"James White - Second Ending" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

stage could result in severe muscular damage. He, or she, must be urged to move gently. The patient
should also be assured, as often as seems necessary considering his emotional state, that he has been
cured he has been cured he has been cured he has been cured…"
Like a record with a faulty groove, the same words droned out over and over and over. Ross stuck it
out for as long as he could, which was about six minutes; then he croaked, "Shut up, I believe you!"
The voice ceased. Ross became aware of a steadily mounting pressure at the back of his head and
shoulders. Chest, neck and leg muscles cracked painfully, and he realized that his posture was altering.
The padded surface on which he lay had broken in two places. It was swinging upward from a point
below his waist and falling away at the level of his knees. He was being forced from a supine into a sitting
position. The process was slow and was probably meant to be gentle. Ross would have yelled in sheer
agony, if he had not known that filling his lungs for the yell would have expanded his chest muscles
suddenly and added to the pain. Finally he was sitting upright, held by a strap around his middle. He felt
the strap, because his eyes showed little more than drifting patches of blackness. Strain as he might to see
more, for the moment the blackness continued to prevail. The voice began again:
"With long-term patients there will be psychological difficulties as well," the bust said through its
motionless, painted lips. "He is awakening into an environment which is completely strange, and perhaps
frightening, to him. Someone with an understanding of his background should be present, and the shock
can be lessened by surrounding him with his more valuable personal possessions…"
Ross blinked until the black patches faded from sight. He was in a small room which contained, in
addition to the contraption he was sitting in, a bed, some recessed cupboards and a floor which was
neatly paved with what looked like foam-rubber mattresses. Close by was an instrument trolley
containing the talking bust of Beethoven, three shiny cans and his wallet, opened to show the picture of
Alice.
"… At the same time the patient must take nourishment and exercise his muscles as soon as possible
after revivication. The method recommended is to raise him into a sitting position, massage, administer a
light, liquid meal liquid meal liquid meal liquid meal…"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" Ross groaned, and reached out carefully for one of the food containers.
This, he thought, was the most intricate and senseless joke he had ever heard of. He did not feel hungry,
but doing what he was told seemed to be the only way of shutting off that maddening, repetitious voice.
The can warmed up as soon as he lifted it and the top flipped back, spilling some of the stuff onto his
bare legs. He swore, sniffed, then began to wonder if perhaps he wasn't hungry after all. The stuff tasted
every bit as good as it smelled, and it warmed him right down to his toes. But when he had emptied the
can Beethoven continued to drone "Liquid meal liquid meal" at him. Presumably he was expected to
empty all three.
The second can exploded in his face.
Several things happened at once. He jerked backward instinctively as the hot, foul-smelling liquid
sprayed his face and chest. The sudden movement triggered off a cramp which nearly tied him in knots,
and he began slipping toward the floor. The retaining strap took his weight for a moment; then it parted
with a soft tearing sound and he collapsed onto the floor.
That drop of perhaps three feet onto a thickly padded surface brought a shock of pain worse than
anything he had ever experienced. It also brought him finally and fully awake.
Up to now Ross had been treating everything which was happening as some sort of involved practical
joke which was being played on him; he was both angered at the cruelty of it and relieved that he had not
awakened to the nightmare of being crushed to death in a tubular metal cage which ticked. From his new
position he could see a small extension speaker unit attached to the back of Beethoven's head, and a
cable which ran from it across the floor and out through a hole in the wall. This could have been the sort
of joke that his fellow students might have played on him — involving stink bombs, a talking bust and an
edited playback of one of Pellew's lectures — but for one thing. The tape had led him to believe that he
was cured. No one in the hospital would joke about that.
And if it wasn't a joke…