"Frank Herbert - The Eyes of Heisenberg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

He left the words hanging there, reminding them that he had legal rights, too, could
make the cut with or without their permission, and couldn't be held responsible for any
upset to the parents. Public Law 10927 was clear and direct. Parents might invoke it for the
right to watch, but the cut would be made at the surgeon's discretion. The human race had
a planned future which excluded genetic monsters and wild deviants.
Harvey nodded, a quick and emphatic motion. He gripped his wife's hand tightly. Bits of
Folk horror stories and official myths trickled through his mind. He saw Svengaard partly
through this confusion of stories and partly through the clandestine forbidden literature
grudgingly provided by the Cyborgs to the Parents Underground - through Stedman and
Merck, through Shakespeare and Huxley. His youth had fed on such a limited part that he
knew superstition could not help but remain.
Lizbeth's nod came slower. She knew what their chief concern here had to be, but that
was still her son in the vat.
'Are you sure,' she asked, deliberately baiting Svengaard, 'that there's no pain?'
The extent of the Folk nonsense which bred in the necessary atmosphere of popular
ignorance filled Dr Svengaard with resentment. He knew he'd have to end this interview
quickly. The things he might be saying to these people kept intruding on his awareness,
interfering with what he had to say.
'That fertilized ovum has no nerve trains,' he said. 'It's physically less than three hours
old, its growth retarded by controlled nitrate respiration. Pain? The concept doesn't apply.'
The technical terms would have little meaning to them, Dr Svengaard knew, other than to
emphasize the distance between mere parents and a submolecular engineer.
'I guess that was rather foolish of me,' Lizbeth said. The... it's so simple, not really like a
human yet.' And she signaled to Harvey through their hands, 'What a simpleton he is! As
easy to read as a child.'
Rain beat a tarantella against the skylight. Dr Svengaard waited it out, then: 'Ah, now, let
us make no mistakes.' And he thought what an excellent moment it was to give these fools
a catechism refresher. 'Your embryo may be less than three hours old, but it already
contains every basic enzyme it'll need when fully developed. An enormously complicated
organism.'
Harvey stared at him in assumed awe at the greatness which could understand such
mysteries as the shaping and moulding of life.
Lizbeth glanced at the vat.
Two days ago, selected gametes from Harvey and herself had been united there, gripped
in stasis, allowed to go through limited mitosis. The process had produced a viable embryo -
not too common a thing in their world where only a select few were freed of the
contraceptive gas and allowed to breed, and only a rare number of those produced viables.
She wasn't supposed to understand the intricacies of the process, and the fact that she did
understand had to be hidden at all times. They - the genetic Optimen of Central - stamped
savagely on the slightest threat to their supremacy. And they considered knowledge in the
wrong hands to be the most terrible threat.
'How... big is... he now?' she asked.
'Diameter less than a tenth of a millimeter,' Dr Svengaard said. He relaxed his face into a
smile. 'It's a morula and back in the primitive days it wouldn't yet have completed its
journey to the uterus. This is the stage when it's most susceptible to us. We must do our
work now before the formation of the trophoblast.'
The Durants nodded in awe.
Dr Svengaard basked in their respect. He sensed their minds fumbling over poorly
remembered definitions from the limited schooling they'd been permitted. Their records said
she was a creche librarian and he an instructor of the young - not much education required