"Resnick, Mike - Bibi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

He could almost feel a rough, calloused hand run tenderly through his hair as he dropped off to sleep once more.
* * *
Jeremy was outside, chopping firewood, working up a sweat and feeling great about it, when Elizabeth called him over to her hut.
"What is it?" he asked when he arrived.
She held up the spark plugs, strung together on a thread of scarlet ribbon.
"What happened?"
"I left some costume jewelry outside the hut," said Elizabeth. "She came during the night and accepted the trade." She grimaced. "They cost me a cultured pearl necklace and a silver-plated bracelet."
"I think both sides made a good trade," said Jeremy.
He looked across the village, past all the huts, toward the bush.
_Thank you, Bibi. I will probably never see you again, but I owe you my life, and I will dedicate it to helping your other children._
* * *
They had been back in camp for a day. Jeremy had put in a long morning tending patients and passing out food, and was sitting on a camp chair just outside his tent, reading a 10-month-old copy of _The New Yorker_, when Elizabeth appeared.
"I tested your blood," she announced.
"And?"
"I couldn't culture HIV from your blood if I had all the resources of the Mayo Clinic here." She paused and stared at him. "You got your miracle, Jeremy. You're clean. HIV negative."
Suddenly tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks. For just an instant he thought he could feel Bibi's hand tighten around his, a mother reassuring a child who has been desperately ill.
"I _told_ you," he said at last.
"I didn't believe you then, and I don't believe you now," answered Elizabeth. "But whoever and whatever she is, she's worth her weight in gold to us." She paused thoughtfully. "She's why they said that Kabute wouldn't have died if they could have gotten him back home -- because _she_ was there waiting for him. And she's probably why we saw that fatally ill woman's lesions shrink and the thrush go away."
Jeremy grinned. "'Probably', hell! Of course it was her. And now I'm going to live. I'm going to live forever and ever!"
* * *
The next morning was cool and clear, and they decided to eat breakfast outside. The crackling of the eggs and bacon frying attracted a small troop of vervet monkeys, and a black African kite swooped down from a limb above the fire and swiped a piece of bread right out of Jeremy's hand.
"They're such rogues," said Elizabeth as the kite flew away with its prize.
"Well, it's nice to know that _something_ on this continent isn't endangered," remarked Jeremy.
She watched the kite for another moment, then turned to Jeremy. "I've been giving Bibi a lot of thought."
"And?" asked Jeremy.
"We've got to go back and find her," answered Elizabeth. "I'd kill for the chance to have AIDS researchers examine her. I still don't know that I buy your story about her curing you with a bite, but whatever happened, she obviously gave you some biochemical agent that kills the HIV virus." She looked at Jeremy wryly. "It'll never replace the Salk vaccine, but there's simply no other explanation. I've _got_ to find her and bring her to the camp."
"She's not a lab animal," replied Jeremy seriously. "She's got to remain free to do her job."
"Her job?"
"She has other children to cure."
"You're not a child."
"We're all her children."
"_That_ again," said Elizabeth with a sigh.
"_You_ don't have to believe it," said Jeremy, protecting his bacon as the kite swooped down toward his plate. "It's enough that _I_ do."
"You're not being logical, Jeremy."
"I was logical my whole life, and what did it get me, except some money I don't need and an incurable disease?" replied Jeremy. "Why don't you _really_ look at Uganda sometime? This is a magical place, for all its problems. Spit a mango pit out the window of your Land Rover, and when you drive by six months later a mango tree has grown up. Amin and his successors virtually wiped out your wildlife, yet all the animals are returning. Terminally ill people suddenly get cured. So how can I not believe in magic?"
"There's nothing magical about Bibi."
"I think there is," said Jeremy. "Leave her alone."
"I _can't_," protested Elizabeth. "Not until I've studied her, and found out how she does it. We may never find anything like her again."
"Think of _her_," he said. "What kind of life do you think she'd have, shuttling from clinic to clinic, facing all those vampires in white coats that not even a mother could love?" He paused. "Let her stay in the bush. These people won't tell. Besides, you have me: a certified HIV-negative volunteer at your disposal." He stared unblinking into her deep brown eyes. "Let her go, Elizabeth."
"You know I can't. We could save _millions_ of people." She zeroed in for the kill. "Or isn't that important to you, now that _you've_ been cured?"
"You know that's not true!" he snapped heatedly.
He was going to say more, tell her how unfair that statement was, how no true friend would ever even suggest it. But a little voice in his head intervened: _Could she be right? Am I just pretending to believe in Bibi's powers? Do I really feel now that I'm cured that no one else matters?_
He searched his soul, which he had not done for a long time, because he hadn't especially liked what he had found there. This time he couldn't find what he was afraid might be lurking in its darker recesses.
_Well, I know it's a lie,_ he thought with satisfaction; _no sense trying to convince you, too._
"All I know is that we're going to dig ten more graves tomorrow morning," responded Elizabeth, "and ten the day after that, and ten the day after _that_, and we're going to keep digging them until we've either beaten this disease or every last victim has died. Now, here's a woman who may, just _may_, have a cure for it. Do you really think I can let her go?"
He stared at her for a very long moment. "No," he said softly. "I know you can't."
"Then come with me while I search for her," continued Elizabeth. "She helped you. Maybe she won't be so frightened if she sees that you're with me."
He stared at his plate for a long moment, considering his answer. The kite hovered overhead, and finally settled for a scrap of bacon that had fallen in the dirt by the fire.
"All right, I'll come," he said at last. "But we won't find her."
"What makes you think so?"