"Richard Preston - The Hot Zone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Richard Preston)

granules mixed with fresh red arterial blood. It is hemorrhage, and it
smells like a slaughterhouse. The black vomit is loaded with virus. It
is highly infective, lethally hot, a liquid that smell of the vomit negro
fills the passenger cabin. The airsickness bag is brimming with black
vomit, so Monet closes the bag and rolls up the top. The bag bulging and
softening, threatening to leak, and he hands it to a flight attendant.
When a hot virus multiplies in a host, it can saturate the body with
virus particles, from the brain to the skin. The military experts then
say that the virus has undergone "extreme amplification". This is not
something like the common cold. By the time an extreme amplification
peaks out, an eyedropper of the victim's blood may contain a hundred
million particles of virus. During this process, the body is partly
transformed into virus particles. In other words, the host is possessed
by a life form that is attempting to convert the host into itself. The
transformation is not entirely successful, however, and the end result is
a great deal of liquefying flesh mixed with virus, a kind of biological
accident. Extreme amplification has occurred in Monet, and the sign of it
is the black vomit.
He appears to be holding himself rigid, as if any movement would
rupture something inside him. His blood is clotting up-his bloodstream is
throwing clots, and the clots are lodging everywhere. His liver, kidneys,
lungs, hands, feet, and head are becoming jammed with blood clots. In
effect, he is having a stroke through the whole body. Clots are
accumulating in his intestinal muscles, cutting off the blood supply to
his intestines. The intestinal muscles are beginning to die, and the
intestines are starting to go slack. He doesn't seem to be fully aware of
pain any longer because the blood clots lodged in his brain are cutting
off blood flow. His personality is being wiped away by brain damage.
This is called depersonalization, in which the liveliness and details of
character seem to vanish. He is becoming an automaton. Tiny spots in his
brain are liquefying. The higher functions of consciousness are winking
out first, leaving the deeper parts of the brain stem (the primitive rat
brain, the lizard brain) still alive and functioning. It could be said
that the who of Charles Mont has already died while the what of Charles
Monet continues to live.
The vomiting attack appears to have broken some blood vessels in his
nose-he gets a nosebleed. The blood comes from both nostrils, a shining,
cloudless, arterial liquid that drips over his teeth and chin. This blood
keeps running, because the clotting factors have been used up. A flight
attendant gives him some paper towels, which he uses to stop up his nose,
but the blood still won't coagulate, and the towels soak through.
When a man is ill in an airline seat next to you, you may not want to
embarrass him by calling attention to the problem. You say to yourself
that this man will be all right. Maybe he doesn't travel well in
airplanes. He is airsick, the poor man, and people do get nosebleeds in
airplanes, the air is so dry and thin ... and you ask him, weakly, if
there is anything you can do to help. He does not answer, or he mumbles
words you can't understand, so you try to ignore it, but the flight seems
to go on forever. Perhaps the flight attendants offer to help him. But
victims of this type of hot virus have changes in behavior that can render