"Theodore Sturgeon - Slow Sculpture" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

Van de Graaf generator as well. And a golliwog."
"Let me down," was all she could say.
"Not yet. Please hang tight. The differential between
you and everything else here is so high that if you got
near any of it you'd discharge into it. It wouldn't harm
you--it isn't current electricity--but you might get a burn
and a nervous shock out of it." He held out the electro-
scope. Even at that distance--and in her distress--she
could see the gold leaves writhe apart. He circled her,
watching the leaves attentively, moving the instrument
forward and back and from side to side. Once he went
to the tone generator and turned it down some more.
"You're sending such a strong field I can't pick up the
variations," he explained and returned to her, coming
closer now.
"I can'tmuch more1 can't," she murmured.
He did not hear or he did not care. He 'moved the
electroscope near her abdomen, up and from side to side.
"Yup. There you are," he said cheerfully, moving the
instrument close to her right breast.
"What?" she whimpered.
"Your cancer. Right breast, low, around toward the
armpit." He whistled. "A mean one, too. Malignant as
hell."
She swayed and then collapsed forward and down. A


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sick blackness swept down on her, receded explosively in
a glare of agonizing blue-white and then crashed down
on her like a mountain falling.
Place where wall meets ceiling. Another wall, another
ceiling. Hadn't seen it before. Didn't matter. Don't care.
Sleep.
Place where wall meets ceiling. Something in the way.
His face, close, drawn, tired--eyes awake, though, and
penetrating. Doesn't matter. Don't care.
Sleep.
Place where wall meets ceiling. Down a bit, late sun-
light. Over a little, rusty-gold chrysanthemums in a gold-
green glass cornucopia. Something in the way again--his
face.
"Can you hear me?"
Yes, but don't answer. Don't move. Don't speak.
Sleep.
It's a room, a wall, a table, a man pacing--a nighttime
window and mums you'd think were alive but don't you
know they're cut right off and dying?