"Joe Haldeman - More Than the Sum of His Parts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

than an hour, going into unnecessarily grisly detail. It seems that this replacement was done
occasionally even before they had any kind of mechanical substitute, by sawing off a short
rib and transplanting it, covering it with a skin graft from elsewhere on the body. The
recipient thus was blessed with a permanent erection, unfortunately rather strange-looking
and short on sensation. My own prosthesis will look very much like the real, shall we say,
thing, and new developments in tractor-field mechanics and bionic interfacing should give it
realistic response patterns.)
I don't know how to feel about all this. I wish they would leave my blood chemistry
alone, so I could have some honest grief or horror, whatever. Instead of this placid waiting.

4 September 2058

Out cold for thirteen days and I wake up with eyes. The arm and leg are in place but not
powered up yet. I wonder what the eyes look like. (They won't give me a mirror until I have
a face.) They feel like wet glass.
Very fancy eyes. I have a box with two dials that I can use to override the "default
mode"—that is, the ability to see only normally. One of them gives me conscious control
over pupil dilation, so I can see in almost total darkness or, if for some reason I wanted to,
look directly at the sun without discomfort. The other changes the frequency response, so I
can see either in the infrared or the ultraviolet. This hospital room looks pretty much the
same in ultraviolet, but in infrared it takes on a whole new aspect. Most of the room's
illumination then comes from bright bars on the walls, radiant heating. My real arm shows a
pulsing tracery of arteries and veins. The other is of course not visible except by reflection
and is dark blue.
(Later) Strange I didn't realize I was on the Moon. I thought it was a low-gravity ward in
Mercy. While I was sleeping they sent me down to Biotech. Should have figured that out.

5 September 2058
 They turned on the "social" arm and leg and began patterning exercises. I am told to think
of a certain movement and do its mirror image with my right arm or leg while attempting to
execute it with my left. The trainer helps the cyborg unit along, which generates something
like pain, though actually it doesn't resemble any real muscular ache. Maybe it's the way
circuits feel when they're overloaded.
By the end of the session I was able to make a fist without help, though there is hardly
enough grip to hold a pencil. I can't raise the leg yet, but can make the toes move.
They removed some of the bandages today, from shoulder to hip, and the test-tube skin
looks much more real than I had prepared myself for. Hairless and somewhat glossy, but the
color match is perfect. In infrared it looks quite different, more uniform in color than the
"real" side. I suppose that's because it hasn't aged forty years.
While putting me through my paces, the technician waxed rhapsodic about how good this
arm is going to be—this set of arms, actually. I'm exercising with the "social" one, which
looks much more convincing than the ones my coworker displayed ten years ago. (No doubt
more a matter of money than of advancing technology.) The "working" arm, which I
haven't-seen yet, will be all metal, capable of being worn on the outside of a spacesuit.
Besides having the two arms, I'll be able to interface with various waldos, tailored to
specific functions.
I am fortunately more ambidextrous than the average person. I broke my right wrist in the
second grade and kept re-breaking it through the third, and so learned to write with both
hands. All my life I have been able to print more clearly with the left.
They claim to be cutting down on my medication. If that's the truth, I seem to be