"Mike Resnick - Hothouse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

the oddest thought:Shouldn't I feel worse about losing a person than she feels
about losing an orchid?




Page 4
But I don't. * * * *

I don't know when it began. Probably with the first caveman who made a sling
for a broken arm, or forced water out of a drowned companion's lungs. But
somewhere back in the dim and distant past man invented medicine. It had its
good centuries and its bad centuries, but by the end of the last millennium it
was curing so many diseases and extending so many lives that things got out of
hand.

More than half the people who were alive in 2050 were still alive in 2150. And
almost 90% of the people who were alive in 2100 will be alive in 2200. Medical
science had doubled and then trebled man's life span. Immortality was within
our grasp. Life everlasting beckoned.

We were so busy increasing the length of life that no one gave much thought to
thequality of those extended lives.

And then we woke up one day to find that there were a lot more of them than
there were of us. * * * *

His name is Bernard Goldmeier. They carry him in on an airsled, then transfer
him to Mr. Lazlo's old life station.

After I clean the Major's tubes and change his bedding and medicate Rex's eye,
I call up Mr. Goldmeier's medical history on the holoscreen at his life
station.

This place stinks! rasps a dry voice.

I jump, startled, then turn to see who spoke. There is no one in the room
except me and my charges.

Who said that? I demand.

I did, replies Mr. Goldmeier.

I look closely at him. The skin hangs loose and brown-spotted on his bald
head. His cheeks are covered by miscolored flesh and his nose has oxygen tubes
inserted into itbut his eyes, sunken deep in his head, are clear and he is
staring at me.

You really spoke! I exclaim.