"Julian May - Rampart Worlds 3 - Sagittarius Whorl" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

"This demiclone will wake up soon," said the male medic. "Listen, Avilik: one thinks
we should blah blah blah. Just in case blah blah blah. Did you bring them with you?"
"Yes."
The meditechs had finished their examination of the other patient and replaced his
blanket. Now they came across the room toward me again. I quickly shut my eyes,
relaxed, tried to think Zen thoughts, and prayed that my bed wasn't equipped with a built-
in vital signs monitor that would betray the fact that I was rally conscious. Somebody
drew the covering away from my naked body. They rolled me over and I felt a sharp
prick in the back of my neck.
"It is best that we wait to insert the second blah" Avilik decided. "But it is not really
needed yet. He's still very weak."
Miruviak grunted something that might have been "That will take care of it," and then
they rolled me over again and tucked me in.
"The dystasis turned him a most beautiful color," the female medic remarked, uttering
the squelched barking sound that represented Haluk laughter. "His blah blah are certainly
of an imposing size and blah. Later, one hopes to know him better before we must blah
blah."
"Disgusting," hissed her colleague, clearly miffed. "You women only blah one thing."
I heard more alien snickering. Then both of the medical technicians went out of the
room. I lay still, cold dread seeping into my soul along with a growing comprehension.
My memory was coming back on-lineтАФparts of it, at any rateтАФ and I didn't like what I
recalled.
I'd been in a dystasis tank for at least seven months. The Haluk had made two
demiclones of me. The first evil triplet had been a human traitor, imperfectly morphed at
the cell-nucleus level but otherwise my physical duplicate. I had no notion what his
mission might be, but it boded no good for humanity. The second demiclone was a
transformed Haluk, destined to replace Agent Number One, who possessed certain talents
but also had the potential to become uncontrollable. Number Two had been more expertly
engineered and was perhaps a perfect genetic replica. I presumed that he now occupied
the bed opposite mine. He was going to be tutored before going out to fulfill his mission,
and some of the briefings were to come from me, whether I chose to cooperate or not.
The suite's mishmash of Haluk and human decor made more sense now. It was a
schoolroom where my shadow and I would live and work together until he had his act
down pat.
 Interspecific genetic engineering ... there was something peculiar about it. I tried to
retrieve what I knew from my cerebral database. My sisterтАФwhat was her name?тАФhad
once been targeted for demicloning. She was rescued before a duplicate of her could be
made, but she'd still suffered certain dramatic side effects from the procedure.
As I would have.
Turning an alien into a human being was trickier than the usual total-spectrum
biological refit job and even more illegal under CHW law. It required that the human
DNA donorтАФin this case, meтАФfirst be modified with an infusion of critical alien genes
so the demiclone subject wouldn't reject the human material. The preliminary genen
procedure superficially transformed the DNA donorтАФ
Rats!
I lifted my right hand and drew it out from beneath the covers. The skin was very firm
and tinted a rich sky-blue. There were no fingernails on the four abnormally elongated
digits. The bones of the pinkie and ring fingers were partially fused now, enclosed in a
single fleshy envelope. My lower arm, quite hairless, was decorated with a dramatic
pattern of ridges that sported faintly drawn golden patterns, almost like delicate