"Gordon R. Dickson - The Last Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

The room was small; he knew because he could see the tops of the walls surrounding him. And even as
he watched them, he could see some of the topmost of the banks of physiological monitors come to life
now, as his conveyance stopped and plugged itself in, connecting its sensors to them.

“So this is our patient?”

The voice was a deep bass, and it boomed in the room with a heartiness he immediately suspected as
professional.

“Let’s take a look at you.”

The thin sheet was whisked away, even as the soothing pale pink of the ceiling became a soft-focused,
pink-tinted mirror. Still looking up, he found himself gazing at himself and at the possessor of the hearty
voice, a bulky shape, foreshortened by the angle of reflection, and green-clad even to face-mask and
head-covering.

“Why the gown, doctor?” Ett asked. “This isn’t an operation.”

The figure moved in the mirror, and a few feet above him a large, green-clad head and shoulders swam
into his field of vision. From the small area of brown-skinned face that showed between mask and cap,
light-brown eyes looked down at him, and then away at the length of his body.

“Regulations, I’m afraid,” he heard. Warm fingers were prodding Ett, palpating his abdomen. “Hmm.
You’re not overweight, after all, are you?”

“Not that I know of,” said Ett. “I’ve just got big bones.”

He lay staring up at the self he saw in the overhead mirror. Oddly, it was like watching someone he had
never seen before. Why? Of course. It was because this was the last time he might look at his own image
with the understanding of this mind with which he had been born. It was entirely possible that the body he
saw would have—well, someone else—in it next time he looked at it in a mirror. He tried to make eye
contact with the image above him, but found the focus too soft for that.

So he studied what he could see—a tall stranger with coarse black hair and an oval face. The Polynesian
ancestry showed in the smoothness of the flesh that overlaid his muscles and led people at first glance into
the mistake of thinking him physically soft. The cragginess of the northern European—those big bones he
had mentioned— were hidden under the sleek Pacific flesh. Volcano interior under peaceful ocean island.
A trapdoor to hellfire and damnation beneath the blue of calm tropic skies—as it had been for three
generations now. Great-grandfather Bruder, he wondered, how easy do your bones lie, back in the cold
and stony earth of the Cascades? Do they remember the bright beaches of yourMission ?

—Actually, I know the answer, Great-grandfather. They lie uneasy, don’t they? I know, because inside
me I carry the curse that was yours…

The physician’s fingers had continued prodding, palpating. Now they stopped.

“You’re in very good shape, Etter,” said the deep voice.

“Thanks, Jerry,” said Ett. “Good of you to say so.”
The masked face, which had started to turn away from him, came back.