"Kate Wilhelm - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

тАЬWhat free time?тАЭ
тАЬIтАЩll find it.тАЭ He stared at Walt until his uncle shrugged permission.
In June, David had his preliminary answers. тАЬThe A-four strain,тАЭ he said, тАЬhas twenty-five
percent potency.тАЭ Vlasic had been following his work closely for the past three or four weeks and
was not surprised.
Walt stared at him in disbelief. тАЬAre you sure?тАЭ he whispered after a moment.
тАЬThe fourth generation of cloned sterile mice showed the same degeneracy that all clones
show by then,тАЭ David said wearily. тАЬBut they also had a twenty-five percent fertility factor. The
offspring have shorter lives, but more fertile members. This trend continues to the sixth
generation, where fertility is up to ninety-four percent and life expectancy starts to climb
again, and then itтАЩs on its way to normalcy steadily.тАЭ He had it all on the charts that Walt now
studied. A, A1, A2, A3, A4, and their offspring by sexual reproduction, a, a1, a2 . . . There were
no clone strains after A4; none had survived to maturity.
David leaned back and closed his eyes and thought about bed and a blanket up around his neck
and black, black sleep. тАЬHigher organisms must reproduce sexually or die out, and the ability to
do so is there. Something remembers and heals itself,тАЭ he said dreamily.
тАЬYouтАЩll be a great man when you publish,тАЭ Vlasic said, his hand on DavidтАЩs shoulder. He then
moved to sit next to Walt, to point out some of the details that Walt might miss. тАЬA marvelous
piece of work,тАