"Campbell, John W Jr - Who Goes There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

"That, and one other thing, tell the story. There's nothing mysterious about
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blood; it's just as normal a body tissue as a piece of muscle, or a piece of liver. But it hasn't so much connective tissue, though it has millions, billions
of life-cells."


McReady's great bronze beard ruffled in a grim smile. "This is satisfying in a way. I'm pretty sure we humans still outnumber you -others. Others standing here.
And we have what you, your other-world race, evidently doesn't. Not an imitated, but a bred-in-the-bone instinct, a driving, unquenchable fire that's genuine.
We'll fight, fight with a ferocity you may attempt to imitate, but you'll never equal! We're human. We're real. You're imitations, false to the core of your every
cell.


"All right. It's a showdown now. You know. You, with your mind reading. You've lifted the idea from my brain. You can't do a thing about it.


"Blood is tissue. They have to bleed, if they don't bleed when cut, then, by Heaven, they're phony! Phony from hell! If they bleed -then that blood, separated
from them, is an individual -a newly formed individual in its own right, just as they, split, all of them, from one original, are individuals!


"Get it, Van? See the answer, Bar?"
Van Wall laughed very softly. "The blood -the blood will not obey. It's a new individual, with all the desire to protect its own life that the original -the
main mass from which it split -has. The blood will live -and try to crawl away from a hot needle, say!"


McReady picked up the scalpel from the middle of the table. From the cabinet, he took a rack of test-tubes, a tiny alcohol lamp, and a length of platinum wire set
in a little glass rod. A smile of grim satisfaction rode his lips. For a moment he glanced up at those around him. Barclay and Dutton moved toward him slowly, the
wooden-handled electric instrument alert.


"Dutton," said McReady, "suppose you stand over by the splice there where you've connected that in. Just to make sure no -thing -pulls it loose."


Dutton moved away. "Now, Van, suppose you be first on this."
White-faced, Van Wall stepped forward. With a delicate precision, McReady cut a vein in the base of his thumb. Van Wall winced slightly, then held steady as a
half inch of bright blood collected in the tube. McReady put the tube in the rack, gave Van Wall a bit of alum and indicated the iodine bottle.


Van Wall stood motionlessly watching. McReady heated the platinum wire in the alcohol lamp flame, then dipped it into the tube. It hissed softly. Five time he
repeated the test. "Human, I'd say." McReady sighed, and straightened. "As yet, my theory hasn't been actually proven -but I have hopes. I have hopes.


"Don't, by the way, get too interested in this. We have with us some unwelcome ones, no doubt. Van, will you relieve Barclay at the switch? Thanks. O. K. Barclay,
and may I say I hope you stay with us? You're a damned good guy."


Barclay grinned uncertainly; winced under the keen edge of the scalpel. Presently, smiling widely, he retrieved his long-handled weapon.