99 Classic Science-Fiction Short Stories. Айзек Азимов

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      "Certainly I'll sign this," said I, and shakily affixed my John Hancock to the bottom of the paper.

      Migraine folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. Then he took a bit of candle-end which was sticking in a brass holder on the mantel, placed it on the table between us and lit it.

      "Are you all ready?" he inquired sympathetically.

      "Yes," I whispered.

      "Relax," said he gently. "Let go the arms of your chair. Uncross your legs. Look at the candle!"

      He raised it in his left hand and moved it forward and back in front of my forehead. Then he thrust the first and second fingers of his right hand toward my face, gradually drawing them together.

      "Let your eyes follow my fingers," he directed.

      I did so, and he gently brought. the focus of my eyes to a narrow point. near the top of my nose and held it there. "Now you cannot move!" he abruptly cried in a bullying tone. "You are as helpless as if you were bound in iron!"

      Something in his voice filled me with deadly fear—a sneering note that had not been there before—a mocking derision as if he had been fooling me all along. Suddenly it came to me that I had been duped, tricked to putting myself into his power for some unholy purpose. I thought of the old-young dog with the thyroid gland, of the patchy-haired Jap. Why did he, with all his money, all his power, want to invite me to dinner? The horrible conviction that I was at his mercy stole over me; I struggled to free myself from my imaginary gyves. I shouted in my terror, but uttered no sound. I writhed and twisted, as it seemed to me, but could not move. The sweat burst from my temples. I was firmly and relentlessly held by invisible shackles that rendered me powerless.

      Migraine threw himself back in his chair and watched me for a moment. Then he tossed a box of safety matches in my lap.

      "Light my cigar!" he commanded.

      Utterly against my will I obeyed.

      "Now, Mr. Stockbroker," he remarked with a chuckle that chilled me to the marrow, "since you desire it I will try to make a man of you."

      At that moment the silence of the night was rent by the doleful howl of the dog in the room above.

      "Yes," repeated Doctor Migraine, peering down into my motionless face with a leer, "at your earnest request."

      He gave a grim laugh and made a curious gesture with his right hand in the air. Up above our heads the dog howled again. The doctor shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Then he strode to the door. I heard no whistle, but bounding down the stairs and into the room came a huge mastiff which capered stiffly around me, knocking over the tabouret and bumping into Doctor Migraine like a half-grown puppy. Here and there on the dog's back, like the patches on Saki's head, grew clumps of soft, velvety hair; but as a whole its coat was thin and old and its eyes were red and dim. It slobbered and jumped over Migraine with a pitiful sort of canine ineffectiveness.

      "Hang you!" he exclaimed. "I wish I'd left you upstairs. Here! Up! Jump!"

      After a few vain attempts the mastiff struggled up to the top of the table, where it stood, eying me curiously. Migraine took the candle, passed it rapidly before the dog's eyes. made a few passes, and the animal became rigid, the saliva slowly dripping from its mouth, its ears and tail erect, its legs outspread, for all the world like a stuffed dog in a toy shop.

      "Now you'll keep still!" remarked Migraine. Then, turning to me, he took two small horseshoe magnets from his desk and laid them on his knee.

      "What do you see?" he asked.

      "I see a sort of shadow of red around one," I answered or tried to answer, "and about the other a kind of blue haze."

      "The infra-red and the ultra-violet!" he exclaimed exultantly. "Look at me! Do you see anything unusual?"

      I turned my eyes upon him. To my astonishment, all around his body and limbs was a faint penumbra of cloudy red—a sort of sanguinary phosphorescence that was most pronounced around his armpits, neck and face. When he spoke there would be a rush of this redness from his mouth, although his entire body exuded a sort of a visible warmth. I glanced at the dog. The same phenomenon was visible although in a much greater degree, for the mastiff stood in a haze of redness, so to speak, which poured like steam from his mouth and nostrils at each breath. Around the fireplace there was a cloud of red which streamed out into the room and eddied round it, and a mist of red held over and around the lamp.

      Migraine eyed me curiously.

      "You do see it, don't you?" he inquired.

      "See it? Of course I see it!" I cried, working my jaws to make sure they were really free at last. "But what is the confounded thing?"

      "The infra-red, I told you!" he replied.

      "By George!" I exclaimed. "I wish you'd let me out of this. I've had enough, I tell you! I don't like it!"

      Migraine shook his head.

      "Be still!" he growled.

      Just then Saki entered, wearing a huge pair of broad-rimmed spectacles and an embroidered black skullcap. Somehow, he didn't seem to have as much heat about him as the others, but his weazened face bore a peculiarly malevolent expression. He had a pair of silver calipers in his hand like the claws of a crab, and he grinned and chattered at Migraine like a crazy ape. I was beginning to feel frightened.

      "By the way," said Migraine, "in order that you may understand the experiment let me explain to you that you don't really see these colors now; you only think you see them." He made a swift pass at me. "Now you don't see them!"

      Sure enough, I didn't.

      "But," he continued, "the moment your senses are really intensified you'll really see, hear, smell. taste and feel the whole business. Saki, find the place!"

      I shuddered as the Jap came toward me and felt along my skull with his fingers. Just over my left ear he stopped and began measuring with the calipers. Then he placed his forefinger on a certain point and nodded to Migraine. The doctor took a small round ball of glass from a drawer in the table, polished it upon his sleeve and then passed round and behind me.

      Suddenly, I saw a blinding flash of light and coincidently felt a sharp and rather painful blow upon the side of my head. For an instant I was dazed. Through it all came a pounding almost deafening and a shrill roar at regular intervals. The fire and lamps blazed with light. I heard some one striking rhythmically upon a piece of hollow wood with a hammer. A disgusting stench filled my nostrils. My clothes weighed upon me like chain armor and scratched my body as if lined with bristles. Clouds of red poured from the fireplace and circled toward the ceiling, and the mastiff reeked with it. I felt sick and sensitive, as if I had just had a fever. I tried to collect myself. Migraine and the Jap had disappeared. Only the dog remained, rigidly glaring at me—a sort of red devil of a dog. I looked at my hands and found that they were surrounded by the same red haze. I tried to screen my eyes from the light with my hand. To my astonishment, I could see the bones through the flesh, glowing white and distinct. I glanced quickly again at the dog; I saw his skeleton. It was true, then! I could see even as Migraine had prophesied—as with the X-ray.

      The pounding in my ears continued, and it suddenly came to me that it was the beating of my heart; that the whistling roar was my breath; the striking with the hammer the ticking of the clock. But the light of the lamp beating down upon my eyes blinded and pained me, and the smell of СКАЧАТЬ