"George R. R. Martin - WC 8 - One Eyed Jacks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

didn't believe it. Two men stood over her.
"You okay, miss?" asked the one to her left. "Everybody's favorite question,"
she managed to croak, thankful the rawness of her throat masked the sheer
amazement that she felt.
He was a centaur, a glorious palomino who looked like he'd just leapt out of the
"Pastorale" sequence of Disney's Fantasia. The golden coloring carried over to
his human skin, which gave the impression that he had the most magnificent tan,
complemented by ash-blond hair and tail. There was a boyish exuberance to his
face and manner only slightly countered by his concerned expression and the
surgical scrub shirt and physician's lab coat. Stitched onto the left breast
pocket was the seal of the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic, and pinned
over it was his ID card.
"Dr. Finn," she finished, reading the name off his tag. "And who are you?" was
his reply.
"Cody Havero."
"D'you know what day it is?"
"Wouldn't that depend on how long I've been unconscious? It was Thursday-no."
She rubbed an aching forehead. "That's wrong, isn't it? The plane landed after
midnight, so I suppose it must be Friday."
"Still is," Finn said cheerfully, making a note on his chart. "No evident
impairment of cognitive faculties."
"Why should there be?" she muttered, with an undertone of asperity. "I'm
suffering, if anything, from shock, not a concussion."
"Now, miss..." he began. "Doctor," she corrected. "Yes," Finn replied, thinking



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she'd addressed him. "No," she continued patiently, "I'm a doctor."
"Hiya, Major," the other man said from her blind side, and she rolled her head
to get a better view. At first glance the joker looked normal. Most people,
surprisingly, never noticed his affliction right off-even though, in a very real
sense, it was as plain -as the nose on his face. He had no eyes. Not simply
eyeless sockets, but no sockets at all, a smooth curve of solid bone from the
crown of his head to the nasal cavity. But there'd been a compensation, a nose
that Jimmy Durante would have been proud of, possessing a sensitivity that would
put a bloodhound to shame.
"Been an age, Sergeant," Cody acknowledged, levering herself up as he bent over
to give her a rough embrace. "Too fuckin' long, an' that's a fact."
"You two know each other, Scent?"
"Goin' on twenty, Doc," the blind joker replied. "Meet the only woman combat
cutter in U.S. Army history."
"You were in Vietnam?" Finn asked her. "The Joker Brigade," he added with
disgust.
"Gotta understand, Doc," Scent said to the young centaur, "there was a lotta
rationalization back then. Nobody gave a rat fuck about us. Attitude was, we get
killed, that's one less freak fouling the gene pool. Usual pattern, if a joker
got medivac'd to an aid station, he'd hardly be there more'n a day before some