"Heinlein, Robert A - Stranger in a Strange Land (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

"I read it. I want to have a look at him."
"In one word-no."
"Oh, Tad, don't go regulation on me. I know you."
He gazed thoughtfully at his nails. "Ever worked for Doctor Nelson?"
"No. Why?"
"If I let you put your little foot inside that door, I'd find myself in Antarctica early tomorrow, prescribing for penguins' chilblains. So switch your fanny out of here and go bother your own patients. I wouldn't want him even to catch you in this watch room."
She stood up. "Is Doctor Nelson likely to come popping in?"
"Not likely, unless I send for him. He's still sleeping off low-gee fatigue."
"So? Then what's the idea of being so duty struck?"
"That's all, Nurse."
"Very well, Doctor!" She added, "Stinker."
"Jill!"
"And a stuffed shirt, too."
He sighed. "Still okay for Saturday night?"
She shrugged. "I suppose so. A girl can't be fussy these days." She went back to her duty station, found that her services were not in immediate demand, picked up the pass key. She was balked but not beaten, as she recalled that suite K- 12 had a door joining it to the room beyond it, a room sometimes used as a sitting room when the suite was occupied by a Very Important Person. The room was not then in use, either as part of the suite or separately. She let herself into it. The guards at the door beyond paid no attention, unaware that they had been flanked.
She hesitated at the inner door between the two rooms, feeling some of the sharp excitement she used to feel when sneaking out of student nurses' quarters. But, she told herself, Dr. Nelson was asleep and Tad wouldn't tell on her even if he caught her. She didn't blame him for keeping his finger on his number-but he wouldn't report her. She unlocked the door and looked in.
The patient was in bed, he looked at her as the door opened. Her first impression was that here was a patient too far gone to care. His lack of expression seemed to show the complete apathy of the desperately ill. Then she saw that his eyes were alive with interest; she wondered if his face were paralyzed? No, she decided; the typical sags were lacking.
She assumed her professional manner. "Well, how are we today? Feeling better?"
Smith translated and examined the questions. The inclusion of herself in the first query was confusing, but he decided that it might symbolize a wish to cherish and grow close. The second part matched Nelson's speech forms. "Yes," he answered.
"Good!" Aside from his odd lack of expression she saw nothing strange about him-and if women were unknown to him, he was certainly managing to conceal it. "Is there anything I can do for you?" She glanced around, noted that there was no glass on the bedside shelf. "May I get you water?"
Smith had spotted at once that this creature was different from the others who had come to see him. Almost as quickly he compared what he was seeing with pictures Nelson had shown him on the trip from home to this place-pictures intended to explain a particularly difficult and puzzling configuration of this people group. This, then, was a "woman."
He felt both oddly excited and disappointed. He suppressed both in order that he might grok deeply, with such success that Dr. Thaddeus noticed no change in the dial readings in the next room.
But when he translated the last query he felt such a surge of emotion that he almost let his heartbeat increase. He caught it in time and chided himself for an undisciplined nestling. Then he checked his translation.
No, he was not mistaken. This woman creature had offered him the water ritual. It wished to grow closer.
With great effort, scrambling for adequate meanings in his pitifully poor list of human words, he attempted to answer with due ceremoniousness. "I thank you for water. May you always drink deep."
Nurse Boardman looked startled. "Why, how sweet!" She found a glass, filled it, and handed it to him.
He said, "You drink."
Wonder if he thinks I'm trying to poison him? she asked herself-but there was a compelling quality to his request. She took a sip, whereupon he took the glass from her and took one also, after which he seemed content to sink back into the bed, as if he had accomplished something important.
Jill told herself that, as an adventure, this was a fizzle. She said, "Well, if you don't need anything else, I must get on with my work."
She started for the door. He called out, "Not"
She stopped. "Eh? What do you want?"
"Don't go away."
"Well I?ll have to go, pretty quickly." But she came back to the bedside, "Is there anything you want?"
He looked her up and down. "You are ... 'woman'?"
The question startled Jill Boardman. Her sex had not been in doubt to the most casual observer for many years. Her first impulse was to answer flippantly.
But Smith's grave face and oddly disturbing eyes checked her. She became aware emotionally that the impossible fact about this patient was true: he did not know what a woman was. She answered carefully, "Yes, I am a woman."
Smith continued to stare at her without expression. Jill began to be embarrassed by it. To be looked at appreciatively by a male she expected and sometimes enjoyed, but this was more like being examined under a microscope. She stirred restively. "Well? I look like a woman, don't I?"
"I do not know," Smith answered slowly. "How does woman look? What makes you woman?"
"Well, for pity's sake! Jill realized confusedly that this conversation was further out of hand than any she had had with a male since about her twelfth birthday. "You don't expect me to take off my clothes and show you!"
Smith took time to examine these verbal symbols and try to translate them. The first group he could not grok at all. It might be one of those formal sound groups these people so often used . . . yet it had been spoken with surprising force, as if it might be a last communication before withdrawal. Perhaps he had so deeply mistaken right conduct in dealing with a woman creature that the creature might be ready to discorporate at once.
He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so. The abrupt change from the rapport of the water ritual to a situation in which a newly won water brother might possibly be considering withdrawal or discorporation would have thrown him into panic had he not been consciously suppressing such disturbance. But he decided that if Jill died now he must die at once also-he could not grok it in any other wise, not after the giving of water.
The second half of the communication contained only symbols that he had encountered before. He grokked imperfectly the intention but there seemed to be an implied way out for him to avoid this crisis-by acceding to the suggested wish. Perhaps if the woman took its clothes off neither of them need discorporate. He smiled happily. "Please."
Jill opened her mouth, closed it hastily. She opened it again. "Huh? Well, I'll be darned!"
Smith could grok emotional violence and knew that somehow he had offered the wrong reply. He began to compose his mind for discorporation, savoring and cherishing all that he had been and seen, with especial attention to this woman creature. Then he became aware that the woman was bending over him and he knew somehow that it was not about to die. It looked into his face. "Correct me if I am wrong," it said, "but were you asking me to take my clothes off?"
The inversions and abstractions required careful translation but Smith managed it. "Yes," he answered, while hoping that it would not stir up a new crisis.
"That's what I thought you said. Brother, you aren't ill."
The word "brother" he considered first-the woman was reminding him that they had been joined in the water ritual. He asked the help of his nestlings that he might measure up to whatever this new brother wanted. "I am not ill," he agreed.
"Though I'm darned if I know how to cope with whatever is wrong with you. But I won't peel down. And I've got to get out of here." It straightened up and turned again toward the side door-then stopped and looked back with a quizzical smile. "You might ask me again, real prettily, under other circumstances. I'm curious to see what I might do."
The woman was gone. Smith relaxed into the water bed and let the room fade away from him. He felt sober triumph that he had somehow comforted himself so that it was not necessary for them to die . . . but there was much new to grok. The woman's last speech had contained many symbols new to him and those which were not new had been arranged in fashions not easily understood. But he was happy that the emotional flavor of them had been suitable for communication between water brothers-although touched with something else both disturbing and terrifyingly pleasant. He thought about his new brother, the woman creature, and felt odd tingles run through him. The feeling reminded him of the first time he had been allowed to be present at a discorporation and he felt happy without knowing why.
He wished that his brother Doctor Mahmoud were here. There was so much to grok, so little to grok from.