"Robert A. Heinlein - Lost Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

green soap, then stepped through a door and were gowned and
gloved by silent, efficient nurses. Huxley felt rather silly to be
helped on with his clothes by a nurse who had to stand on tip-toe
to get the sleeves high enough. They were ushered through the
glass door into surgery III, rubber-covered hands held out, as if
holding a skein of yarn.

The patient was already in place on the table, head raised up and
skull clamped immobile. Someone snapped a switch and a
merciless circle of blue-white lights beat down on the only portion
of him that was exposed, the right side of his skull. Coburn glanced
quickly around the room, Huxley following his glance—light green
walls, two operating nurses, gowned, masked, and hooded into
sexlessness, a ‘dirty’ nurse, busy with something in the corner, the
anesthetist, the instruments that told Coburn the state of the
patient’s heart action and respiration.

A nurse held the chart for the surgeon to read. At a word from
Coburn, the anesthetist uncovered the patient’s face for a moment.
Lean brown face, acquiline nose, closed sunken eyes. Huxley
repressed an exclamation. Coburn raised his eyebrows at Huxley.


4
“What’s the trouble?”

“It’s Juan Valdez!”

“Who’s he?”

“The one I was telling you about—the law student with the trick
eyes.”

“Hmm —Well, his trick eyes didn’t see around enough corners this
time. He’s lucky to be alive. You’ll see better, Phil, if you stand
over there.”

Cobum changed to impersonal efficiency, ignored Huxley’s
presence and concentrated the whole of his able intellect on the
damaged flesh before him. The skull had been crushed, or
punched, apparently by coming into violent contact with some hard
object with moderately sharp edges. The wound lay above the
right ear, and was, superficially, two inches, or more, across. It
was impossible, before exploration, to tell just how much damage
had been suffered by the bony structure and the grey matter
behind.

Undoubtedly there was some damage to the brain itself. The
wound had been cleaned up on the surface and the area around it
shaved and painted. The trauma showed up as a definite hole in