[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
wooden spoon, a clay cup, and a pottery pitcher of beer. That is to say, I thought it might be beer, even
though it was thin, flat, and strangely flavored. It definitely contained alcohol, which in my book put this
place way ahead of the average American hospital.
After a cup of the beer, I felt the call of nature, and though it embarrassed me to do so, I had to
gesticulate my needs. She handed me a chamber pot from under the bed, and discreetly left for a few
minutes. I'd never used a chamber pot before, but I'd heard of them. It sufficed.
On returning, she talked a long while, and although I still could not understand a word of what she said,
her tone and her bearing let me know that somehow I was in good hands, that all would be well. Later,
she rolled me over and massaged my back, carefully avoiding the places where I had been cut.
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The sun was setting. Contented and comfortable, I fell asleep. When I awoke, the thin grey light of
morning was coming through the window wall. It was almost unpleasantly cool. My nose was cold, but
the rest of me was warm enough under the thick covers, some of which must have been added while I
was asleep. In a short while, the sun came up and shined directly in my eyes. I watched it for a long time,
and it was definitely rising.
I knew that something was very wrong.
Last night I had lain in this same bed and watched the sun set out of that very same window. Only one
wall had windows in it and that wall had been to the west! Now, either it was to the east or I was going
insane! Or was I in a different, identical room, the victim of a fabulously expensive practical joke? Or had
I died and gone to some irrational afterlife?
An unfair thought. A decent Atheist like me should not have to worry about that sort of thing!
The same lady brought breakfast, although this time she wore a pale blue dress, as richly embroidered
and expensive looking as the last one, and of a similar cut. I guessed that if she had to work unnaturally
long hours, she was at least well paid for it.
I slept for a few more hours, and when I awoke, my nurse was again sitting beside me. She began
teaching me the language, starting with the parts of the body. The word for elbow, the word for finger.
How you said that your finger was touching your elbow.
I was never much good at learning a foreign language. I'd gotten D's in Latin in high school, and had
flunked out of Russian in college. But now, with a desperate need to get some questions answered and
absolutely nothing else to do, I learned. Total immersion, I think it's called.
Her name was Roxanna. We were on the Western Isles, and the language was Westronese. She
couldn't say exactly where the Western Isles were. Indeed, she seemed to think that it was a very
complicated question to answer. I gave it up until I could speak the language better.
While the medical help was always there when I wanted it, the level of medical technology seemed to be
as ancient as the style of my nurse's dress. Another, older, woman occasionally came by. She talked
briefly with my nurse, changed my bandages, and checked my wounds. I never saw anything like the
ordinary tools to be expected in a doctor's office. No one checked my blood pressure. I never saw a
stethoscope. I never got a shot or took a pill. Slowly, my body healed.
My mind was already well. My physical pains were such that I was actually a few days noticing it, but
somehow the deep, black depression that had plagued me for over a year was simply not there, gone as
if it had never been. I could no longer even imagine what it had been like to suffer from it. Perhaps the
brain cells that had caused it had died in the wreck. If so, they would not be missed.
As I slowly recovered, my nurse got sick. It looked as if she had a bad case of the flu, with a running
nose and a fever, but she doggedly continued to serve me, to the point where I got to feeling very guilty
about it. I tried to get her to take it easier, but my Westronese wasn't up to explaining what I meant, and
my gestures were not understood.
My nurse gave me a thorough weekly sponge bath in a strictly professional manner, but never a shave.
After much difficulty with my almost nonexistent Westronese and a lot of gesticulation, I found that
Roxanna had never even heard of a razor. What she thought of my initially clean-shaven face remained a
mystery for quite a while. As it was, the discomfort and itching of growing a full beard was added to my
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
other physical problems, or perhaps it distracted from them.
It wouldn't have been a good idea to scratch the itching, healing cuts on my stitched up back, even if I
could reach them, but I could and did take considerable satisfaction in scratching the stubble on my
cheeks. Call it a counterirritant.
It was a week before they would let me get up and walk around for a short while, and over the weeks
that followed I was allowed to explore a bit, but not to leave the mansion I was in.
