Bill 3 - on the Planet of Bottled Brains Read Online Free PDF Page A

after a while.
    Silence from the translator.
    “Haven't you got any words left at all?” Bill asked.
    “Just this,” the translator said. And that was the last word Bill was able to get out of him.
    It was soon after that that he heard the second voice.
    The second voice came to him that night, after his evening meal of a raspberry brain malted and a plate of what tasted like fried chicken livers but looked like orange gumdrops. He was reading his shirt labels under the light of a lamp called a Blind Philistine because it shines indifferently on whatever is put in front of it. He was just stretching for a yawn, when a voice from behind him said, “Listen.”
    Bill gave a violent start and looked around in all directions. There was no one in the room with him.
    As if to confirm his observation, the voice said, “No, I'm not in the room.”
    “Where are you, then?”
    “That's a little difficult to explain.”
    “You can at least try.”
    “No, not today.”
    “Then what do you want?”
    “I want to help you, Bill.”
    Bill had heard that before. Still, it was always good to hear. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and looked around the room again. Nope, nobody there. “I could use some help,” Bill said. “Can you get me out of here?”
    “I can,” the voice said, “if you do exactly what I tell you.”
    “And what are you going to tell me to do?”
    “Something that may seem crazy to you. But it is of the utmost urgency that you do it with conviction and precision.”
    “Just what is it you want me to do?”
    “You're not going to like it.”
    “Tell me or shut up!” Bill screeched. “This is doing my nerves no good. I don't care if I like it or not, if it'll help me get out of here I'll do it. Now — tell me!”
    “Bill, can you pat your head with one hand and rub your belly with the other simultaneously?”
    “I don't think so,” Bill said. He tried and failed. “See? I was right.”
    “But you can learn how, can't you?”
    “Why should I?”
    “Because there is a chance you can get out of your predicament. Your continuing existence as a being with a mind of his own depends on you doing exactly what I tell you when I tell you.”
    “I see,” Bill said, not seeing at all but going along with all this stupidity since he had very little choice. “Would you mind telling me who you are?”
    “Not now,” the voice said.
    “I see,” Bill said. “There are reasons, I suppose?”
    “Yes, but I can't tell them to you. Will you do as I say, Bill? Now practice. I'll be back.”
    And then the voice was gone.
    A delegation of Tsurisian doctors came to Bill's cell the next morning. Two of them were of the familiar spherical shape. Another was controlling what appeared to be the body of a large collie. With lots of fleas for he kept scratching with one hind leg. The final two may have been Chingers at some other time in their existence because they were shiny green and quite lizardy.
    “Time for the good old protoplasm vat,” Dr Vesker said in a cheerful voice. That was his name. “I am Dr Vesker,” he said so Bill would know too. Bill could not have cared less.
    These Tsurisian males were doctors, as could be told by the long, loose-fitting white coats they wore, and the stethoscopes sticking rakishly from their pockets. All of them spoke Standard, Classical, or Tsurisian, so Bill's translator, which was still implanted under his armpit, was able to handle the language without difficulty. One of the first questions Bill asked was, “Doc, how am I?”
    “You're doing fine, just fine,” the doctor said.
    “Well, if I'm all right, how about letting me out of here?”
    “Oh, there's no rush for that, I'm sure,” the doctor said, and left with a little chuckle.
    “What did he mean by that little chuckle?” Bill asked Illyria after the doctors had left.
    “You know how doctors are,” Illyria said. “They find anything funny.”
    “What's supposed to happen to me when I'm released from