"The Planners by Kate Wilhelm" - читать интересную книгу автора (1969)

doses, stood before a machine that tested them instantane-
ously, and were sorted. Some of them went into a disintegra-
tion room, others out into the world.
A car horn blasted in his ears. He switched off his ignition
and he got out as Stu Evers parked next to his car. "I see
the old bats got here," Stu said. He walked toward the lab
with Darin. "How's the DriscoU kid coming along?"
"Negative," Darin said. Stu knew they had tried using
human sRNA on the boy, and failed consistently. It was too
big a step for his body to cope with. "So far he has shown
total intolerance to A-127. "Throws it off almost instantly."
Stuart was sympathetic and noncommittal. No one else had
any faith whatever in Darin's own experiment. A-127 might
be too great a step upward, Darin thought. "The Ateles spider
monkey from Brazil was too bright.
He called Kelly from his office and asked about the newly
arrived spider monkeys they had tested 'the day before. Blood
had been processed; a sample was available. He looked over
his notes and chose one that had shown interest in the tasks
without finishing any of them. Kelly promised him the pre-
pared syringe by I P.M.
What no one connected with the project could any longer
doubt was that those simians, and the men that had been
injected with sRNA from the Driscoll boy, had actually had
their learning capacities inhibited, some of them apparently
permanently.
Darin didn't want to think about Mrs. Driscoll's reaction if
ever she learned how they had been using her boy. Rae sat at
the corner of his desk and drawled insolently, "I might tell
her myself, Dr. Darin. I'll say. Sorry, Ma'am, you'll have to
keep your idiot out of here; you're damaging the brains of
our monkeys with his polluted blood. Okay, Darin?"
"My God, what are you doing back again?"
'Testing," she said. "That's all, just testing."
Stu called him to observe the latest challenge to Adam's
group, to take place in forty minutes. Darin had forgotten
that he was to be present. During the night a tree had been
felled in each compound, its trunk crossing the small stream,
damming it. At eleven the water fountains were to be turned
off for the rest of the day. The tree had been felled at the far
end of the compound, close to the wall where the stream
entered, so that the trickle of water that flowed past the hut
was cut off. Already the group not taking sRNA was showing
signs of thirst. Adam's group was unaware of the interrupted
flow.
Darin met Stu and they walked together to the far side
where they would have a good view of the entire compound.
The women had left by then. "It was too quiet for them this
morning," Stu said. "Adam was making his rounds; he
squatted on the felled tree for nearly an hour before he left