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

the cranium. It was bleeding slightly and was partly filled with a
curiously nauseating conglomerate of clotted purple blood, white
tissue, grey tissue, pale yellow tissue.

The surgeon’s lean slender fingers, unhuman in their pale orange
coverings, moved gently, deftly in the wound, as if imbued with a
separate life and intelligence of their own. Destroyed tissue, too
freshly dead for the component cells to realize it, was cleared
away—chipped fragments of bone, lacerated mater dura, the grey
cortical tissue of the cerebrum itself.

Huxley became fascinated by the minuscule drama, lost track of
time, and of the sequence of events. He remembered terse orders
for assistance, “Clamp!” “Retractor!” “Sponge!” The sound of the
tiny saw, a muffled whine, then the toothtingling grind it made in
cutting through solid living bone. Gently a spatu-late instrument
was used to straighten out the tortured convolutions. Incredible



5
and unreal, he watched a scalpel whittle at the door of the mind,
shave the thin wall of reason.

Three times a nurse wiped sweat from the surgeon’s face.

Wax performed its function. Vitallium alloy replaced bone, dressing
shut out infection. Huxley had watched uncounted operations, but
felt again that almost insupportable sense of relief and triumph that
comes when the surgeon turns away, and begins stripping off his
gloves as he heads for the gowning room.

When Huxley joined Cobum, the surgeon had doused his mask
and cap, and was feeling under his gown for cigarets. He looked
entirely human again. He grinned at Huxley and inquired,

“Well, how did you like it?”

“Swell. It was the first time I was able to watch that type of thing so
closely. You can’t see so well from behind the glass, you know. Is
he going to be all right?”

Coburn’s expression changed. “He is a friend of yours, isn’t he?
That had slipped my mind for the moment. Sorry. He’ll be all right,
I’m pretty sure. He’s young and strong, and he came through the
operation very nicely. You can come see for yourself in a couple of
days.”

“You excised quite a lot of the speech center, didn’t you? Will he
be able to talk when he gets well? Isn’t he likely to have aphasia,