"No Woman Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

She was standing before the fire when he spoke, swaying just a little so that highlights danced all along her golden body. Now she turned with a serpentine grace and sank into the cushioned chair beside her. It came to him suddenly that she was much more than humanly gracefulЧquite as much as he had once feared she would be less than human.
УIТve already arranged for a performance,Ф she told him, her voice a little shaken with a familiar mixture of excitement and defiance.
Harris sat up with a start. УHow? Where? There hasnТt been any publicity at all yet, has there? I didnТt knowЧФ
УNow, now, Johnnie,Ф her amused voice soothed him. УYouТll be handling everything just as usual once I get started back to workЧ that is, if you still want to. But this IТve arranged for myself. ItТs going to be a surprise. I. . . I felt it had to be a surprise.Ф She wriggled a little among the cushions. УAudience psychology is something IТve always felt rather than known, and I do feel this is the way it ought to be done. ThereТs no precedent. Nothing like this ever happened before. IТll have to go by my own intuition.Ф
УYou mean itТs to be a complete surprise?Ф
УI think it must be. I donТt want the audience coming in with preconceived ideas. I want them to see me exactly as I am now first, before they know who or what theyТre seeing. They must realize I can still give as good a performance as ever before they remember and compare it with my past performances. I donТt want them to come ready to pity my handicapsЧI havenТt got any!Чor full of morbid curiosity. So IТm going on the air after the regular eight-oТclock telecast of the feature from Teleo City. IТm just going to do one specialty in the usual vaude program. ItТs all been arranged. TheyТll build up to it, of course, as the highlight of the evening, but they arenТt to say who I
am until the end of the performanceЧif the audience hasnТt recognized me already, by then.Ф
УAudience?Ф
УOf course. Surely you havenТt forgotten they still play to a theater audience at Teleo City? ThatТs why I want to make my debut there. IТve always played better when there were people in the studio, so I could gauge reactions. I think most performers do. Anyhow, itТs all arranged.Ф
УDoes Maltzer know?Ф
She wriggled uncomfortably. УNot yet.Ф
УBut heТll have to give his permission too, wonТt he? I meanЧФ
УNow look, John! ThatТs another idea you and Maltzer will have to get out of your minds. I donТt belong to him. In a way heТs just been my doctor through a long illness, but IТm free to discharge him whenever I choose. If there were ever any legal disagreement, I suppose heТd be entitled to quite a lot of money for the work heТs done on my new bodyЧfor the body itself, really, since itТs his own machine, in one sense. But he doesnТt own it, or me. IТm not sure just how the question would be decided by the courtsЧthere again, weТve got a problem without precedent. The body may be his work, but the brain that makes it something more than a collection of metal rings is me, and he couldnТt restrain me against my will even if he wanted to. Not legally, and notЧФ She hesitated oddly and looked away. For the first time Harris was aware of something beneath the surface of her mind which was quite strange to him.
УWell, anyhow,Ф she went on, Уthat question wonТt come up. Maltzer and I have been much too close in the past year to clash over anything as essential as this. He knows in his heart that IТm right, and he wonТt try to restrain me. His work wonТt be completed until I do what I was built to do. And I intend to do it.Ф
That strange little quiver of somethingЧsomething un-Deirdre---which had so briefly trembled beneath the surface of familiarity stuck in HarrisТ mind as something he must recall and examine later. Now he said only,
УAll right. I suppose I agree with you. How soon are you going to do it?Ф
She turned her head so that even the glass mask through which she looked out at the world was foreshortened away from him, and the golden helmet with its hint of sculptured cheekbone was entirely enigmatic.
УTonight,Ф she said.
MaltzerТs thin hand shook so badly that he could not turn the dial. He tried twice and then laughed nervously and shrugged at Harris.
УYou get her,Ф he said.
Harris glanced at his watch. УIt isnТt time yet. She wonТt be on for half an hour.Ф
Maltzer made a gesture of violent impatience. УGet it, get it!Ф
Harris shrugged a little in turn and twisted the dial. On the tilted screen above them shadows and sound blurred together and then clarified into a somber medieval hall, vast, vaulted, people in bright costume moving like pygmies through its dimness. Since the play concerned Mary of Scotland, the actors were dressed in something approximating Elizabethan garb, but as every era tends to translate costume into terms of the current fashions, the womenТs hair was dressed in a style that would have startled Elizabeth, and their footgear was entirely anachronistic.
The hall dissolved and a face swam up into soft focus upon the screen. The dark, lush beauty of the actress who was playing the Stuart queen glowed at them in velvety perfection from the clouds of her pearl-strewn hair. Maltzer groaned.
УSheТs competing with that,Ф he said hollowly.
УYou think she canТt?Ф
Maltzer slapped the chair arms with angry palms. Then the quivering of his fingers seemed suddenly to strike him, and he muttered to himself, УLook at Сem! IТm not even fit to handle a hammer and saw.Ф But the mutter was an aside. УOf course she canТt compete,Ф he cried irritably. УShe hasnТt any sex. She isnТt female any more. She doesnТt know that yet, but sheТll learn.Ф
Harris stared at him, feeling a little stunned. Somehow the thought had not occurred to him before at all, so vividly had the illusion of the old Deirdre hung about the new one.
