"Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land - Original Ve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

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
crsis.
"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 brotheT 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