"Greg Egan - Distress (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

that." Then: "And I have symbionts providing a second, independent immune system, anyway. But who
knows
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what's coming along next? I'll be prepared, whatever it is. Not by anticipating the specifics-
which no one could ever do-but by making sure that no vulnerable cell in my body still speaks the
same biochemical language as any virus on Earth."
"And in the long term7 It's taken a lot of expensive infrastructure to provide you with all of
these safeguards. What if that technology doesn't survive long enough for your children and
grandchildren7" This was all redundant, so I ditched it.
"In the long term, of course, I'm aiming to modify the stem cells which produce my sperm. My wife
Carol has already begun a program of ova collection. And once we've translated the entire human
genome, and replaced all twenty-three chromosomes in sperm and ova . . . everything we've done
will be heritable. Any child of ours will use pure neo-DNA-and all the symbionts will pass from
mother to child in the womb.
"We'll translate the genomes of the symbionts as well-into a third genetic alphabet-to protect
them from viruses, and to eliminate any risk of accidental gene exchange. They'll be our crops and
our herds, our birthright, our inalienable dominion, living in our blood forever.
"And our children will be a new species of life. More than a new species-a whole new kingdom."
The soccer players in the park cheered; someone had scored a goal. I left it in.
Landers beamed suddenly, radiantly, as if he was contemplating this strange arcadia for the very
first time.
"That's what I'm creating. A new kingdom."
I sat at the console eighteen hours a day, and forced myself to live as if the world had shrunk,
not to the workroom itself, but to the times and places captured in the footage. Gina left me to
it; she'd survived the editing of Gender Scrutiny Overload, so she already knew exactly what to
expect.
She said blithely, "I'll just pretend that you're out of town. And that the lump in the bed is a
large hot water bottle."
My pharm programmed a small skin patch on my shoulder to release carefully timed and calibrated
doses of melatonin, or a melatonin blocker-adding to, or subtracting from, the usual biochemical
signal
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produced by my pineal gland, reshaping the normal sine wave of alert-ness into a plateau followed
by a deep, deep trough. I woke every morning from five hours of enriched REM sleep, as wide-eyed
and energetic as a hyperactive child, my head spinning with a thousand disintegrating dreams (most
of them elaborate remixes of the previous day's editing). I wouldn't so much as yawn until eleven
forty-five-but fifteen minutes later, I'd go out like a light. Melatonin was a natural circadian
hormone, far safer and more precise in its effects than crude stimulants like caffeine or
amphetamines. (I'd tried caffeine a few times; it made me believe I was focused and energetic, but
it turned my judgment to shit. Widespread use of caffeine explained a lot about the twentieth
century.) I knew that when I went off the melatonin, I'd suffer a short period of insomnia and
daytime drowsiness-an overshoot of the brain's attempts to counteract the imposed rhythm. But the
side-effects of the alternatives were worse.
Carol Landers had declined to be interviewed, which was a shame-it would have been quite a coup to
have chatted with the next Mitochon-drial Eve. Landers had refused to comment on whether or not
she was currently using the symbionts; perhaps she was waiting to see if he'd continue to
flourish, or whether he'd suffer a population explosion of some mutant bacterial strain, and go
into toxic shock.
I'd been permitted to speak to a few of Landers' senior employees- including the two geneticists
who were doing most of the R&D. They were coy when it came to discussing anything beyond the