"Nancy Kress - Wetlands Preserve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

"I think we can leave security to the professionals whose job it is," Paul said smoothly, "and get on with
our own job. First, a really exciting report from Dr. Mary Clark of Harvard."

"Thanks, Paul," Dr. Clark said. "Hang onto your hats, guys. We've finished the water analyses. Our alien
footed snakes are not the only extraterrestrials in the Preserve."
Gasps, chatter, shouted questions. Dr. Clark held up her hand, eyes gleaming at the sensation she'd
produced. "There are one-celled organisms with the same non-DNA genetic structure out there in the
swamp water. There are also multi-celled organisms and some primitive worms."

Over the fresh buzz, someone called out, "Nothing in between? In evolutionary terms?"

"No," Dr. Clark said, "and of course we still don't understand that."

No one did. It was the central mystery about the alien snakersтАФhow had whoever sent them known
what environment they would find when the craft landed? Had the snakers been chosen because,
miraculously, they were perfectly adapted to a swamp environment at this latitude? That could be true
only if their planet of origin were very similar to Earth, which seemed too much of an unlikely
coincidence. (In fact, as the NASA rep had said, the odds against it were so high that the possibility was
meaningless.)

Had the snakers been engineered for this environment? But that argued a detailed knowledge of an Earth
swamp ecosystem, and how could the genetic engineers have that unless they'd been here? If they had,
why not just appear themselves? Why send these non-sentient but apparently harmless creatures as
forerunners?

And now these much more primitive non-DNA creatures. Too primitive to serve as food for the snakers,
which in any case were eating sedges and Lemna minor just fine. And that brought the questions full circle
to the central issue: How could the snakers be metabolizing food they had not evolved to metabolize?

The rest of the meeting produced no answer. The Harvard geneticist gave a long and detailed progress
report of the research into the peculiar, scattered genetic structures in the alien cells. Lisa listened intently.
After forty-five minutes she discerned the central point: Nobody knew anything definitive.

There were other reports and what promised to be an intense give-and-take, but she couldn't stay. She
had to get Carlo from Mrs. Belling. Paul turned his head as she went out the door, and she saw him
frown.

But, then, Paul had a wife looking after his children.




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Danilo showed up while she was feeding Carlo. He opened the apartment door, walked in, and dropped
his knapsack on the floor. Carlo sang out, "Hi, Uncle Danilo!" and Lisa was stuck being semi-polite.
"I brought some veggies," Danilo said. "Did you know you have an organic farmer just the other side of
town?"