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.YOW!"Now, the rest of this is more important," said Prahd.He began to pass a scope over my body."Hah! Three cracked ribs.One chipped pelvis bone.Numerous blood blisters."He was taking notes.Nurse Bildirjin had some huge pliers."I think this will be faster!" She dug in andclosed them.YEEE-OW!"That's one.Now for the next.""How many are there?" said Prahd."Oh, maybe two or three hundred," said Nurse Bildirjin."Do you have to make such big holes?" I screamed."Oh, yes," she said."I might leave some.Very unsightly." She was digging for the next one.MyGods, this was far worse than the original blast! "Doctor, in your professional opinion," she saidconversationally as she worked, "don't you think he is a bit dinky?"Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlPrahd nodded."Yes, I would say an inch is below average.Well, well! What is this? What is this? Acrushed testicle!""That was when I was a boy!" I said."YEE-OW! Please, Nurse Bildirjin, not such big bites! Thosepowder grains are awfully small.A farmer kicked me for drowning all his breeding animals.It was aschool vacation job and I was just trying to see if they could swim.He was a very.YEEEEE-OWWWW!""Well, that may have been done when you were a boy," said Prahd."But now the other testicleseems to be in bad shape, too.That must be an awfully tough town, New York.And especially hard ontesticles.""It is, it is," I said."The primitives are.YEEEE-EEEE-OWWWWWWWWW!.real (bleep)breakers.""I really think I had better put you under general gas," said Prahd."There's hours and hours ofsurgery and cellular handling here.And Nurse Bildirjin seems to be working very slowly today.""I think this would go along faster," she said, "if I just burned them out.See, when this electric probetouches one in the pan here, it explodes." It went Zzzt! and smoke rose."Now I will just go over hereand turn on some pop music."That was all it took.I fainted.Chapter 4Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlI awoke.I couldn't see!I had no sense of body weight!In fact, I didn't have any sense at all!Maybe I was dead!I blinked my eyes.Yes, I could feel myself blinking my eyes.Maybe they had thrown the rest of my body away.Maybe I was just a head!Gods knew what a Voltarian cellologist would do.After all, I had known Doctor Crobe and how heloved to make human freaks.Maybe I was some sort of monster now.Maybe I looked like a cat or anoctopus or Miss Pinch.Worse than that: Earth psychologists and psychiatrists teach that all anyone is, is a bunch of cellsevolved up the evolutionary track, that the person himself is just what his cells and body make him.Therecould be no doubt of the validity of their teachings, for one could be shot for not believing them.If Prahdhad changed my cells, it followed by Earth psychology that my personality would suffer a total shift! Sowhat new personality would I have? Something sweet and kind Gods forbid! Or something whiningand propitiative, like Izzy which of course would be even less acceptable.What had been changed? If I knew Prahd and Nurse Bildirjin, it would be something utterlyunderhanded and with some ghastly twist!There was a sort of dim glow around.An eerie light was coming hazily through the slits of something.Gradually I could get a half-seen impression of my immediate environment.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlI was in a sort of a long tub, midway between ceiling and floor.Only my head was out.The rest ofme was suspended, probably by antigravity coils, in fluid: my body was not touching anything solid.There were lights burning in the tub, probably emitting some strange wavelength.It was these,escaping through slits, that furnished the dim, greenish glow in the room.Cell catalysts of some kind? Ihad no real idea.Accidentally, I moved my eyes to the right.A window!Through it I could see the pale sickle of a wintry moon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]