"Rog Phillips - The Yelllow Pill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

"Can you stand now?" Gar said, letting go of Jerry.

Jerry took a few steps back and forth, unsteadily at first, then with better coordination. His resemblance
to a robot decreased with exercise.

Gar was beginning to feel sick again. He fought it.

"You okay now, Jerry boy?" he asked worriedly.

"I'm fine now, Dr. Elton," Jerry said. "And thanks for everything you've done for me."

Abruptly Jerry turned and went over to the air-lock door and opened it.

"Good-bye now, Dr. Elton," he said.

"Wait!" Gar screamed, leaping toward Jerry.

But Jerry had stepped into the air lock and closed the door. Gar tried to open it, but already Jerry had
turned on the pump that would evacuate the air from the lock.

He watched as Jerry glanced toward the side of the air lock and smiled, then spun the wheel that opened
the air lock to the vacuum of space and stepped out.

Screaming Jerry's name senselessly in horror, Gar watched through the small square of thick glass in the
door as Jerry's chest quickly expanded, then collapsed as a mixture of phlegm and blood dribbled from
his nostrils and lips, and his eyes enlarged and glazed over. Then one of them ripped open and collapsed,
its fluid draining down his cheek.

And when Gar finally stopped screaming and sank to the deck, sobbing, his knuckles were broken and
bloody from pounding on bare metal.


The End
┬й 1 l958, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc, l986, by the Estate of Roger Phillips Graham.

Originally appeared in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION,

October l958 and reprinted by permission of Barry N. Malzberg, agent for the Estate.