"Nancy Kress - The Mountain to Mohammed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Copyright ┬й 1992 by Nancy Kress, All rights reserved. First appeared in Isaac Asimov's
Science Fiction Magazine , April 1992. For the personal use of those who have purchased
the ESF 1993 Award anthology only.


THE MOUNTAIN TO MOHAMMED

Nancy Kress


"A person gives money to the physician.
Maybe he will be healed.
Maybe he will not be healed."
тАФThe Talmud


When the security buzzer sounded, Dr. Jesse Randall was playing go against his
computer. Haruo Kaneko, his roommate at Downstate Medical, had taught him the
game. So far nineteen shiny black and white stones lay on the grid under the scanner
field. Jesse frowned; the computer had a clear shot at surrounding an empty space
in two moves, and he couldn't see how to stop it. The buzzer made him jump.
Anne? But she was on duty at the hospital until one. Or maybe he remembered
her rotation wrong...
Eagerly he crossed the small living room to the security screen. It wasn't Anne.
Three stories below a man stood on the street, staring into the monitor. He was
slight and fair, dressed in jeans and frayed jacket with a knit cap pulled low on his
head. The bottoms of his ears were red with cold.
"Yes?" Jesse said.
"Dr. Randall?" The voice was low and rough.
"Yes."
"Could you come down here a minute to talk to me?"
"About what?"
"Something that needs talkin' about. It's personal. Mike sent me."
A thrill ran through Jesse. This was it, then. He kept his voice neutral. "I'll be
right down."
He turned off the monitor system, removed the memory disk, and carried it into
the bedroom, where he passed it several times over a magnet. In a gym bag he
packed his medical equipment: antiseptics, antibiotics, sutures, clamps, syringes,
electromed scanner, as much equipment as would fit. Once, shoving it all in, he
laughed. He dressed in a warm pea coat bought second-hand at the Army-Navy
store and put the gun, also bought second-hand, in the coat pocket. Although of
course the other man would be carrying. But Jesse liked the feel of it, a slightly
heavy drag on his right side. He replaced the disk in the security system and locked
the door. The computer was still pretending to consider its move for go, although
of course it had near-instantaneous decision capacity.
"Where to?"
The slight man didn't answer. He strode purposefully away from the building,
and Jesse realized he shouldn't have said anything. He followed the man down the
street, carrying the gym bag in his left hand.
Fog had drifted in from the harbor. Boston smelled wet and grey, of rotting