"Cordwainer Smith - A Planet Named Shayol" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

“That’s all?” said Mercer.
The girl twisted with startling suddenness. All the way down her series of bodies, her chests heaved. Mercer wondered how the air got into all of them. He did not feel sorry for her; he did not feel sorry for anyone except himself. When the spasm passed the girl smiled at him apologetically.
“They just gave me a new plant.”
Mercer nodded grimly.
“What now, a hand? It seems you have enough.”
“Oh, those,” she said looking back at her many torsos. “I promised B’dikkat that I’d let them grow. He’s good. But that man, stranger. Look at that man you dug up. Who’s better off, he or we?”
Mercer stared at her. “Is that what you had me dig him up for?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“Do you expect me to answer?”
“No,” said the girl, “not now.”
“Who are you?” said Mercer.
“We never ask that here. It doesn’t matter. But since you’re new, I’ll tell you. I used to be the Lady Da – the Emperor’s stepmother.”
“You!” he exclaimed.
She smiled, ruefully. “You’re still so fresh you think it matters! But I have something more important to tell you.” She stopped and bit her lip.
“What?” he urged. “Better tell me before I get another bite. I won’t be able to think or talk then, not for a long time. Tell me now.”
She brought her face close to his. It was still a lovely face, even in the dying orange of this violet-sunned sunset. “People never live forever.”
“Yes,” said Mercer. “I knew that.”
“Believe it,” ordered the Lady Da.
Lights flashed across the dark plain, still in the distance. Said she, “Dig in, dig in for the night. They may miss you.”
Mercer started digging. He glanced over at the man he had dug up. The brainless body, with motions as soft as those of a starfish under water, was pushing its way back into the earth.

Five or seven days later, there was a shouting through the herd.
Mercer had come to know a half-man, the lower part of whose body was gone and whose viscera were kept in place with what resembled a translucent bandage. The half-man had shown him how to lie still when the dromozoa came with their inescapable errands of doing good.
Said the half-man, “You can’t fight them. They made Alvarez as big as a mountain, so that he never stirs. Now they’re trying to make us happy. They feed us and clean us and sweeten us up. Lie still. Don’t worry about screaming. We all do.”
“When do we get the drug?” said Mercer.
“When B’dikkat comes.”
B’dikkat came that day, pushing a sort of wheeled sled ahead of him. The runners carried it over the hillocks; the wheels worked on the surface.
Even before he arrived, the herd sprang into furious action. Everywhere, people were digging up the sleepers. By the time B’dikkat reached their waiting place, the herd must have uncovered twice their own number of sleeping pink bodies – men and women, young and old. The sleepers looked no better and no worse than the waking ones.
“Hurry!” said the Lady Da. “He never gives any of us a shot until we’re all ready.”
B’dikkat wore his heavy lead suit.
He lifted an arm in friendly greeting, like a father returning home with treats for his children. The herd clustered around him but did not crowd him.
He reached into the sled. There was a harnessed bottle which he threw over his shoulders. He snapped the locks on the straps. From the bottle there hung a tube. Midway down the tube there was a small pressure-pump. At the end of the tube there was a glistening hypodermic needle.
When ready, B’dikkat gestured for them to come closer. They approached him with radiant happiness. He stepped through their ranks and past them, to the girl who had the boy growing from her neck. His mechanical voice boomed through the loudspeaker set in the top of his suit.
“Good girl. Good, good girl. You get a big, big present.” He thrust the hypodermic into her so long that Mercer could see an air bubble travel from the pump up to the bottle.
Then he moved back to the others, booming a word now and then, moving with improbable grace and speed amid the people. His needle flashed as he gave them hypodermics under pressure. The people dropped to sitting position or lay down on the ground as though half-asleep.
He knew Mercer. “Hello, fellow. Now you can have the fun. It would have killed you in the cabin. Do you have anything for me?”
Mercer stammered, not knowing what B’dikkat meant, and the two-nosed man answered for him, “I think he has a nice baby head, but it isn’t big enough for you to take yet.”
Mercer never noticed the needle touch his arm.
B’dikkat had turned to the next knot of people when the super-condamine hit Mercer.
He tried to run after B’dikkat, to hug the lead spacesuit, to tell B’dikkat that he loved him. He stumbled and fell, but it did not hurt.
The many-bodied girl lay near him. Mercer spoke to her.
“Isn’t it wonderful? You’re beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I’m so happy to be here.”
The woman covered with growing hands came and sat beside them. She radiated warmth and good fellowship. Mercer thought that she looked very distinguished and charming. He struggled out of his clothes. It was foolish and snobbish to wear clothing when none of these nice people did.
The two women babbled and crooned at him.
With one corner of his mind he knew that they were saying nothing, just expressing the euphoria of a drug so powerful that the known universe had forbidden it. With most of his mind he was happy. He wondered how anyone could have the good luck to visit a planet as nice as this. He tried to tell the Lady Da, but the words weren’t quite straight.
A painful stab hit him in the abdomen. The drug went after the pain and swallowed it. It was like the cap in the hospital, only a thousand times better. The pain was gone, though it had been crippling the first time.
He forced himself to be deliberate. He rammed his mind into focus and said to the two ladies who lay pinkly nude beside him in the desert, “That was a good bite. Maybe I will grow another head. That would make B’dikkat happy!”
The Lady Da forced the foremost of her bodies into an upright position. Said she, “I’m strong, too. I can talk. Remember, man, remember. People never live forever. We can die, too, we can die like real people. I do so believe in death!”
Mercer smiled at her through his happiness.
“Of course you can. But isn’t this nice …”