"Morrison, William - Bedside Manner v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

Bedside Manner


SHE AWOKE, and didn't even wonder where she was.
First there were feelingsЧa feeling of existence, a sense of still being alive when she should be dead, an awareness of pain that made her body its playground.
After that, there came a thought. It was a simple thought, and her mind blurted it out before she could stop it: Oh, God, now I won't even be plain any more. I'll be ugly.
The thought sent a wave of panic coursing through her, but she was too tired to experience any emotion for long, and she soon drowsed off.
Later, the second time she awoke, she wondered where she was.
There was no way of telling. Around her all was black and quiet. The blackness was solid, the quiet absolute. She was aware of pain again--not sharp pain this time, but dull, spread throughout her body. Her legs ached; so did her arms. She tried to lift them, and found to her surprise that they did not respond. She tried to flex her fingers, and failed.
She was paralyzed. She could not move a muscle of her body.
The silence was so complete that it was frightening. Not a whisper of sound reached her. She had been on a spaceship, but none of a ship's noises came to her now. Not the creak of an expanding joint, nor the occasional slap of metal on metal. Not the sound of Fred's voice, nor even the slow rhythm of her own breathing.
It took her a full minute to figure out why, and when she had done so she did not believe it. But the thought persisted, and soon she knew that it was true.
The silence was complete because she was deaf.
Another thought: The blackness was so deep because she was blind.
And still another, this time a questioning one: Why, if she could feel pain in her arms and legs, could she not move them? What strange form of paralysis was this?
She fought against the answer, but slowly, inescapably, it formed in her mind. She was not paralyzed at all. She could not move her arms and legs because she had none. The pains she felt were phantom pains, conveyed by the nerve endings without an external stimulus.
When this thought penetrated, she fainted. Her mind sought in unconsciousness to get as close to death as it could. When she awoke, it was against her will. She sought desperately to close her mind against thought and feeling, just as her eyes and ears were already closed.
But thoughts crept in despite her. Why was she alive? Why hadn't she died in the crash?
Fred must certainly have been killed. The asteroid had come into view suddenly; there had been no chance of avoiding it. It had been a miracle that she herself had escaped, if escape it could be calledЧa mere sightless, armless and legless torso, with no means of communication with the outside world, she was more dead than alive. And she could not believe that the miracle had been repeated with Fred.
It was better that way. Fred wouldn't have to look at her and shudderЧand he wouldn't have to worry about himself, either. He had always been a handsome man, and it would have killed him a second time to find himself maimed and horrible.
She must find a way to join him, to kill herself. It would be difficult, no doubt, without arms or legs, without any way of knowing her surroundings; but sooner or later she would think of a way. She had heard somewhere of people strangling themselves by swallowing their own tongues, and the thought cheered her. She could at least try that right now. She could--
No, she couldn't. She hadn't realized it before, but she had no tongue.
She didn't black out at this sudden awareness of a new horror, although she desperately wanted to. She thought: I can make an effort of will, I can force myself to die. Die, you fool, you helpless lump of flesh. Die and end your torture, die, die, die...
But she didn't. And after a while, a new thought came to her: She and Fred had been the only ones on their ship; there had been no other ship near them. Who had kept her from dying? Who had taken her crushed body and stopped the flow of blood and tended her wounds and kept her alive? And for what purpose?
The silence gave no answer. Nor did her own mind. After an age, she slept again.
When she awoke, a voice said, "Do you feel better?"

I can hear! She shouted to herself. It's a strange voice, a most unusual accent. I couldn't possibly have imagined it. I'm not deaf! Maybe I'm not blind either! Maybe I just had a nightmare--
"I know that you cannot answer. But do not fear. You will soon be able to speak again."
Who was it? Not a man's voice, nor a woman's. It was curiously hoarse, and yet clear enough. Uninflected, and yet pleasant. A doctor? Where could a doctor have come from?
"Your husband is also alive. Fortunately, we reached both of you at about the time death had just begun."
Fortunately? She felt a flash of rage. You should have let us die. It would be bad enough to be alive by myself, a helpless cripple dependent upon others. But to know that Fred is alive too is worse. To know that he has a picture of me like this, ugly and horrifying, is more than I can stand. With any other man it would be bad enough, but with Fred it's unendurable. Give me back the ability to talk, and the first thing I'll ask of you is to kill me. I don't want to live.
"It may reassure you to know that there will be no difficulty about recovering the use of the limbs proper to you, and the organs of sensation. It will take time, but there is no doubt about the final outcome."
What nonsense, she asked herself, was this? Doctors had done wonders in the creation and fitting of artificial arms and legs, but he seemed to be promising her the use of real limbs. And he had said, "organs of sensation." That didn't sound as if he meant that she'd see and hear electronically. It meant--
Nonsense. He was making a promise he couldn't keep. He was just saying that to make her feel better, the way doctors did. He was saying it to give her courage, keep her moral up, make her feel that it was worth fighting. But it wasn't worth fighting. She had no courage to keep up. She wanted only to die.
УPerhaps you have already realized that I am not what you would call human. However, I suggest that you do not worry too much about that. I shall have no difficulty in reconstructing you properly according to your own standards."

Then the voice ceased, and she was left alone. It was just as well, she thought. He had said too much. And she couldn't answer, nor ask questions of her own . . . and she had so many.
He wasn't human? Then what was he? And how did he come to speak a human language? And what did he mean to do with her after he had reconstructed her? And what would she look like after she was reconstructed?
There were races, she knew, that had no sense of beauty. Or if they had one, it wasn't like a human sense of beauty. Would he consider her properly reconstructed if he gave her the right number of arms and legs, and artificial organs of sight that acted like eyesЧand made her look like some creature out of Hell? Would he be proud of his handiwork, as human doctors had been known to be, when their patients ended up alive and helpless, their bodies scarred, their organs functioning feebly and imperfectly? Would he turn her into something that Fred would look at with abhorrence and disgust?
Fred had always been a little too sensitive to beauty in women. He had been able to pick and choose at his will, and until he had met her he had always chosen on the basis of looks alone. She had never understood why he had married her. Perhaps the fact that she was the one woman he knew who wasn't beautiful had made her stand out. Perhaps, too, she told herself, there was a touch of cruelty in his choice. He might have wanted someone who wasn't too sure of herself, someone he could count on under all circumstances. She remembered how people had used to stare at themЧthe handsome man and the plain womanЧand then whisper among themselves, wondering openly how he had ever come to marry her. Fred had liked that; she was sure he had liked that.
He had obviously wanted a plain wife. Now he would have an ugly one. Would he want that?
She slept on her questions, and waked and slept repeatedly. And then, one day, she heard the voice again. And to her surprise, she found that she could answer backЧslowly, uncertainly, at times painfully. But she could speak once more.
"We have been working on you," said the voice. "You are coming along nicely."
"Am IЧam IЧ" she found difficulty asking: "How do I look?"
"Incomplete."
"I must be horrible."
A slight pause. "No. Not horrible at all. Not to me. Merely incomplete."
"My husband wouldn't think so."
"I do not know what your husband would think. Perhaps he is not used to seeing incomplete persons. He might even be horrified at the sight of himself."