"Mouse - a novelette by John Grant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant John)

Mouse - a novelette by John Grant



Mouse
a novelette by John Grant
All of the doors in the complex suddenly plunged to the ground, like the
blades of an array of guillotines. Makreed, the botanist, had been just
about to step through one of them, and he watched in astonishment in the
split second before the light failed as the front of his foot was
pulverized. He staggered back, wondered briefly why it was that he felt no
pain, then fainted.
A while later he swam back to consciousness -- experiencing as he always
did after fainting the sensation that somebody was scrubbing his face both
inside and out with lukewarm carbonated water. He lay on his back for a
few seconds, seeing nothing but a swirling pattern of light that seemed to
have no purpose to it, speculating about where in the universe he might
be.
The pain from his foot brought the memory back and he screamed.
His entire right leg was an edifice of pain. Intellect told him that the
source of the agony was the wreckage at the leg's end, but he was unable
to distinguish it from the rest. Quite separate from the sensation of pain
he could sense that somebody -- who? -- was manipulating in some way what
was left of his foot. In the depths of his struggling mind he knew that
he'd been maimed for life -- although at the same time there was a cooler
voice inside him telling him that his foot could be restored, if only he
could get himself to a chirurgeon in time.
A new sensation, one that he could tell apart from the rest: a throbbingly
tight pressure at the back of his knee. In a way it hurt worse than the
pain.
"Hi there, Makreed," said a soft voice.
He didn't recognize it, and so as a matter of principle he screamed again.
If this was the afterlife that the succeeding Incarnate Ones so often and
so solemnly promised their people, he, Makreed, had just decided that he
wanted nothing to do with it. Too much pain. Perhaps he was doomed to
spend all of the rest of eternity suffering from the anguish of the blow
that had definitely killed him.
He noticed that the effort of screaming temporarily took his mind off the
pain, so he did it again.
"Shut up, please," said the voice. "This place echoes, you know. You're
deafening me. I'm having enough difficulty bandaging up your goddam foot
without having to cope with punctured eardrums."
Makreed controlled himself. It wasn't as easy as he'd thought it would be.
His shoulders twisted, the muscles around the base of his neck tightening,
as he pulled the new scream back into himself.
Think of something else. Distract yourself. At least now you know you're
not dead.
He tried to recall which member of the team had been immediately behind
him just before the doors had closed. That person must have been fairly
close to him, because the chambers down here were quite small. His