"John Varley - The Phantom of Kansas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

everything I ever saw or thought or remembered or just vaguely dreamed. It was a blessed relief when I
slid over into unconsciousness.

The coolness and sheen of stainless steel beneath my fingertips. There is the smell of isopropyl alcohol,
and the hint of acetone.

The medico's shop. Childhood memories tumble over me, triggered by the smells. Excitement, change,
my mother standing by while the medico carves away my broken finger to replace it with a pink new one.
I lie in the darkness and remember.

And there is light, a hurting light from nowhere, and I feel my pupil contract as the only movement in my
entire body.

"She's in," I hear. But I'm not, not really. I'm just lying here in the blessed dark, unable to move.

It comes in a rush, the repossession of my body. I travel down the endless nerves to bang up hard against
the insides of my hands and feet, to whirl through the pools of my nipples and tingle in my lips and nose.
Now I'm in.

I sat up quickly into the restraining arms of the medico. I struggled for a second before I was able to
relax. My fingers were buzzing and cramped with the clamminess of hyperventilation.

"Whew," I said, putting my head in my hands. "Bad dream. I thought ..."

I looked around me and saw that I was naked on the steel-topped table with several worried faces
looking at me from all sides. I wanted to retreat into the darkness again and let my insides settle down. I
saw my mother's face, blinked, and failed to make it disappear.

"Carnival?" I asked her ghost.

"Right here, Fox," she said, and took me in her arms. It was awkward and unsatisfying with her standing
on the floor and me on the table. There were wires trailing from my body. But the comfort was needed. I
didn't know where I was. With a chemical rush as precipitous as the one just before I awoke, the people
solidified around me.

"She's all right now," the medico said, turning from his instruments. He smiled impersonally at me as he
began removing the wires from my head. I did not smile back. I knew where I was now, just as surely as
I had ever known anything. I remembered coming in here only hours before.

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4 John Varley

But I knew it had been more than a few hours. I've read about it: the disorientation when a new body is
awakened with transplanted memories. And my mother wouldn't be here unless something had gone
badly wrong.

I had died.