"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Adaptive Ultimate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

"De Vries and Weissman say nothing did. They answer that evolution must have progressed in jumps, so
that when the eye appeared, it was already efficient enough to have survival value, and likewise the wing.
Those jumps they named mutations. And in that sense, Dan, Kyra's a mutation, a jump from the human
toтАФsomething else. Perhaps the superhuman."

Scott shook his head in perplexity. He was thoroughly puzzled, completely baffled, and more than a little
unnerved. In a few moments more he bade Bach good night, wandered home, and lay for hours in
sleepless thought.

The next day Bach managed a leave of absence for both of them from Grand Mercy, and Scott moved
in. This was in part simply out of his fascinated interest in the case of Kyra Zelas, but in part it was
altruistic. She had confessedly murdered one man; it occurred to Scott that she might with no more
compunction murder Dr. Bach, and he meant to be at hand to prevent it.

He had been in her company no more than a few hours before Bach's words on evolution and mutations
took on new meaning. It was not only Kyra's chameleon-like coloring, nor her strangely pure and
saintlike features, nor even her incredible beauty. There was something more; he could not at once
identify it, but decidedly the girl Kyra was not quite human.

The event that impressed this on him occurred in the late afternoon. Bach was away somewhere on
personal business, and Scott had been questioning the girl about her own impressions of her experience.

"But don't you know you've changed?" he asked. "Can't you see the difference in yourself?"

"Not I. It is the world that has changed."

"But your hair was black. Now it's light as ashes."

"Was it?" she asked. "Is it?"

He groaned in exasperation. "Kyra," he said, "you must know something about yourself."

Her exquisite eyes turned their silver on him. "I do," she said. "I know that what I want is mine,
and"тАФher pure lips smiledтАФ"I think I want you, Dan."
It seemed to him, that she changed at that moment. Her beauty was not quite as it had been, but
somehow more wildly intoxicating than before. He realized what it meant; her environment now contained
a man she loved, or thought she loved, and she was adapting to that, too. She was becomingтАФhe
shivered slightlyтАФirresistible!

Bach must have realized the situation, but he said nothing. As for Scott, it was sheer torture, for he
realized only too well that the girl he loved was a freak, a biological sport, and worse than that, a cold
murderess and a creature not exactly human. Yet for the next several days things went smoothly. Kyra
slipped easily into the routine; she was ever a willing subject for their inquiries and investigations.

Then Scott had an idea. He produced one of the guinea pigs that he had injected, and they found that the
creature evinced the same reaction as Kyra to cuts. They killed the thing by literally cutting it in half with
an ax, and Bach examined its brain.

"Right!" he said at last. "It's hypertrophy of the pineal." He stared intently at Scott. "Suppose," he said,
"that we could reach Kyra's pineal and correct the hypertrophy. Do you suppose that might return her to