Текст книги "Моральный вирусолог"

Автор книги: Грег Иган

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 So Shawcross visited a travel agent, then infected himself with SVA.

Shawcross went west, crossing the Pacific at once, saving his own continent for last. He stuck to large population centres: Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Bangkok, Manilla, Sydney, New Delhi, Cairo. SVA could survive indefinitely, dormant but potentially infectious, on any surface that wasn't intentionally sterilised. The seats in a jet, the furniture in a hotel room, aren't autoclaved too often.

 Shawcross didn't visit prostitutes; it was SVA that he wanted to spread, and SVA was not a venereal disease. Instead, he simply played the tourist, sight-seeing, shopping, catching public transport, swimming in hotel pools. He relaxed at a frantic pace, adopting a schedule of remorseless recreation that, he soon felt, only divine intervention sustained.

 Not surprisingly, by the time he reached London he was a wreck, a suntanned zombie in a fading floral shirt, with eyes as glazed as the multicoated lens of his obligatory (if filmless) camera. Tiredness, jet lag, and endless changes of cuisine and surroundings (paradoxically made worse by an underlying, glutinous monotony to be found in food and cities alike), had all worked together to slowly drag him down into a muddy, dreamlike state of mind. He dreamt of airports and hotels and jets, and woke in the same places, unable to distinguish between memories and dreams.

 His faith held out through it all, of course, invulnerably axiomatic, but he worried nonetheless. High altitude jet travel meant extra exposure to cosmic rays; could he be certain that the virus's mechanisms for self checking and mutation repair were fail-safe? God would be watching over all the trillions of replications, but still, he would feel better when he was home again, and could test the strain he'd been carrying for any evidence of defects.

 Exhausted, he stayed in his hotel room for days, when he should have been out jostling Londoners, not to mention the crowds of international tourists making the best of the end of summer. News of his plague was only now beginning to grow beyond isolated items about mystery deaths; health authorities were investigating, but had had little time to assemble all the data, and were naturally reluctant to make premature announcements. It was too late, anyway; even if Shawcross had been found and quarantined at once, and all national frontiers sealed, people he had infected so far would already have taken SVA to every corner of the globe.

 He missed his flight to Dublin. He missed his flight to Ontario. He ate and slept, and dreamt of eating, sleeping and dreaming. The Times arrived each morning on his breakfast tray, each day devoting more and more space to proof of his success, but still lacking the special kind of headline he longed for: a black and white acknowledgement of the plague's divine purpose. Experts began declaring that all the signs pointed to a biological weapon run amok, with Libya and Iraq the prime suspects; sources in Israeli intelligence had confirmed that both countries had greatly expanded their research programs in recent years. If any epidemiologist had realised that only adulterers and homosexuals were dying, the idea had not yet filtered through to the press.

 Eventually, Shawcross checked out of the hotel. There was no need for him to travel through Canada, the States, or Central and South America; all the news showed that other travellers had long since done his job for him. He booked a flight home, but had nine hours to kill.

"I will do no such thing! Now take your money and get out."

 "But -"

 "Straight sex, it says in the foyer. Can't you read?"

 "I don't want sex. I won't touch you. You don't understand. I want you to touch yourself. I only want to be tempted -"

 "Well, walk down the street with both eyes open, that should be temptation enough." The woman glared at him, but Shawcross didn't budge. There was an important principle at stake. "I've paid you!" he whined.

 She dropped the notes on his lap. "And now you have your money back. Good night."

 He climbed to his feet. "God's going to punish you. You're going to die a horrible death, blood leaking out of all your veins -"

 "There'll be blood leaking out of you if I have to call the lads to assist you off the premises."

 "Haven't you read about the plague? Don't you realise what it is, what it means? It's God's punishment for fornicators -"

 "Oh, get out, you blaspheming lunatic."

 "Blaspheming?" Shawcross was stunned. "You don't know who you're talking to! I'm God's chosen instrument!"

 She scowled at him. "You're the devil's own arsehole, that's what you are. Now clear off."

 As Shawcross tried to stare her down, a peculiar dizziness took hold of him. She was going to die, and he would be responsible. For several seconds, this simple realisation sat unchallenged in his brain, naked, awful, obscene in its clarity. He waited for the usual chorus of abstractions and rationalisations to rise up and conceal it.

 And waited.

 Finally he knew that he couldn't leave the room without doing his best to save her life.

 "Listen to me! Take this money and let me talk, that's all. Let me talk for five minutes, then I'll go."

 "Talk about what?"

 "The plague. Listen! I know more about the plague than anyone else on the planet." The woman mimed disbelief and impatience. "It's true! I'm an expert virologist, I work for, ah, I work for the Centres for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Georgia. Everything I'm going to tell you will be made public in a couple of days, but I'm telling you now, because you're at risk from this job, and in a couple of days it might be too late."

 He explained, in the simplest language he could manage, the four stages of the virus, the concept of a stored host fingerprint, the fatal consequences if a third person's SVM ever entered her blood. She sat through it all in silence.

 "Do you understand what I've said?"

 "Sure I do. That doesn't mean I believe it."

 He leapt to his feet and shook her. "I'm deadly serious! I'm telling you the absolute truth! God is punishing adulterers! AIDS was just a warning; this time no sinner will escape! No one!"

 She removed his hands. "Your God and my God don't have a lot in common."

 "Your God!" he spat.

 "Oh, and aren't I entitled to one? Excuse me. I thought they'd put it in some United Nations Charter: Everyone's issued with their own God at birth, though if you break Him or lose Him along the way there's no free replacement."

