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

dismissing the whole affair. "Mr. Landers has the right to live his own life, and raise his own
children, any way he sees fit. We don't persecute the Amish for their inbreeding, their strange
technology, their desire for independence. Why persecute him, for essentially the same 'crimes'?"
The final cut of the story was eighteen minutes long. In the broadcast version, there'd only be
room for twelve. I pared away mercilessly, summarizing and simplifying-taking care to do a
professional job, but not too worried by the loss of detail. Most real-time broadcasts on SeeNet
served no purpose but to focus publicity, and to guarantee reviews in some of the more
conservative media, junk DNA was scheduled for eleven P.M. on a Wednesday; the vast majority of
the audience would log on to the full, interactive version at their convenience. As well as a
slightly longer linear backbone, the interactive would be peppered with optional detours to other
sources: all the technical journal articles I'd read for my own research (and all the articles
they in turn cited); other media coverage of Landers (and of Jane Summers' conspiracy theory); the
relevant US and international statutes-and even trails leading into the quagmire of potentially
relevant case law.
On the evening of the fifth day of editing-right on schedule, reason enough for minor jubilation-I
tidied up all the loose ends, and ran through the segment one last time. I tried to clear away all
my memories of filming, and all my preconceptions, and watch the story like a SeeNet viewer who'd
seen nothing at all on the subject before (save a few misleading promotions for the documentary
itself).
Landers came across surprisingly sympathetically. I'd thought I'd been harsher. I'd thought I'd at
least given him every opportunity to damn himself with his earnest account of his surreal
ambitions. Instead, he seemed far more good-humored than po-faced; he almost appeared to be
sharing all the jokes. Living off tire dumps? Shooting up HIV? I watched, amazed. I couldn't
decide if there really was a faint undercurrent of deliberate irony, a hint of self-deprecation in
his manner which I'd somehow missed before-or whether the subject matter simply made it impossible


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for a sane viewer to interpret his words any other way.
What if Summers was right7 What if Landers was a decoy, a distraction, a consummate performing
clown? What if thousands of the planet's
24

wealthiest people really were planning to grant themselves, and their offspring, perfect genetic
isolation, and absolute viral immunity?
Would it matter? The rich had always cut themselves off from the rabble, one way or another.
Pollution levels would continue to decline, whether or not algal symbionts rendered fresh air
obsolete. And anyone who chose to follow in Landers' footsteps was no great loss to the human gene
pool.
There was only one small question which remained unanswered, and I tried not to give it too much
thought.
Absolute viral immunity . . . against what7
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4
Delphic Biosystems had been too generous by far. Not only had they arranged for me to interview
ten times as many of their Public Relations staff as I could ever have made time for, they'd
showered me with ROMs packed with seductive micrographs and dazzling animation. Software flow-
charts for the HealthGuard implant were rendered as air-brushed fantasies of impossible chromed