"Frank Herbert - The Eyes of Heisenberg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

for either.
Harvey touched the vat, jerked his hand away. The crystal surface felt warm, filled with
subtle vibrations. And there was that constant thrap-thrap-thrap of the pump. He sensed the
deliberateness of that annoying sound, reading the way he'd been trained in the
Underground the subtle betrayals in Svengaard's manner. He glanced around the laboratory
- glass pipes, square gray cabinets, shiny angles and curves of plasmeld, omnipresent
gauges like staring eyes. The place smelled of disinfectants and exotic chemicals. Everything
about the lab carried that calculated double purpose - functional yet designed to awe the
uninitiated.
Lizbeth focused on the one mundane feature of the place she could really recognize for
certain - a tile sink with gleaming faucets. The sink sat squeezed between two mysterious
constructions of convoluted glass and dull gray plasmeld.
The sink bothered Lizbeth. It represented a place of disposal. You flushed garbage into a
sink for grinding before it was washed into the sewage reclamation system. Anything small
could be dumped into a sink and lost.
Forever.
Anything.
'I'm not going to be talked out of watching,' she said.
Damn! Dr Svengaard thought. There was a catch in her voice. That little catch, that
hesitation was betrayal. It didn't fit with her bold appearance. Overemphasis on maternal
drive in her cutting... no matter how successful the surgeon had been with the rest of her.
'Our concern is for you as much as for your child,' Dr Svengaard said. The trauma...'
'The law gives us the right,' Harvey said. 'And he signaled to Lizbeth, 'The whole pattern's
more or less what we anticipated.'
Trust this clod to know the law, Dr Svengaard thought. He sighed. Statistical prediction
said one in one hundred thousand parents would insist, despite all the subtle and not so
subtle pressures against it. Statistics and visible fact, however, were two distinct matters.
Svengaard had noted how Harvey glared at him. The man's cutting had been strong on male
protective-ness - too strong, obviously. He couldn't stand to see his mate thwarted.
Doubtless he was an excellent provider, model husband, never participated in Sterrie orgies
- a leader.
A clod.
The law,' Dr Svengaard said, and his voice dripped rebuke, 'also requires that I point out
the dangers of psychological trauma to the parents. I was not suggesting I'd try to prevent
you from watching.'
'We're going to watch,' Lizbeth said.
Harvey felt a surge of admiration for her then. She played her role so beautifully, even to
that catch in her voice.
'I couldn't stand the waiting otherwise,' Lizbeth said. 'Not knowing...'
Dr Svengaard wondered if he dared press the matter -perhaps an appeal to their obvious
awe, a show of Authority. One look at Harvey's squared shoulders and Lizbeth's pleading
eyes dissuaded him. They were going to watch.
'Very well,' Dr Svengaard sighed.
'Will we watch from here?' Harvey asked.
Dr Svengaard was shocked. 'Of course not!' What primitives, these clods. But he
tempered the thought with realization that such ignorance resulted from the carefully
fostered mystery that surrounded gene shaping. In a calmer tone, he said. 'You'll have a
private room with a closed-circuit connection to this lab. My nurse will escort you.'
Nurse Washington proved her competence then by appearing in the doorway. She'd been
listening, of course. A good nurse never left such matters to chance. 'Is this all we get to see