I say "they" because I found that I was apparently at the head of a household with six servants. Besides
Roxanna, my nurse-tutor, there was a maid, a cook, and three gardeners. Two of the gardeners were
married to the maid and cook, respectively. How I rated such a royal entourage was beyond me.
Strangely, every one of them had the flu. By the time I commanded enough of their language to tell them
about the Contact capsules in the ship's medical kit, I realized that there simply wouldn't have been
enough for everybody, and I let it go.
The area in front of our windows was planted in a carefully tended vegetable garden, but the two men
and the woman who worked there were not the same people as the gardeners I had been introduced to.
The garden and people apparently belonged to some other household, whom the people of our
household didn't talk to, or look at, or even acknowledge the existence of. I tried to get Roxanna to
explain about them, and for quite a while it almost seemed as though she couldn't even see who I was
talking about. I put it down as just another mystery that would hopefully be answered someday.
After more than three weeks of convalescing, my nurse permitted me to go outside, at least up to our
own roof. We went up a long spiral staircase, which, in my still weakened condition, was enough to force
me to stop and sit down twice. I was a long way from being the healthy student who worked his way
through college teaching Karate.
She led me finally through a small trapdoor in the ceiling and suddenly we were in the middle of a field of
vegetables! Within a dozen yards of us, our household's gardeners were working diligently at their tasks,
and seemingly oblivious to our entrance onto their domain.
When I had first met Roxanna's gardeners, I had assumed that their task was to tend the decorative
gardens that I supposed our medieval castle was surrounded with. Now I learned that the roof of the
incredibly spacious mansion was a carefully tended garden from which the household got all of its food,
barring fish, dairy products, and the very occasional rabbit or chicken.
Looking about, I soon realized that these gardens were contiguous with those of our neighbors. Indeed,
with increasing wonderment, I saw that every bit of horizontal land within sight was carefully used for
growing crops. The terrain resembled pictures I had seen of the rice paddies of Bali, or of the sculpted
mountain slopes in Peru. The difference was that the vertical surfaces here were covered with large [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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wooden spoon, a clay cup, and a pottery pitcher of beer. That is to say, I thought it might be beer, even
though it was thin, flat, and strangely flavored. It definitely contained alcohol, which in my book put this
place way ahead of the average American hospital.
After a cup of the beer, I felt the call of nature, and though it embarrassed me to do so, I had to
gesticulate my needs. She handed me a chamber pot from under the bed, and discreetly left for a few
minutes. I'd never used a chamber pot before, but I'd heard of them. It sufficed.
On returning, she talked a long while, and although I still could not understand a word of what she said,
her tone and her bearing let me know that somehow I was in good hands, that all would be well. Later,
she rolled me over and massaged my back, carefully avoiding the places where I had been cut.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The sun was setting. Contented and comfortable, I fell asleep. When I awoke, the thin grey light of
morning was coming through the window wall. It was almost unpleasantly cool. My nose was cold, but
the rest of me was warm enough under the thick covers, some of which must have been added while I
was asleep. In a short while, the sun came up and shined directly in my eyes. I watched it for a long time,
and it was definitely rising.
I knew that something was very wrong.
Last night I had lain in this same bed and watched the sun set out of that very same window. Only one
wall had windows in it and that wall had been to the west! Now, either it was to the east or I was going
insane! Or was I in a different, identical room, the victim of a fabulously expensive practical joke? Or had
I died and gone to some irrational afterlife?
An unfair thought. A decent Atheist like me should not have to worry about that sort of thing!
The same lady brought breakfast, although this time she wore a pale blue dress, as richly embroidered
and expensive looking as the last one, and of a similar cut. I guessed that if she had to work unnaturally
long hours, she was at least well paid for it.
I slept for a few more hours, and when I awoke, my nurse was again sitting beside me. She began
teaching me the language, starting with the parts of the body. The word for elbow, the word for finger.
How you said that your finger was touching your elbow.
I was never much good at learning a foreign language. I'd gotten D's in Latin in high school, and had
flunked out of Russian in college. But now, with a desperate need to get some questions answered and
absolutely nothing else to do, I learned. Total immersion, I think it's called.
