Foothold For A Loner. Макс Глебов

shrapnel from a patient’s left lung. After standing a couple of minutes behind my shoulder, the doctor silently left my room and closed the door quietly. What he thought, I don’t know; but he had no questions, and Olga didn’t bother me anymore.

      As for biochemistry, I passed with flying colors, but with medicine I had a hard time. There are a lot of practical matters in this discipline, even with the automation of the main processes. Besides, all the medical equipment was completely unfamiliar to me. Nevertheless, I obtained all the required three diplomas, and set up a meeting with three professors. Local science was enriched by Lutsko-Lavroff’s cell membrane permeability estimation method, Lavroff-Grishin’s radiotherapy tolerance express test, and Stein-Lavroff’s proof.

      On the fourth day my ‘mom’ visited me. She was so glad that I felt better and I decided to tell her some things. Quite surprisingly, even though I was an orphan I saw this older but attractive woman as my mom. Igor Lavroff was a kind homeboy and loved his mother very much. A part of his personality apparently settled in my head, and having nothing against it, I wondered about that myself.

      Mother sat down on a chair near my bed and took my hand in hers.

      “Igor, you clearly feel better. Perhaps, everything will be fine.”

      “If we keep on going the way we're going, it won’t be okay,” I replied firmly. “This is just a remission, a temporary improvement. Within a fortnight I'll be in worse condition and it will be irreversible.”

      “But how… Ilya Sergeyevich told me nothing.”

      “And he won’t. He doesn’t want to ruin the last days with your son. But there is something he doesn’t know, mom. Tomorrow three professors will come here to see me: a radiotherapy specialist, a biochemist and a physicist. Please come. It will be useful for you to hear our conversation. And one more thing. I’m afraid we may need all the money we have. Everything that’s left.”

      Chapter 3

      I notified Ilya Sergeyevich in advance about the professors’ visit and asked him to also be present at the meeting. He looked at me somewhat strange but didn’t say anything aloud: he had evidently decided that the terminally-ill patient was just grasping at a straw and he should be allowed to continue since there was no sense in making him upset before his death.

      The guests arrived almost simultaneously. In any case, my doctor let them enter my ward together. My mother had already been there. She quietly said “Hello” to the scientific luminaries and sat down on a small corner sofa. I introduced my new acquaintances to her and started our conversation.

      “So, gentlemen, I know you are busy people, therefore I'll get right to the point. I’d like to show you a treatment for asteroid fever that I’ve come up with. I’d like for you to assess it and help further develop it in order to test on me.”

      “So, you just came up with it out of thin air, Igor?” asked Professor Grishin.

      “Not at all, Fyodor Nicolayevich, I was racking my brains thinking it over. You can’t imagine how stimulating it is for mental performance when the Grim Reaper stands behind you with his scythe.” I smiled, remembering that it was not the first terminal diagnosis in my life. “However, let’s get to the point.”