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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
markedly increased. It is almost frantic."
Conway shook his head, grinning. "The patient is heavily anestheticized and
cannot feel anything. However, I agree that at this present moment.. ." He
nodded toward the sterile container. ..... its personal physician must be
feeling pretty bad."
In the container the excised bone had begun to soften and leak a faintly
purplish liquid. The liquid was rippling and sloshing gently about at the
bottom of the container as if it had a mind of its own. Which was, in fact,
the case.
Conway was in O'Mara's office winding up his report on the EPLH and the Major
was being highly complimentary in a language which at times made the
compliments indistinguishable from insults. But this was O'Mara's way, Conway
was beginning to realize, and the Chief Psychologist was polite and
sympathetic only when he was professionally concerned about a person.
He was still asking questions.
An intelligent, amoebic life-form, a organized collection of submicroscopic,
virus-type cells, would make the most efficient doctor obtainable," said
Conway in reply to one of them. "It would reside within its patient and, given
the necessary data, control any disease or organic malfunction from the
inside. To a being who is pathologically afraid of dying it must have seemed
perfect. And it was, too, because the trouble which developed was not really
the doctor's fault. It came about through the patient's ignorance of its own
physiological background.
Page 31
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"The way I see it," Conway went on, "the patient had been taking its
rejuvenation treatments at an early stage of its biological lifetime. I mean
that it did not wait until middle or old age before regenerating itself. But
on this occasion, either because it forgot or was careless or had been working
on a problem which took longer than usual, it aged more than it had previously
and acquired this skin condition. Pathology says that this was probably a
common complaint with this race, and the normal course would be for the EPLH
to slough off the affected skin and carry on as usual. But our patient,
because the type of its rejuvenation treatment caused memory damage, did not
know this, so its personal physician did not know it either."
Conway continued, "This, er, resident physician knew very little about the
medical background of its patient-host's body, but its motto must have been to
maintain the status quo at all costs. When pieces of its patient's body
threatened to break away it held onto them, not realizing that this could have
been a normal occurrence like losing hair or a reptile periodically shedding
its skin, especially as its master would have insisted that the occurrence was
not natural. A pretty fierce struggle must have developed between the
patient's body processes and its doctor, with the patient's mind also ranged
against its doctor. Because of this the doctor had to render the patient
unconscious the better to do what it considered to be the right thing.
"When we gave it the test shots the doctor neutralized them. They were a
foreign substance being introduced into its patient's body, you see. And you
know what happened when we tried surgical removal. It was only when we
threatened underlying vital organs with that stake, forcing the doctor to
defend its patient at that one point..
"When you began asking for wooden stakes," said O'Mara dryly, "I thought of
putting you in a tight harness."
Conway grinned. He said, "I'm recommending that the EPLH takes his doctor
back. Now that Pathology has given it a fuller understanding of its employer's
medical and physiological history it should be the ultimate in personal
physicians, and the EPLH is smart enough to see that."
O'Mara smiled in return. "And I was worried about what it might do when it
became conscious. But it turned out to be a very friendly, likeable type.
Quite charming, in fact."
As Conway rose and turned to go he said slyly, "That's because it's such a
good psychologist. It is pleasant to people all the time...
He managed to get the door shut behind him before the explosion.
CHAPTER 5
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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