Her name was Roxanna. We were on the Western Isles, and the language was Westronese. She
couldn't say exactly where the Western Isles were. Indeed, she seemed to think that it was a very
complicated question to answer. I gave it up until I could speak the language better.
While the medical help was always there when I wanted it, the level of medical technology seemed to be
as ancient as the style of my nurse's dress. Another, older, woman occasionally came by. She talked
briefly with my nurse, changed my bandages, and checked my wounds. I never saw anything like the
ordinary tools to be expected in a doctor's office. No one checked my blood pressure. I never saw a
stethoscope. I never got a shot or took a pill. Slowly, my body healed.
My mind was already well. My physical pains were such that I was actually a few days noticing it, but
somehow the deep, black depression that had plagued me for over a year was simply not there, gone as
if it had never been. I could no longer even imagine what it had been like to suffer from it. Perhaps the
brain cells that had caused it had died in the wreck. If so, they would not be missed.
As I slowly recovered, my nurse got sick. It looked as if she had a bad case of the flu, with a running
nose and a fever, but she doggedly continued to serve me, to the point where I got to feeling very guilty
about it. I tried to get her to take it easier, but my Westronese wasn't up to explaining what I meant, and
my gestures were not understood.
My nurse gave me a thorough weekly sponge bath in a strictly professional manner, but never a shave.
After much difficulty with my almost nonexistent Westronese and a lot of gesticulation, I found that
Roxanna had never even heard of a razor. What she thought of my initially clean-shaven face remained a
mystery for quite a while. As it was, the discomfort and itching of growing a full beard was added to my
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
other physical problems, or perhaps it distracted from them.
It wouldn't have been a good idea to scratch the itching, healing cuts on my stitched up back, even if I
could reach them, but I could and did take considerable satisfaction in scratching the stubble on my
cheeks. Call it a counterirritant.
It was a week before they would let me get up and walk around for a short while, and over the weeks
that followed I was allowed to explore a bit, but not to leave the mansion I was in.
I say "they" because I found that I was apparently at the head of a household with six servants. Besides
Roxanna, my nurse-tutor, there was a maid, a cook, and three gardeners. Two of the gardeners were
married to the maid and cook, respectively. How I rated such a royal entourage was beyond me.
Strangely, every one of them had the flu. By the time I commanded enough of their language to tell them
about the Contact capsules in the ship's medical kit, I realized that there simply wouldn't have been
enough for everybody, and I let it go.
The area in front of our windows was planted in a carefully tended vegetable garden, but the two men
and the woman who worked there were not the same people as the gardeners I had been introduced to.
The garden and people apparently belonged to some other household, whom the people of our
household didn't talk to, or look at, or even acknowledge the existence of. I tried to get Roxanna to
explain about them, and for quite a while it almost seemed as though she couldn't even see who I was
talking about. I put it down as just another mystery that would hopefully be answered someday.
After more than three weeks of convalescing, my nurse permitted me to go outside, at least up to our
own roof. We went up a long spiral staircase, which, in my still weakened condition, was enough to force
me to stop and sit down twice. I was a long way from being the healthy student who worked his way
through college teaching Karate.
She led me finally through a small trapdoor in the ceiling and suddenly we were in the middle of a field of
vegetables! Within a dozen yards of us, our household's gardeners were working diligently at their tasks,
and seemingly oblivious to our entrance onto their domain.
When I had first met Roxanna's gardeners, I had assumed that their task was to tend the decorative
gardens that I supposed our medieval castle was surrounded with. Now I learned that the roof of the
incredibly spacious mansion was a carefully tended garden from which the household got all of its food,
barring fish, dairy products, and the very occasional rabbit or chicken.
Looking about, I soon realized that these gardens were contiguous with those of our neighbors. Indeed,
with increasing wonderment, I saw that every bit of horizontal land within sight was carefully used for
growing crops. The terrain resembled pictures I had seen of the rice paddies of Bali, or of the sculpted
mountain slopes in Peru. The difference was that the vertical surfaces here were covered with large [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]