"LeGuin, Ursula K. - The DispossessedUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

long before, in the Dust, in the years of famine and de-
spair, when he had promised himself that he would never
act again but by his own free choice. And following that
promise he had brought himself here: to this moment
without time, this place without an earth, this little room,
this prison.

The doctor had examined his bruised shoulder (the
bruise puzzled Shevek; he had been too tense and hurried
to realize what had been going on at the landing field, and
had never felt the rock strike him). Now be turned to him
holding a hypodermic needle.

"I do not want that," Shevek said. His spoken lotic was
slow, and, as he knew from the radio exchanges, badly
pronounced, but it was grammatical enough; he had more
difficulty understanding than speaking.

"This is measles vaccine." said the doctor, professionally
deaf.

"No," Shevek said.

The doctor chewed his lip for a moment and said, "Do
you know what measles is, sir?"

'ХNo."

"A disease. Contagious. Often severe in adults. You
don't have it on Anarres; prophylactic measures kept it
out when the planet was settled. It's common on Urras. It
could kill you. So could a dozen other common viral in-
fections. You have no resistance. Are you right-banded,
sir?"

Shevek automatically shook his head. With the grace of
a prestidigitator the doctor slid the needle into his right
arm. Shevek submitted to this and other injections in si-
lence. He had no right to suspicion or protest. He had
yielded himself up to these people; he had given up his
birthright of decision. It was gone, fallen away from him
along with bis world, the world of the Promise, the barren
stone.

The doctor spoke again, but he did not listen.

For hours or days he existed in a vacancy, a dry and

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