"Bruce Sterling - Heavy Weather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

"That's not new. I'm not afraid of that, either."
"Very well, Alex." Dr. Mirabi patted Alex's shoulder. "Then we will
begin. Take your place on the manipulation table, please."
Concepci├┤n helped Alex to lie on the jointed leather table. She
touched her foot to a floor pedal. A worm gear whined beneath the
floor. The table bent at Alex's hips and rose beneath his back, to a
sharp angle. Alex coughed twice.
Dr. Mirabi drew on a pair of translucent gloves, deftly unwrapped one
of his canvas-bound machines, and busied himself at the switches. He
opened a cabinet, retrieved a pair of matched, bright yellow aerosol
tanks, and inserted both tanks into sockets at the top of the
machine. He attached clear plastic tubing to the taps on the tanks
and opened both the taps, with brief pneumatic hisses. The machine
hummed and sizzled a bit and gave off a hot waft of electrical
resistance.
"We will set the liquid to blood heat," Dr. Mirabi explained. "That
way there is no thermal shock to the tuberdes. Also heat will
dissolve the chronic mucus more effectively. Efficiently? Is it
'efficiently' or 'effectively'?"
"They're synonyms," Alex said. "Do you think I might throw up? These
are my favorite pajamas."
Concepci├│n stripped the pajamas off, then wrapped him briskly in a
paper medical gown. She strapped him against the table with a pair of
fabric belts. Dr. Mirabi approached him with the soft plastic nozzle
of the insert, smeared with a pink paste. "Open widely, don't taste
the anesthetic," he warned. Alex nevertheless got a generous smear of
the paste against the root of his tongue, which immediately went as
numb as a severed beef tongue on a butcher's block.
The nozzle slid its way down a narrow road of pain along his throat.
Alex felt the fleshy valve within his chest leap and flap as the tube
touched and penetrated. Then the numbness struck, and a great core of
meat behind his heart simply lost sensation, went into nothingness,
like a core mechanically punched from an apple.
His eyes filled with tears. He heard, more than saw, Dr. Mirabi
touching taps. Then the heat came.
He'd never known that blood was so hot. The fluid was hotter than
blood, and much, much heavier, like fizzing, creamy, molten lead. He
could see the fluid moving into him through the tube. It was
chemical-colored, aqua blue. "Breathe!" Dr. Mirabi shouted.
Alex heaved for air. A bizarre reverberating belch tore free from the
back of his throat, something like the cry of a monster bullfrog. For
an instant he tried to laugh; his diaphragm heaved futilely at the
liquid weight within him, and went still.
"El nina tiene un bulto en la garganta," said Concepcion,
conversationally. She placed her latex-gloved hand against his
forehead. "Muy doloroso."
"Poco a poco," Dr. Mirabi said, gesturing. The worm gear rustled
beneath the table and Alex rose in place, liquid shifting within him
with the gut-bulging inertia of a nine-course meal. Air popped in
bursts from his clamped lips and a hot gummy froth rose against his