"Theodore Sturgeon - The Girl Had Guts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

was the weirdest sight you ever saw, her face full like a fat person's but her abdomen, from the lower ribs
to the pubes, collapsed almost against her spine. You'd never have believed an organism could require so
much foodтАФnot, that is, until you saw her eat. She'd rigged up a chopper out of the lab equipment
because she actually couldn't wait to chew her food. She just dumped everything and anything edible into
that gadget and propped her chin on the edge of the table by the outlet and packed that garbage into her
open mouth with both hands. If she could have slept it would have been easier, but hunger would wake
her after twenty minutes or so and back she'd go, chop and cram, guzzle and swill. If Glenda had been
able to helpтАФbut there she was, she did it all herself, and when we got the whole story straight we found
she'd been at it for nearly three weeks. In another three weeks they'd have been close to the end of their
stores, enough for five people for anyway another couple of months.

We had a portable hypno in the first-aid kit on the scout, and we slapped it to Glenda Spooner with a
reassurance tape and a normal sleep command and just put her to bed with it. We bedded Amy down
too, though she got a bit hysterical until we could make her understand through that fog of delirium that
one of us would stand by every minute with premasticated rations. Once she understood that she slept
like a corpse, but such a corpse you never want to see, lying there eating.

It was a lot of work all at once, and when we had it done Purcell wiped his face and said, "Five-nines
Earth Normal, hah. No malignant virus or bacterium. No toxic plants or fungi. Come to Mullygantz II,
land of happiness and health."

"Nobody's used that big fat no," I reminded him. "The reports only say there's nothing bad here that we
know about or can test for. My God, the best brains in the world used to kill AB patients by transfusing
type O blood. Heaven help us the day we think we know everything that goes on in the universe."

We didn't get the whole story then; rather, it was all there but not in a comprehensible order. The key to
it all was Amy Segal's personal log, which she called a "diary" and kept in hen tracks called shorthand,
which took three historians and a philologist a week to decode after we returned to Earth. It was the
diary that fleshed the thing out for us, told us about these people and their guts and how they exploded all
over each other. So I'll tell it, not the way we got it, but the way it happened.

To begin with, it was a good team. Clement was a good head, one of those relaxed guys who always
listens to other people talking. He could get a fantastic amount of work out of a team and out of himself
too, and it never showed. His kind of drive is sort of a secret weapon.

Glenda Spooner and Amy Segal were wild about him in a warm, respectful way that never interfered
with the work. I'd guess that Glenda was more worshipful about it, or at least, with her it showed more.
Amy was the little mouse with the big eyes that gets happier and stays just as quiet when her grand
passion walks into the room, except maybe she works a little harder so he'll be pleased. Clement was
bed-friends with both of them, which is the way things usually arrange themselves when there's an odd
number of singles on a team. It's expected of them, and the wise exec keeps it going that way and plays
no favorites, at least till the job's done.

The Flents, Katherine and Joe, were married, and had been for quite a while before they went Outside.
His specialty was geology and mineralogy, and she was a chemist, and just as their sciences
supplemented each other so did their egos. One of Amy's early "diary" entries says they knew each other
so well they were one step away from telepathy; they'd work side by side for hours swapping information
with grunts and eyebrows.

Just what kicked over all this stability it's hard to say. It wasn't a fine balance; you'd think from the look