"Norman Spinrad - Journals of the Plague Years 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

their free movements. Dozens of test cases were moving ponderously toward the
Supreme Court.
After two terms watching this congressional paralysis, God inspired me to
conceive of the National Quarantine Amendment. I ran for the Senate on it,
received the support of Christians and Plague victims alike, and was elected by
a huge majority.
The amendment nationalized Plague policy. Each state was required to set
up Quarantine Zones proportional in the area and economic base to the percentage
of victims in its territory, said division to be updated every two years. Every
citizen outside a Zone must carry an updated blue card. In return for this,
Plague victims were guaranteed full civil and voting rights within their
Quarantine Zones, and free commerce in nonbiological products was assured.
It was fair. It was just. It was inspired by God. Under my leadership
it sailed through Congress and was accepted by three-quarters of the states
within two years after I led a strenuous nationwide campaign to pass it.
I was a national hero. It was a presidential year. I was told that I was
assured my party's nomination, that my election to the presidency was all but
certain.

LINDA LEWIN

Saint Max had suddenly collapsed into late Condition Terminal. Indeed he
was at the point of death when I finally followed the trail of the sad story to
a cabin on a seacliff not far from Big Sur. There he lay, skeletal, emaciated,
his body covered with sarcomas, semicomatose.
But his eyes opened up when I walked in. "I've been waiting for my dear,"
he said. "I wasn't about to leave without saying goodbye to Our Lady."
"Our Lady? That's you, Max."
"Was, my dear."
"Oh, Max . . ." I cried, and burst into tears. "What can I do?"
"Nothing, my dear . . . Or everything." His eyes were hard and pitiless
then, yet also somehow soft and imploring.
"Max . . ."
He nodded. "You could give me one last meatfuck goodbye," he told me. He
smiled. "I would have preferred a boy, of course, but at least it would please
my old mother to know that I mended my ways on my deathbed."
I looked at his feverish, disease-ravaged body. "You don't know what
you're asking!" I cried.
"Oh yes I do, my dear. I'm asking you to do the bravest thing you've ever
done in your life. I'm asking you to believe in the faith of a dying madman.
On the other hand, I'm asking for nothing at all, since you've already Got It."
How could I not? Either way, he was right. The Plague would kill me
sooner or later no matter what I did now. I would never even know by how much
this act of kindness would shorten my life span. Or if it would at all. And
Max was dying. He had lived his life bravely in the service of humanity, at
least as he saw it. And I loved him more in that moment than I had ever loved
anyone in my life. And what if he was right? What other hope did humanity
have? How could I refuse him?
I couldn't.
I didn't.