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

"Why, no one outside this room," I told them. "I did this one on my own."
Like a crystal suddenly dissolving back into solution, the hushed atmosphere shattered into a series of whispered cross-conversations. After a few minutes of this, Prinz snapped orders into his intercom.
"Security to lab twelve! Seal it off. No one in or out except on my personal orders. Get a decontamination team down there and execute Code Black procedures."
"Code Black?" I cried. "There's no Code Black in my lab! No pathogen release! No--"
"Shut up, Bruno! Haven't you done enough already?" Prinz shouted at me. "You've created an artificial human parasite, you imbecile! The FDA will crucify us!"
"If we report it . . . " Feinstein said slowly.
"Yes . . . " Prinz said.
"What are you going to do, Harlow?"
"I've already done it. We'll follow maximum Code Black procedure. Incinerate the contents of lab twelve, then pump it full of molten glass. We'll keep this an internal matter. It never happened."
"But what about him?"
"Indeed . . . " Prinz said slowly. "Security to the boardroom!" he snapped into his intercom.
"What the hell is going on?" I finally managed to demand.
"You've committed a very serious breach of FDA regulations, Dr. Bruno," Feinstein told me. "One that could have grave consequences for the company."
"But it's a monumental breakthrough!" I cried. "Haven't you heard a word I've said? It's a cure for all possible Plague variants! It'll save the country from--"
"It would destroy Sutcliffe, you cretin!" Prinz shouted. "Fifty-two percent of our gross derives from Plague vaccines, and another twenty-one percent from the sale of palliatives! And your damned dreadnaught is a venereal disease, man--it wouldn't even be a marketable product!"
"But surely the national interest--"
"I'm afraid you haven't considered the national interest at all, Dr. Bruno," Feinstein said much more smoothly. "The medical industry's share of GNP has been twenty-five percent for years, and the Plague is hard-wired into our economy; your dreadnaught would have precipitated a massive depression."
"And destroyed the whole raison d'etre of our policy vis-a-vis the Third World."
"Thereby shattering the Soviet-Chinese-American-Japanese entente and rekindling the Cold War."
"Leading to a nuclear Armageddon and the destruction of our entire species!"
What monstrous sophistry! What sheer insanity! What loathsome utterly self-interested bullshit! They couldn't be serious!
But just then two armed guards entered the boardroom, and their presence suddenly forced me to realize just how serious the board really was. They were already destroying the organism. From their own outrageously cold point of view, their hideous logic was quite correct. The dreadnaught virus would reduce the medical industry to an economic shadow of its former self. Sutcliffe would fold. And their jobs and their fortunes would be gone. . . .
"Dr. Bruno is not to be allowed to leave the premises or to communicate with the outside," Prinz told the guards. They crossed the room to flank my chair with pistols at the ready.
"What are we going to do with him?"
How far would they really go to protect their own interests?
"Perhaps Dr. Bruno has met with an unfortunate accident in the lab . . ." Prinz said slowly.
My God, were they deadly serious?
"Surely you're not suggesting . . .?" Feinstein exclaimed, quite aghast.
"The organism is being destroyed, we can wipe his research notes from the data banks, no one else knows, we can hardly afford to leave loose ends dangling," Prinz said. "You have any better ideas, Warren?"
"But--"
Did I panic? Did I become one of them? Was I acting out of ruthless self-interest myself, or following a higher imperative? Or all four? Who can say? All I knew then was that my life was on the line, that I had to talk my way out of that room, and the words came pouring out of me before I even thought them, or so it seemed.
"One million dollars a year," I blurted.
"What?"
"That's my price for silence. I want my salary raised to one million a year."
"That's preposterous!"
"Is it? You've said yourself that the survival of Sutcliffe is at stake. Cheap at twice the price!"
"Cheaper and safer to eliminate the problem permanently," Prinz said.
"Ye Gods, Harlow, you're talking about murder!" Feinstein cried. "Dr. Bruno's suggestion is much more . . . rational. He'd hardly be about to talk while we're paying him a million a year for his silence!"
"He's right, Harlow!"
"The other's too risky."
"I don't like it, we can't trust--"
"He'll have to agree to accept an appointment to the board," Feinstein said. "Meaning that he knowingly accepts legal responsibility for our actions. Besides, we're destroying the organism, aren't we? Who would believe him anyway?"
"Will you agree to Warren's terms?" Prinz asked me.
I nodded silently. In that moment, I would have agreed to anything that would let me get out of the building alive.
Only later, driving home, did I ponder the consequences of what I had agreed to, did I consider what on Earth I was going to do next. What could I possibly tell Marge and Tod? How could I explain our sudden enormous riches?
And what about my mission, my Hippocratic oath, my duty to suffering humanity? Those imperatives still existed, and the decision was still in my hands. For what the board fortunately did not know was that the dreadnaught virus had not been completely destroyed. The sovereign cure for the Plague was still alive and replicating in my body. I was immune to all possible Plague variants.
And that immunity was infectious.

JOHN DAVID