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The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! ) :: Bester Alfred
Страница: 97 из 164He also doubled your memory with antifebrile purgatives, magnified your morals with tonic roborants, and adjusted all anguished psyches with Orel's Epulotic Vulnerary.
The waiting room was empty. Foyle opened a door at a venture. He and Robin had a glimpse of a long hospital ward. Foyle grunted in disgust.
«A Snow Joint. Might have known he'd be running a dive for sick heads too.»
This den catered to Disease Collectors, the most hopeless of neuroticaddicts. They lay in their hospital beds, suffering mildly from illegally induced para-measles, para-flu, para-malaria; devotedly attended by nurses in starched white uniforms, and avidly enjoying their illegal illness and the attention it brought.
«Look at them,» Foyle said contemptuously. «Disgusting. If there's anything filthier than a religion-junkey, it's a disease-bird.»
«Good evening,» a voice spoke behind them.
Foyle shut the door and turned. Dr. Sergei Orel bowed. The good doctor was crisp and sterile in the classic white cap, gown, and surgical mask of the medical clans, to which he belonged by fraudulent assertion only. He was short, swarthy, and olive-eyed, recognizably Russian by his name alone. More than a century of jaunting had so mingled the many populations of the world that racial types were disappearing.
«Didn't expect to find you open for business on New Year's Eve,» Foyle said.
«Our Russian New Year comes two weeks later,» Dr. Orel answered. «Step this way, please.» He pointed to a door and disappeared with a «pop.» The door revealed a long flight of stairs. As Foyle and Robin started up the stairs, Dr. Orel appeared above them. «This way, please. Oh . . .one moment.» He disappeared and appeared again behind them. «You forgot to close the door.» He shut the door and jaunted again. This time he reappeared high at the head of the stairs. «In here, please.»
«Showing off,» Foyle muttered. «Double your jaunting or double your money back. All the same, he's pretty fast. I'll have to be faster.»
They entered the consultation room. It was a glass-roofed penthouse. The walls were lined with gaudy but antiquated medical apparatus: a sedative-bath machine, an electric chair for administering shock treatment to schizophrenics, an EKG analyzer for tracing psychotic patterns, old optical and electronic microscopes.
The quack waited for them behind his desk. He jaunted to the door, closed it, jaunted back to his desk, bowed, indicated chairs, jaunted behind Robin's and held it for her, jaunted to the window and adjusted the shade, jaunted to the light switch and adjusted the lights, then reappeared behind his desk.
«One year ago,» he smiled, «I could not jaunte at all.
The waiting room was empty. Foyle opened a door at a venture. He and Robin had a glimpse of a long hospital ward. Foyle grunted in disgust.
«A Snow Joint. Might have known he'd be running a dive for sick heads too.»
This den catered to Disease Collectors, the most hopeless of neuroticaddicts. They lay in their hospital beds, suffering mildly from illegally induced para-measles, para-flu, para-malaria; devotedly attended by nurses in starched white uniforms, and avidly enjoying their illegal illness and the attention it brought.
«Look at them,» Foyle said contemptuously. «Disgusting. If there's anything filthier than a religion-junkey, it's a disease-bird.»
«Good evening,» a voice spoke behind them.
Foyle shut the door and turned. Dr. Sergei Orel bowed. The good doctor was crisp and sterile in the classic white cap, gown, and surgical mask of the medical clans, to which he belonged by fraudulent assertion only. He was short, swarthy, and olive-eyed, recognizably Russian by his name alone. More than a century of jaunting had so mingled the many populations of the world that racial types were disappearing.
«Didn't expect to find you open for business on New Year's Eve,» Foyle said.
«Our Russian New Year comes two weeks later,» Dr. Orel answered. «Step this way, please.» He pointed to a door and disappeared with a «pop.» The door revealed a long flight of stairs. As Foyle and Robin started up the stairs, Dr. Orel appeared above them. «This way, please. Oh . . .one moment.» He disappeared and appeared again behind them. «You forgot to close the door.» He shut the door and jaunted again. This time he reappeared high at the head of the stairs. «In here, please.»
«Showing off,» Foyle muttered. «Double your jaunting or double your money back. All the same, he's pretty fast. I'll have to be faster.»
They entered the consultation room. It was a glass-roofed penthouse. The walls were lined with gaudy but antiquated medical apparatus: a sedative-bath machine, an electric chair for administering shock treatment to schizophrenics, an EKG analyzer for tracing psychotic patterns, old optical and electronic microscopes.
The quack waited for them behind his desk. He jaunted to the door, closed it, jaunted back to his desk, bowed, indicated chairs, jaunted behind Robin's and held it for her, jaunted to the window and adjusted the shade, jaunted to the light switch and adjusted the lights, then reappeared behind his desk.
«One year ago,» he smiled, «I could not jaunte at all.