"anthony,_piers_&_farmer,_philip_jose_-_the_caterpillars_question" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

She turned suddenly toward him, startling him into silence. He glanced
at her, but her face showed no emotion. After a moment she straightened
out again.

There was something! This was her first voluntary response to him. She
had reacted to something he had said. Was it his question about her
sight?

"You do want to see?" he repeated. But this time there was no reaction.
Apparently she had acted without thought, but now she had clamped down
again.

She couldn't want to stay blind! Maybe his question had deserved no
answer. Yet she had reacted. There had to be something else. Something
she knew that he didn't.

Was it really a clinic she was destined for? Or had that been something
they told him to obtain his cooperation? Now that he thought about it,
there were a number of funny things about this whole arrangement. If
they had so much money for specialists, and enough to pay him so
generously for unskilled labor, why hadn't they done something about her
ear? Comparatively minor cosmetic surgery could have eliminated most of
the scar tissue on her face, too. And there had to be something better
than that ugly metal brace on her leg. She wasn't paralytic; the leg
should have mended by now.

. And why hadn't they hired a professional nurse for this trip?

nurses could drive. This was a gearshift car, but only because he had
asked for it; he preferred to do his own driving. They would have
gotten an automatic shift for a nurse. Why had they been so happy to
trust him, a male stranger? They had hardly checked his credentials,
which were minimal. The only virtue he seemed to have was ignorance.
Yet for three days Tappy was in his hands. Anything could happen.
Legally she was still a child, but she was a woman-child.

He drove on, no longer in a hurry. The doubt kept spiraling through his
mind, growing uglier with every loop. If not a clinic, what?

Tappy wouldn't talk to him,"so he talked to her, just to keep his mind
off whatever unthinkable thing it sought. Maybe it was to inhibit his
own suspicions. He read out the stupid billboards as they threaded
their way through the complex of Schenectady, Albany, and Troy. He
cussed out the other drivers. He kept up a meaningless monologue.
Anything to fill the air with sound and keep his mind at bay.

Deviating Jack did not allow himself to wonder why he was ( * * from the
direct route marked on his map. He just drove where the scenery looked
best.