 "Now who's blaspheming?"

 She shrugged. "Well, my God's still functioning, but yours sounds a bit of a disaster. Mine might not cure all the problems in the world, but at least he doesn't bend over backwards to make them worse."

 Shawcross was indignant. "A few people will die. A few sinners, it can't be helped. But think of what the world will be like when the message finally gets through! No unfaithfulness, no rape; every marriage lasting until death -"

 She grimaced with distaste. "For all the wrong reasons."

 "No! It might start out that way. People are weak, they need a reason, a selfish reason, to be good. But given time it will grow to be more than that; a habit, then a tradition, then part of human nature. The virus won't matter any more. People will have changed."

 "Well, maybe; if monogamy is inheritable, I suppose natural selection would eventually -"

 Shawcross stared at her, wondering if he was losing his mind, then screamed, "Stop it! There is no such thing as 'natural selection'!" He'd never been lectured on Darwinism in any brothel back home, but then what could he expect in a country run by godless socialists? He calmed down slightly, and added, "I meant a change in the spiritual values of the world culture."

 The woman shrugged, unmoved by the outburst. "I know you don't give a damn what I think, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You are the saddest, most screwed-up man I've set eyes on all week. So, you've chosen a particular moral code to live by; that's your right, and good luck to you. But you have no real faith in what you're doing; you're so uncertain of your choice that you need God to pour down fire and brimstone on everyone who's chosen differently, just to prove to you that you're right. God fails to oblige, so you hunt through the natural disasters – earthquakes, floods, famines, epidemics – winnowing out examples of the 'punishment of sinners'. You think you're proving that God's on your side? All you're proving is your own insecurity."

 She glanced at her watch. "Well, your five minutes are long gone, and I never talk theology for free. I've got one last question though, if you don't mind, since you're likely to be the last 'expert virologist' I run into for a while."

 "Ask." She was going to die. He'd done his best to save her, and he'd failed. Well, hundreds of thousands would die with her. He had no choice but to accept that; his faith would keep him sane.

 "This virus that your God's designed is only supposed to harm adulterers and gays? Right?"

 "Yes. Haven't you listened? That's the whole point! The mechanism is ingenious, the DNA fingerprint -"

 She spoke very slowly, opening her mouth extra wide, as if addressing a deaf or demented person. "Suppose some sweet, monogamous, married couple have sex. Suppose the woman becomes pregnant. The child won't have exactly the same set of genes as either parent. So what happens to it? What happens to the baby?"

 Shawcross just stared at her. What happens to the baby? His mind was blank. He was tired, he was homesick . . . all the pressure, all the worries . . . he'd been through an ordeal – how could she expect him to think straight, how could she expect him to explain every tiny detail? What happens to the baby? What happens to the innocent, newly made child? He struggled to concentrate, to organise his thoughts, but the absolute horror of what she was suggesting tugged at his attention, like a tiny, cold, insistent hand, dragging him, inch by inch, towards madness.

 Suddenly, he burst into laughter; he almost wept with relief. He shook his head at the stupid whore, and said, "You can't trick me like that! I thought of babies back in '94! At little Joel's christening – he's my cousin's boy." He grinned and shook his head again, giddy with happiness. "I fixed the problem: I added genes to SVC and SVM, for surface receptors to half a dozen foetal blood proteins; if any of the receptors are activated, the next generation of the virus is pure SVA. It's even safe to breast feed, for about a month, because the foetal proteins take a while to be replaced."

 "For about a month," echoed the woman. Then, "What do you mean, you added genes . . . ?"

 Shawcross was already bolting from the room.

 He ran, aimlessly, until he was breathless and stumbling, then he limped through the streets, clutching his head, ignoring the stares and insults of passers-by. A month wasn't long enough, he'd known that all along, but somehow he'd forgotten just what it was he'd intended to do about it. There'd been too many details, too many complications.

 Already, children would be dying.

 He came to a halt in a deserted side street, behind a row of tawdry nightclubs, and slumped to the ground. He sat against a cold brick wall, shivering and hugging himself. Muffled music reached him, thin and distorted.

 Where had he gone wrong? Hadn't he taken his revelation of God's purpose in creating AIDS to its logical conclusion? Hadn't he devoted his whole life to perfecting a biological machine able to discern good from evil? If something so hideously complex, so painstakingly contrived as his virus, still couldn't do the job . . .

 Waves of blackness moved across his vision.

 What if he'd been wrong, from the start?

 What if none of his work had been God's will, after all?

 Shawcross contemplated this idea with a shell-shocked kind of tranquillity. It was too late to halt the spread of the virus, but he could go to the authorities and arm them with the details that would otherwise take them years to discover. Once they knew about the foetal protein receptors, a protective drug exploiting that knowledge might be possible in a matter of months.

 Such a drug would enable breast feeding, blood transfusions and organ transplants. It would also allow adulterers to copulate, and homosexuals to practise their abominations. It would be utterly morally neutral, the negation of everything he'd lived for. He stared up at the blank sky, with a growing sense of panic. Could he do that? Tear himself down and start again? He had to! Children were dying. Somehow, he had to find the courage.

 Then, it happened. Grace was restored. His faith flooded back like a tide of light, banishing his preposterous doubts. How could he have contemplated surrender, when the real solution was so obvious, so simple?

 He staggered to his feet, then broke into a run again, reciting to himself, over and over, to be sure he'd get it right this time: "ADULTERERS! SODOMITES! MOTHERS BREAST FEEDING INFANTS OVER THE AGE OF FOUR WEEKS! REPENT AND BE SAVED . . ."