"Paul J. McAuley - Gene Wars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

goods.” She frowned. “Why am I talking so much?”

“For the same reason you're not going to kill me,” Evan said.

“It seems such a silly thing to want to do,” the assassin admitted.

Evan smiled. He'd long ago decoded the two-stage virus the gene-pirate had used on him: one a Trojan
horse which kept his T lymphocytes busy while the other rewrote loyalty genes companies implanted in
their employees. Once again it had proven its worth. He said, “I need someone like you in my
organization. And since you spent so long getting close enough to seduce me, perhaps you'd do me the
honour of becoming my wife. I'll need one.”
“You don't mind being married to a killer?”

“Oh, that. I used to be one myself.”

***

8

Evan saw the market crash coming. Gene wars had winnowed basic foodcrops to soybeans, rice, and
dole yeast: tailored ever-mutating diseases had reduced cereals and many other cash crops to nucleotide
sequences stored in computer vaults. Three global biotechnology companies held patents on the calorific
input of ninety-eight percent of humanity, but they had lost control of the technology. Pressures of the war
economy had simplified it to the point where anyone could directly manipulate her own genome, and
hence her own body form.

Evan had made a fortune in the fashion industry, selling templates and microscopic self-replicating robots
which edited DNA. But he guessed that sooner or later someone would come up with a
direct-photosynthesis system, and his stock-market expert systems were programmed to correlate
research in the field. He and his wife sold controlling interest in their company three months before the
first green people appeared.

***

9

“I remember when you knew what a human being was,” Evan said sadly. “I suppose I'm old-fashioned,
but there it is.”

From her cradle, inside a mist of spray, his wife said, “Is that why you never went green? I always
thought it was a fashion statement.”

“Old habits die hard.” The truth was, he liked his body the way it was. These days, going green involved
somatic mutation which grew a metre-high black cowl to absorb sufficient light energy. Most people lived
in the tropics, swarms of black-caped anarchists. Work was no longer a necessity, but an indulgence.
Evan added, “I'm going to miss you.”

“Let's face it,” his wife said, “we never were in love. But I'll miss you too.” With a flick of her powerful
tail she launched her streamlined body into the sea.