"James Tiptree Jr - The Last Flight of Dr. Ain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

His audience excused this as the muffling effects of security. Ain then got
into a tangled point about the course of evolution in which he seemed to
be trying to show that something was very wrong indeed. When he wound
up with a reference to Hudson's bellbird "singing for a later race," several
listeners wondered if he could be drunk.
The big security break came right at the end, when he suddenly began
to describe the methods he had used to mutate and redesign a leukemia
virus. He explained the procedure with admirable clarity in four sentences
and paused. Then gave a terse description of the effects of the mutated
strain, which were maximal only in the higher primates. Recovery rate
among the lower mammals and other orders was close to ninety percent.
As to vectors, he went on, any warm-blooded animal served. In addition,
the virus retained its viability in most environmental media and
performed very well airborne. Contagion rate was extremely high. Almost
offhand, Ain added that no test primate or accidentally exposed human
had survived beyond the twenty-second day.
These words fell into a silence broken only by the running feet of the
Egyptian delegate making for the door. Then a gilt chair went over as an
American bolted after him.
Ain seemed unaware that his audience was in a state of unbelieving
paralysis. It had all come so fast: a man who had been blowing his nose
was staring pop-eyed around his handkerchief. Another who had been
lighting a pipe grunted as his fingers singed. Two men chatting by the
door missed his words entirely, and their laughter chimed into a dead
silence in which echoed Ain's words: "—really no point in attempting."
Later they found he had been explaining that the virus utilized the
body's own immunomechanisms, and so defense was by definition
hopeless.
That was all. Ain looked around vaguely for questions and then started
down the aisle. By the time he got to the door, people were swarming after
him. He wheeled about and said rather crossly, "Yes, of course it is very
wrong. I told you that. We are all wrong. Now it's over."
An hour later they found he had gone, having apparently reserved a
Sinair flight to Karachi.
The security men caught up with him at Hong Kong. By then he seemed
really very ill, and went with them peacefully. They started back to the
States via Hawaii.
His captors were civilized types; they saw he was gentle and treated him
accordingly. He had no weapons or drugs on him. They took him out
handcuffed for a stroll at Osaka, let him feed his crumbs to the birds, and
they listened with interest to his account of the migration routes of the
common brown sandpiper. He was very hoarse. At that point, he was
wanted only for the security thing. There was no question of a woman at
all.
He dozed most of the way to the islands, but when they came in sight he
pressed to the window and began to mutter. The security man behind him
got the first inkling that there was a woman in it, and turned on his
recorder.
"... Blue, blue and green until you see the wounds. O my girl, O
beautiful, you won't die. I won't let you die. I tell you girl, it's over. . . .