"Norman Spinrad - JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

Obviously I had been inexorably force step by step into such extreme levels of marital deception that there was no way I could now get her to believe the truth, let alone accept its tomcatting moral imperative.
Yet, tormented as I was by the monstrous series of deceptions I was forced to inflict upon my wife, I had to admit that I was enjoying it.
After all, no other men in all the world had the possibility of enjoying sex as Tod and I did. Meat on meat as it was meant to be, and not only free of fear of the Plague, but knowing that we were granting a great secret boon with our favors, that we were serving the highest good of our species in the bargain.
And I was cementing a unique relationship with my son. Tod and I became confidants on a level that few fathers and sons achieve. Swapping tales of our sexual exploits, but sharing the problem of how to recruit Marge to the cause too.
Or, at the very least, infect her with the dreadnaught. But Marge would never have meat with me. Nor would she willingly abandon monogamy. Sexually, psychologically, Marge was a child of the Plague Years, and even if she were to be convinced of the whole truth, she would never condone the need for my profuse infidelities, let alone agree to spread the dreadnaught in the meatbars herself.
In retrospect, of course, it was quite obvious that things not really go on like this for long.
They didn't.
Tod got caught in an SP raid on a meatbar again.
But they didn't drag him home this time. Instead, the news came on the telephone, and it was Marge who chanced to take the call. Tod was being held at the Palo Alto SP headquarters. Other detainees had told the SP that he had been a regular. Black-carders had admitted having meat with him. He was undergoing testing now and his card was sure to come up black.
"Don't worry," I told her when she relayed this information in a state of numb, teary panic, "they'll have to let him go. He'll test out blue, I promise."
"You're crazy, Richard, that's plain impossible! You're out of your mind!"
"If you think I'm crazy now," I said, pouring her a big drink, "wait till I get drunk enough to tell you why!"
I gulped down two quick ones myself before I found the courage to begin, and kept drinking as I babbled out the whole story.
"Now let me give the dreadnaught to you," I woozed when I was finished, reaching out for her in a state of sloppy inebriation.
She shrieked, pulled away from me, ran around the living room screaming, "You animal! You're crazy! You've killed our son! Stay away from me! Stay away from me!"
How can I explain or excuse what happened next? I was drunk out of my mind, but another part of me was running on coldly logical automatic. If there could be such a thing as loving rape, now was the time for it. Marge was certain that I was a sinkhole of the Plague, and there was only one way I could ever convince her of the truth. I had to infect her with the dreadnaught, and I couldn't take no for an answer.
The short and nasty of it was that I meatraped my own wife knowing I was doing the right thing even as she fought with all her strength against me, convinced that she was fighting to keep herself from certain infection with the Plague. It was brutal and horrible and I loathed myself for what I was doing even as I knew full well that it was ultimately right.
And left her there sobbing while I reeled off into the night to retrieve Tod from the SP.
I was in a drunken fury, I was a medical heavyweight, I demanded that they run a full battery of tests on Tod and myself, and I browbeat the tired SP timeserver who ran them unmercifully. When they all turned out blue, I threatened lawsuits and dire political recriminations if Tod were not released to my custody at once, and succeeded thereby in deflecting his attention from the "anomalous organism" he had noticed in our bloodstreams long enough to get us out the door.
But the "anomalous organism" would be noted in his report. And Sutcliffe would be keeping close tabs on my data file, and there were certainly people on their end who would put one and one and one together. It was only a guestion of how much time it would take.
And we couldn't stay around to find out. We had to run. Tod, myself, Linda, and Marge. But where? And how?
We drove to Linda's and had to wait outside for half an hour till the man she was with left.

LINDA LEWIN

"Theres only one place we can go," I told Tod and Richard. "Only one place we can hide where the SP can't come after us . . . "
"The San Francisco Quarantine Zone?" Richard stammered.
I nodded. "The SP wont go into San Francisco. There isn't a Fuck-Q alive who'd be willing to do it."
"But . . . San Francisco . . . ?"
"Remember, we have nothing to fear from the Plague," I told them. "Besides. . . can you think of anywhere where what we three have is more needed?"
"But how can we even get inside the Zone?"
I had to think about that one for a good long while. I had never even heard of anyone trying to get past the SP into San Francisco. On the other hand, neither had the SP. . . .
"Our best bet would be by boat from Sausalito. We wait for a good foggy night, then cross the Golden Gate through the fogbank in a wooden rowboat, no motor noise, no radar profile. The patrol boats stick in close to San Francisco and they're watching the coastline, not the Bay. The helicopters won't be able to see us through the fog even if they are flying. . . . "
"Sounds like risky business," Richard said dubiously.
"Any better ideas?"
Richard shrugged. "Let's go collect Marge," he said.

DR. RICHARD BRUNO

The three of us piled into Linda's car--they'd be looking for mine once they were looking for anything--and drove back to our house.
Marge was still in a state of shock when we got there. Even when she saw Tod, even when he and Linda backed up my story, she still couldn't quite believe me. She started to come around a bit when I showed her the enormous balance in my secret account.
But when I told her we had to flee to San Francisco, she fell apart all over again. There was no time for further persuasion Richard, Linda, and I were forced to wrestle her into the car by brute force, with my hand clamped over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
We drove around the rim of the bay to Sausalito, bought a rowboat, rented motel rooms, and waited.
The fog didn't roll in good and thick until two nights later. During these two days, with Tod and Linda and myself talking to her almost nonstop, Marge slowly came to believe the truth.
But accepting the fact that all of us had a moral duty to spread the dreadnaught in the only way possible was a bit more than she could swallow. She could accept it intellectually, but she remained emotionally shattered.
"I believe you, Richard, truly I do," she admitted as the sun went down on our last day in Sausalito. "I can even admit that what you're doing is probably the right thing. But me, I just can't. . . "
"I know," I told her, hugging her to me. "It's hard for me too. . . ." and I made tender love to her, meat on meat as it was meant to be, for what was to prove to be the last time.
That night a big bank of fog rolled in through the gap in the Golden Gate Bridge, a tall one too, that kept the gunships high above the San Francisco shoreline. It was now or never.
Tod hesitated on the pier.
"Scared?"