Номер 62, страница 158 - гдз по английскому языку 8 класс учебник Афанасьева, Михеева

Number twenty-three.

Exercise sixty-two.

Listen to the text, the surgeon, and try to read it in the same manner.

The surgeon

after Isaac Asimov.

The surgeon looked up without expression.

Is he ready?

He is nervous, said his assistant.

They always are. Well, it's a serious operation.

I'll see him in this room, said the surgeon.

Has he made up his mind?

Yes, he wants metal. They always do.

The surgeon's face didn't change expression.

He stared at his hands.

Sometimes, one can talk them out of it.

Why bother, said the assistant indifferently.

If he wants metal, let it be metal.

You don't care?

Why should I?

Either way, it's a medical engineering problem and I'm a medical engineer. Why should I go beyond that?

I care. I have to try.

The surgeon pushed a small button and the door opened.

The patient moved into the room in his motor chair, the nurse stepping along beside him.

You may go, nurse, said the surgeon, but wait outside, I will call you.

He nodded to the assistant, who left with the nurse, and the door closed behind them.

The man in the chair watched them go.

He looked worried and uncomfortable.

He said, will we be starting today?

The surgeon nodded.

This afternoon.

I understand it will take weeks.

Not the operation itself, but there are a number of small points to take care of.

Is it dangerous?

Then, as though trying to sound friendlier, but against his will, he added, doctor?

The surgeon paid no attention to this.

He said calmly, we take our time to make it less dangerous, and we already have all the required equipment.

But I must ask you to make a decision.

It is possible to supply you with either of two types of cyber hearts: metal or

Plastic, said the patient irritably, cheap plastic, I don't want that. I've made my choice, I want the metal because it is better.

It depends on the patient.

In my opinion, in your individual case, it is not.

And we prefer not to call them plastic, it is a fibrous cyber heart.

It's made of a polymeric material designed to imitate as closely as possible, the human heart you now have in your chest.

Exactly. And the human heart I now have in my chest is worn out, although I am not yet sixty years old.

I don't want another one like it, thank you. I want something better.

We all want something better for you.

The fibrous cyber heart will be better. It has a potential life of centuries.

But it does wear out.

No, I want it to be metallic, doctor. What's the matter with you?

Are you afraid I'm making myself into a robot, into a metallo, as they call them since metallos became citizens?

There is nothing wrong with a metallo.

As you say, they are citizens.

But you're not a metallo, you're a human. Why not stay a human?

Because I want the best, and that's a metallic heart.

And will you be the surgeon in charge? They tell me you're the best.

The surgeon nodded.

Very well, I will do what I can to make the operation an easy one.

The door opened and the chair moved the patient out to the waiting nurse.

The medical engineer came in.

Well, he said, I can't say what happened just by looking at you. What was his decision?

The surgeon bent over his desk, putting together some records.

What you predicted.

He insists on the metallic heart.

It has become a real mania with people ever since metallos became citizens.

Men have this strange desire to make metallos out of themselves, because they think that metallos are physically strong and powerful.

It isn't one-sided, doc.

You don't work with metallos, but I do, so I know.

The last two who came in for repairs have asked for fibrous elements.

I suppose that someday we shall have metallos that are a kind of flesh and blood, and humans, half made of metal.

We have two varieties of intellect on Earth now, and in the near future, we won't be able to tell the difference between them.

We'd have the best of both worlds, the advantages of man combined with those of robot.

You'd get a hybrid, said the surgeon almost angrily.

You'd get something that is not both, but neither.

I believe in being what one is.

I wouldn't change a bit of my own structure for any reason.

I am myself, well pleased to be myself, and would not be anything else.

He had finished now and had to prepare for the operation.

He placed his strong hands into the heating oven and kept them there until they became red-hot and completely sterilized.

Though his speech had been emotional, his voice had never risen.

And on its metal face there was, as always, no sign of expression.