"Heinlein, Robert A - Waldo (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

'-engineer. But you're no medical man. You can't expect to pour every sort
of radiant energy through the human system year after year and not pay
for it. It wasn't designed to stand it.'
'But I wear armour in the lab. You know that.'
'Surely. And how about outside the lab?'
'But- Look, Doc - I hate to say it, but your whole thesis
is ridiculous. Sure there is radiant energy in the air these days,
but nothing harmful. All the colloidal chemists agree-'
'Colloidal, fiddlesticks!'
'But you've got to admit that biological economy is a matter of
colloidal chemistry.'
'I've got to admit nothing. I'm not contending that colloids are
not the fabric of living tissue- They are. But I've maintained for
forty years that it was dangerous to expose living tissue to assorted
radiation without being sure of the effect. From an evolutionary
standpoint the human animal is habituated to and adapted to only
the natural radiation of the sun, and he can't stand that any too well,
even under a thick blanket of ionization. Without that blanket- Did
you ever see a solar-X type cancer?'
'Of course not.'
'No, you're too young. I have. Assisted at the autopsy of one, when
I was an intern. Chap was on the Second Venus Expedition. Four
hundred and thirty-eight cancers we counted in him, then gave up.'
'Solar-X is whipped.'
'Sure it is. But it ought to be a warning. You bright young squirts
can cook up things in your labs that we medicos can't begin to
cope with. We're behind - bound to be. We usually don't know
what's happened until the damage is done. This time you've torn it.'
He sat down heavily and suddenly looked as tired and whipped as
did his younger friend.
Stevens felt the sort of tongue-tied embarrassment a man may feel
when a dearly beloved friend falls in love with an utterly worthless
person. He wondered what he could say that would not seem rude.
He changed the subject. 'Doc, I came over because I had a couple
of things on my mind-'
'Such as?'
'Well, a vacation for one. I know I'm run-down. I've been overworked,
and a vacation seems in order. The other is your pal, Waldo.'
'Huh?'
'Yeah. Waldo Farthingwaite-Jones, bless his stiff-necked, bad-tempered
heart.'
'Why Waldo? You haven't suddenly acquired an interest in
myasthenia gravis, have you?'
'Well, no. I don't care what's wrong with him physically.
He can have hives, dandruff, or the galloping never-get-overs,
for all I care. I hope he has. What I want is to pick his brains.'
'So?'
'I can't do it alone. Waldo doesn't help people; he uses them.
You're his only normal contact with people.'
'That is not entirely true-'