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

He went on: "You found a lump. You went to a doctor
and he made some tests and gave you the bad news.
Maybe you went to another doctor and he confirmed it.
You then did some research and found out what was to
happen next--the exploratory, the radical, the question-
able recovery, the whole long agonizing procedure of
being what they call a terminal case. You then flipped
out. Did some things you hope I won't ask you about.
Took a trip somewhere, anywhere, wound up in my or-
chard for no reason." He spread the good hands and let
them go back to their kind of sleep. "Panic. The reason


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for little boys in their pajamas standing at midnight with
a broken alarm clock in their arms and for the existence
of quacks." Something chimed over on the bench and he
gave her a quick smile and went back to work, saying
over his shoulder, "I'm not a quack, by the way. To qual-
ify as a quack you have to claim to be a doctor. I don't."
She watched him switch off, switch on, stir, measure
and calculate. A little orchestra of equipment chorused
and soloed around him as he conducted, whirring, hissing,
clicking, flickering. She wanted to laugh, to cry and to
scream. She did not one of these things for fear of not
stopping, ever.
When he came over again, the conflict was not raging
within her but was exerting steady and opposed tensions.
The result was a terrible stasis and all she could do when
she saw the instrument in his hand was to widen her eyes.
She quite forgot to breathe.
"Yes, it's a needle," he said, his tone almost bantering.
"A long shiny sharp needle. Don't tell me you are one of
those needle-shy people." He flipped the long power cord
that trailed from the black housing around the hypoder-
mic to get some slack, straddled the stool. "Want some-
thing to steady your nerves?"
She was afraid to speak. The membrane containing her
sane self was very thin, stretched very tight.
He said, "I'd rather you didn't, because this pharma-
ceutical stew is complex enough as it is. But if you need
it"
She managed to shake her head a little and again felt
the wave of approval from him. There were a thousand
questions she wanted to ask--had meant to ask--needed
to ask. What was in the needle? How many treatments
must she have? What would they be like? How long must
she stay and where? And most of all-oh, could she live,