"James White - SG 10 - The Final Diagnosis" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

terrifying in their great size and obvious physical strength; others who were
horrifying and repugnant in the nauseous growths and slime sheen covering their
dreadful, misshapen bodies. Some of the shapes were so ridiculous that he had
trouble believing his eyes. One of the creatures was covered with silver fur that
rippled and tufted continually as it undulated past the litter on about twenty legs.
He remembered seeing a picture of one somewhere, and that their home world was
called Kelgia. Gradually he was able to identify a few other familiar shapes from
the extraterrestrial menagerie that was passing by

The large, six-legged elephantine being with the four tentacles and immobile
dome of a head was a Tralthan; a large, low-slung crustacean with the beautifully
marked carapace that clicked past on thin, bony multijointed legs was, he recalled,
a Melfan; and the small biped who looked like a half-size Earth-human covered in
tightly curled red fur came from the planet Nidia

The Nidian bumped gently against the side of the litter as it went past. It barked
something at his nurse, possibly a reproof for bad driving, which was ignored.
Like the cacophony of hooting, chirping, barking, or gobbling conversations going
on all around him, it was just so much irritating, organic noise. This meant that the
litter's translation device must have been programmed only for the languages of
the nurse and himself


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Hewlitt disliked being kept in ignorance of anything that was being said around
him. He wondered if he would be allowed a personal multitranslator during his
stay in hospital. Probably not. If the medics here were anything like some of the
ones he had met on Earth, they would not want their patient to know what was
going on

Especially if they were not sure themselves

His unpleasant memories of many unsuccessful treatments on his home world
were driven from his-mind by the sight of a great, hissing metal juggernaut that
was heading rapidly toward them on a collision course. He pointed and yelled,
"Nurse, look out! Slow down, dammit, and move aside.тАЭ

The nurse did none of those things, and the metal monster veered aside at the last
moment and passed with a few inches to spare. Through the partly open canopy
came the hot, odorless smell of escaping steam

"That was the environmental protection vehicle of an SNLU," said the nurse. "It
belongs to a heavy-gravity life-form that evolved in an atmosphere of high-
pressure superheated steam. We were in no danger from it.тАЭ

The nurse removed one of its tentacles from the litter controls to point along the
corridor before going on. "You will already have noticed that the beings you can