УSheТs an abstraction now,Ф Maltzer went on, drumming his palms upon the chair in quick, nervous rhythms. УI donТt know what itТll do to her, but thereТll be change. Remember Abelard? SheТs lost everything that made her essentially what the public wanted, and sheТs going to find it out the hard way. After thatЧФ He grimaced savagely and was silent.
УShe hasnТt lost everything,Ф Harris defended. УShe can dance and sing as well as ever, maybe better. She still has grace and charm andЧФ
УYes, but where did the grace and charm come from? Not out of the habit patterns in her brain. No, out of human contacts, out of all the things that stimulate sensitive minds to creativeness. And sheТs
lost three of her five senses. Everything she canТt see and hear is gone. One of the strongest stimuli to a woman of her type was the knowledge of sex competition. You know how she sparkled when a man came into the room? All thatТs gone, and it was an essential. You know how liquor stimulated her? SheТs lost that. She couldnТt taste food or drink even if she needed it. Perfume, flowers, all the odors we respond to mean nothing to her now. She canТt feel anything with tactual delicacy any more. She used to surround herself with luxuriesЧ she drew her stimuli from themЧand thatТs all gone too. SheТs withdrawn from all physical contacts.Ф
He squinted at the screen, not seeing it, his face drawn into lines like the lines of a skull. All flesh seemed to have dissolved off his bones in the past year, and Harris thought almost jealously that even in that way he seemed to be drawing nearer Deirdre in her fleshlessness with every passing week.
УSight,Ф Maltzer said, Уis the most highly civilized of the senses. It was the last to come. The other senses tie us in closely with the very roots of life; I think we perceive with them more keenly than we know. The things we realize through taste and smell and feeling stimulate directly, without a detour through the centers of conscious thought. You know how often a taste or odor will recall a memory to you so subtly you donТt know exactly what caused it? We need those primitive senses to tie us in with nature and the race. Through those ties Deirdre drew her vitality without realizing it. Sight is a cold, intellectual thing compared with the other senses. But itТs all she has to draw on now. She isnТt a human being any more, and I think what humanity is left in her will drain out little by little and never be replaced. Abelard, in a way, was a prototype. But DeirdreТs loss is complete.Ф
УShe isnТt human,Ф Harris agreed slowly. УBut she isnТt pure robot either. SheТs something somewhere between the two, and I think itТs a mistake to try to guess just where, or what the outcome will be.Ф
УI donТt have to guess,Ф Maltzer said in a grim voice. УI know. I wish IТd let her die. IТve done something to her a thousand times worse than the fire ever could. I should have let her die in it.Ф
УWait,Ф said Harris. УWait and see. I think youТre wrong.Ф


On the television screen Mary of Scotland climbed the scaffold to her doom, the gown of traditional scarlet clinging warmly to supple young curves as anachronistic in their way as the slippers beneath the gown, forЧas everyone but playwrights knowsЧMary was well into
middle age before she died. Gracefully this latter-day Mary bent her head, sweeping the long hair aside, kneeling to the block.
Maltzer watched stonily, seeing another woman entirely.
УI shouldnТt have let her,Ф he was muttering. УI shouldnТt have let her do it.Ф
УDo you really think youТd have stopped her if you could?Ф Harris asked quietly. And the other man after a momentТs pause shook his head jerkily.
УNo, I suppose not. I keep thinking if I worked and waited a little longer maybe I could make it easier for her, butЧno, I suppose not. SheТs got to face them sooner or later, being herself.Ф He stood up abruptly, shoving back his chair. УIf she only werenТt so - . . so frail. She doesnТt realize how delicately poised her very sanity is. We gave her what we couldЧthe artists and the designers and I, all gave our very bestЧbut sheТs so pitifully handicapped even with all we could do. SheТll always be an abstraction and a. . . a freak, cut off from the world by handicaps worse in their way than anything any human being ever suffered before. Sooner or later sheТll realize it. And thenЧФ He began to pace up and down with quick, uneven steps, striking his hands together. His face was twitching with a little tic that drew up one eye to a squint and released it again at irregular intervals. Harris could see how very near collapse the man was.
УCan you imagine what itТs like?Ф Maltzer demanded fiercely. УPenned into a mechanical body like that, shut out from all human contacts except what leaks in by way of sight and sound? To know you arenТt human any longer? SheТs been through shocks enough already. When that shock fully hits herЧФ
УShut up,Ф said Harris roughly. УYou wonТt do her any good if you break down yourself. LookЧthe vaudeТs starting.Ф
Great golden curtains had swept together over the unhappy Queen of Scotland and were parting again now, all sorrow and frustration wiped away once more as cleanly as the passing centuries had already expunged them. Now a line of tiny dancers under the tremendous arch of the stage kicked and pranced with the precision of little mechanical dolls too small and perfect to be real. Vision rushed down upon them and swept along the row, face after stiffly smiling face racketing by like fence pickets. Then the sight rose into the rafters and looked down upon them from a great height, the grotesquely foreshortened figures still prancing in perfect rhythm even from this inhuman angle.
There was applause from an invisible audience. Then someone came out and did a dance with lighted torches that streamed long,
weaving ribbons of fire among clouds of what looked like cotton wool but was most probably asbestos. Then a company in gorgeous pseudo-period costumes postured its way through the new singing ballet form of dance, roughly following a plot which had been announced as Les Sylphides, but had little in common with it. Afterward the precision dancers came on again, solemn and charming as performing dolls.