"Rog Phillips - Rat in the Skull" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

lowly origins remained. When this was done, Dr. MacNare loaded the cages into his
car and drove them to a pet store that had agreed to take them.
When he returned, he joined Alice in the study, and at five minutes before four, with
Alice hovering anxiously beside him, he opened the cover on Adam's chest and
turned on the master switch that gave Adam complete dominion over his robot
body.
Adam was beautiful тАУ and monstrous. Made of metal from the neck down, but
shaped to be covered by padding and skin in human semblance. From the neck up
the job was done. The face was human, masculine, handsome, much like that of a
clothing store dummy except for its mobility of expression, and the incongruity of
the rest of the body.
The voice-control lever and contacts had been designed so that the ability to
produce most sounds would have to be discovered by Adam as he gained control
of his natural right front leg. Now the only sounds being uttered were "oh," "ah,"
"mm," and in random order. Similarly, the only movements of his arms and legs
were feeble, like those of a human baby. The tremendous strength in his limbs was
something he would be unable to tap fully until he had learned conscious
coordination.
After a while Adam became silent and without movement. Alarmed, Dr. MacNare
opened the instrument panel in the abdomen. The instruments showed that Adam's
pulse and respiration were normal. He had fallen asleep.
Dr. MacNare and his wife stole softly from the study, and locked the door.
After a few days, with the care and feeding of Adam all that remained of the giant
research project, the pace of the days shifted to that of long-range patience.
"It's just like having a baby," Alice said.
"You know something?" Dr. MacNare asked. "I've had to resist passing out cigars. I
hate to say it, but I'm prouder of Adam than I was of Paul when he was born."
"So am I, Joe," Alice said quietly. "But I'm getting a little of that scared feeling back
again."
"In what way?"
"He watches me. Oh. I know it's natural for him to, but I do wish you had made the
eyes so that his own didn't show as little dark dots in the center of the iris."
"It couldn't be helped," Dr. MacNare said. "He has to be able to see, and I had to
set up the system of mirrors so that the two axes of vision would be three inches
apart as they are in the average human pair of eyes."
"Oh, I know," said Alice. "Probably it's just something I've seized on. But when he
watches me, I find myself holding my breath in fear that he can read in my
expression the secret we have to' keep from him, that he is a rat."
"Forget it, Alice. That's outside his experience and beyond his comprehension."
"I know." Alice sighed. "When he begins to show some of the signs of intelligence a
baby has, I'll be able to think of him as a human being."
"Sure, darling," Dr. MacNare said.
"Do you think he ever will?"
"That," Dr. MacNare said, "is the big question. I think he will. I think so now even
more than I did at the start. Aside from eating and sleeping, he has no avenue of
expression except his robot body, andno source of reward except that of making
sense тАУ human sense."