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

I said, "Be reasonable. This is powerful stuff; I can't just throw it away. And I have every right
to use it. I had permission to be there-from the cops, from the hospital. And I'll get the
family's clearance-"
12
"You mean the network's lawyers will browbeat them into signing some kind of waiver 'in the public
interest.'"
I had no answer to that; it was exactly what would happen. I said, "You're the one who just
declared that revival is obscene. You want to see it banned? This can only help your cause. It's
as good a dose of frankenscience as any dumb luddite could ask for."
Gina looked stung; I couldn't tell if she was faking. She said, "I have a doctorate in materials
science, you peasant, so don't call me-" "I didn't. You know what I meant,"
"If anyone's a luddite, you are. This entire project is beginning to sound like Edenite
propaganda, 'Junk DNA!' What's the subtitle? 'The biotechnology nightmare?'" "Close."
"What I don't understand is why you couldn't include a single positive story-"
I said wearily, "We've been over this before. It's not up to me. The networks won't buy anything
unless there's an angle. In this case, the downside ofbiotech. That's the choice of subject,
that's what it's about. It isn't meant to be 'balanced.' Balance confuses the marketing people;
you can't hype something which contains two contradictory messages. But at least it might
counteract all the hymns of praise to genetic engineering everyone's been gagging on lately. And-
taken along with everything else-it does show the whole picture. By adding what they've all left
out."
Gina was unmoved. "That's disingenuous. 'Our sensationalism balances their sensationalism.' It
doesn't. It just polarizes opinion. What's wrong with a calm, reasoned presentation of the facts-
which might help to get revival and a few other blatant atrocities outlawed-without playing up all
the old transgressions-against-nature bullshit? Showing the excesses, but putting them in context?
You should be helping people make informed decisions about what they demand from the regulatory
authorities. Junk DNA sounds more likely to inspire them to go out and bomb the nearest biotech
lab."
I curled into the armchair and rested my head on my knees. "All right, I give up. Everything you
say is true. I'm a manipulative, rabble-rousing, anti-science hack."
She frowned. "Anti-science? I wouldn't go that far. You're venal, lazy, and irresponsible-but
you're not quite Ignorance Cult material yet."
13
"Your faith is touching."
She prodded me with a cushion, affectionately I think, then went back to the kitchen. I covered my
face with my hands, and the room started tipping.
I should have been jubilant. It was over. The revival was the very last piece of filming for Junk
DNA. No more paranoid billionaires mutating into self-contained walking ecologies. No more
insurance firms designing personal actuarial implants to monitor diet, exercise, and exposure to
pollutants-for the sake of endlessly recomputing the wearer's most probable date and cause of
death. No more Voluntary Autists lobbying for the right to have their brains surgically mutilated
so they could finally attain the condition nature hadn't quite granted them . . .
1 went into my workroom and unreeled the fiber-optic umbilical from the side of the editing
console. 1 lifted my shirt and cleared some unnamable debris from my navel, then extracted the
skin-colored plug with my fingernails, exposing a short stainless-steel tube ending in an


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