"Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley - Bill the Galactic Hero 3 " - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

The creature ground some internal gears and said, "Please don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Cry into the nutrient solution. You're changing the acid levels. It isn't good for your skin."
"What's wrong with my skin?" Bill asks. "Am I burned?"
"Not at all, bless you. We just want to make it nice and soft, your skin."
"Why do you want to do that?"
"We'll talk about it later," the Tsurisian said. "By the way, should you wish to know, and I'm sure that
you do, I am Illyria, your nurse."
They kept Bill in the nutrient bath for several more hours. When he got out, his skin was nice and pink
and rosy. They gave him back his trooper uniform, which had been brushed and dry cleaned by some
alien but effective process. He was allowed to walk up and down in the corridor, for that's what it seemed
to be. His weapons were gone and he didn't see anything that looked like it would be useful. Not that he
had any idea what he would do even if he got a weapon against an entire planetful of enemies.
He was able to form some idea of his surroundings when Illyria came to take care of him. He questioned
her adroitly; that is he asked questions and she answered them, and quickly learned that she was a typical
female Tsurisian, twenty years old, quite sophisticated for a girl who had lived and worked on her
parents' farm until just last year, when her high grades in high school had won her this position in the
alien lifeforms hospital in Graypnutz, the capital city of Tsuris.
Every day several Tsurisian males came by to see how Bill was doing. They were considerably older than
Illyria, as he could tell by the grayish stubble on their intermediate spheres, which, Bill learned, served as
holders for the batteries that helped keep the Tsurisians going.

Bill quickly discovered that the Tsurisians saw nothing cruel or unnatural about what they were


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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

proposing to do to him. "We Tsurisians always have to be reborn in the body of someone else," Bill's
doctor pointed out. "Otherwise we don't get born at all."
"That's really great for you тАФ but what about me?" Bill whimpered desperately. "Where do I go?"
"Out like a burnt-out bulb," the alien grimaced, though this was hard to tell since his painted-on
expression really did not change very much. "Anyway, haven't you an iota of the spiritual in you? Don't
you crave, in some part of your tiny soul, to serve all sentient beings?"
"No, I don't think so," Bill said.
"Pity," the doctor said. "You would have been a lot better off if you had learned to think properly about
things."
"Listen, buddy," Bill said, "a mind transplant means I'm not here any more and that means I'm dead. How
am I supposed to feel good about that?"
"Consider it an opportunity," the doctor said.
"What are you talking about?" Bill screamed.
"Whatever happens is an opportunity," the doctor said.
"Is that a fact? Then let this guy take over your mind instead of mine. You can have the opportunity."
"Ah," said the doctor, "it didn't knock for me."
Even Illyria stopped visiting so often. "I think they suspect me of something," she told him when she did
come by for a brief visit. "They're giving me the Usladish look; you know what I mean?"
"No, I don't," Bill said, desperation in his voice, a trapped feeling coursing through every fibre of his
being.
"I keep on forgetting you weren't born here," Illyria said. "An Usladish look is what we call a look that
means, I know you're up to something sneaky and rotten but I'm not going to tell anybody about it yet