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

percent since -- Elizabeth, this is irrelevant! Can't you pay attention to
what I'm saying for three minutes?"
I stand up and look down at him, lying shivering on the floor. He
doesn't even seem to notice, just keep on lecturing.
"But antibiotics weren't invented by humans. They were invented by the
microbes themselves to use...against each other and...they had two billion
years of evolution at it before we even showed up...We should have -- where
are you going?"
"Home. Have a nice life, Randy."
He says quietly, "I probably will. But if...you leave now, you're
probably dead. And your husband and kids, too."
"Why? Damn it, stop lecturing and tell me why!"
"Because you're infected, and there's no antibiotic for it, but there
_is_ another bacteria that will attack the drug-resistant staph."
I look at the syringe in his hand.
"It's a Trojan horse plasmid. That's a...never mind. It can get into
the staph in your blood and deliver a lethal gene. One that will kill the
staph. It's an incredible discovery. But the only way to deliver it so far
is to deliver the whole bacteria."
My knees all of a sudden get shaky. Randy watches me from his position
on the floor. He lookes shakier himself. His breathing turns raspier again.
"No, you're not sick yet, Elizabeth. But you will be."
I snap, "From the staph germs or from the cure?"
"Both."
"You want to make me sicker. With two bacteria. And hope one will
kill the other."
"Not hope. I _know_. I actually saw...it on the electromicrograph..."
His eyes roll, refocus. "...could package just the lethal plasmid on a
transpon if we had time...no time. Has to be the whole bacteria." And then,
stronger, "The CDC team is working on it. But _I_ actually caught it on the
electromicrograph!"
I say, before I know I'm going to, "Stop congratulating yourself and
give me the syringe. Before you die."
I move across the floor toward him, put my arms around him to prop him
in a sitting position against the table leg. His whole body feels on fire.
But somehow he keeps his hands steady as he injects the syringe into the
inside of my elbow. While it drains sickness into me I say, "You never
actually wanted me, did you, Randy? Even before Sean?"
"No," he says. "Not really." He drops the syringe.
I bend my arm. "You're a rotten human being. All you care about is
yourself and your work."
He smiles the same cold smile. "So? My work is what matters. In a
larger sense than you could possibly imagine. You were always a weak
sentimentalist, Elizabeth. Now, go home."
"Go _home_? But you said..."
"I said you'd infect everyone. And you will -- with the bacteria that
attacks staph. It should cause only a fairly mild illness.
Jenner...smallpox..."
"But you said I have the mutated staph, too!"
"You almost certainly do. Yes... And so will everyone else, before