"Nancy Kress - Evolution" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

late, Elizabeth."
"What do you mean, too late? Haven't you got endozine?"
"Of course we do." Suddenly he staggers slightly, puts out one hand
behind him, and holds onto a table covered with glassware and papers.
"Randy. You're sick."
"I am. And not with anything endozine is going to cure. Ah,
Elizabeth, why didn't you just phone me? I'd have looked for Sean for you."
"Oh, right. Like you've been so interested and helpful in raising
him."
"You never asked me."
I see that he means it. He really believes his total lack of contact
with his son is my fault. I see that Randy gives only what he's asked to. He
waits, lordly, for people to plead for his help, beg for it, and then he gives
it. If it suits him.
I say, "I'll bet anything your kids with your wife are turning out
really scary."
The blood rushes to his face, and I know I guessed right. His blue
eyes darken and he looks like Jack looks just before Jack explodes. But Randy
isn't Jack. An explosion would be too clean for him. He says instead, "You
were stupid to come here. Haven't you been listening to the news?"
I haven't.
"The CDC publicly announced just last night what medical personnel have
seen for weeks. A virulent strain of staphylococcus aureus has incorporated
endozine-resistant plasmids from enterococcus." He pauses to catch his
breath. "And pneumococcus may have done the same thing."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, you stupid woman, that now there are highly contagious
infections that we have no drugs to cure. No antibiotics at all, not even
endozine. This staph is resistant to them all. And it can live everywhere."
I lower the gun. The empty parking lot. No security to summon. The
man who wouldn't get on the elevator. And Randy's face. "And you've got it."
"We've all got it. Everyone...in the hospital. And for forcing your
way in here, you probably do, too."
"You're going to die," I say, and it's half a hope.
And he _smiles_.
He stands there in his white lab coat, sweating like a horse, barely
able to stand up straight, almost shot by a woman he'd once abandoned
pregnant, and he smiles. His blue eyes gleam. He looks like a picture I once
saw in a book, back when I read a lot. It takes me a minute to remember that
it was my high school World History book. A picture of some general.
 "Everybody's going to die eventually," Randy says. "But not me right
now. At least...I hope not." Casually he crosses the floor toward me, and I
step backward. He smiles again.
"I'm not going to deliberately infect you, Elizabeth. I'm a _doctor_.
I just want the gun."
"No."
"Have it your way. Look, how much do you know about the bubonic plague
of the fourteenth century?"
"Nothing," I say, although I do. Why had I always acted stupider
around Randy than I actually am?