System, he can't quite match the unhu-
man Otho.
Otho's body requires both air and food to maintain
its metabolism. He must breathe - but his lungs are ca-
pable of breathing air that is so poisonous it would kill
the average human.
While he can eat ordinary human food, the android
prefers to take his nutrition in the elementary form of
simple chemical elements. It saves time, and Otho is al-
ways in a hurry about something.
POWERS OF DISGUISE
Most famous of Otho's accomplishments is his pow-
er of disguise. By softening and re-setting his synthetic
flesh, and changing the stature and posture of his flexi-
ble-skeletoned body, Otho can make himself up to be
an exact double of anyone in the System, no matter
what planetary race he belongs to.
Otho's power of assuming disguises has been of vital
4
No. 2
THE SYNTHETIC MAN
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 2 - The Synthetic Man
aid to Captain Future many times. Perhaps Otho's great-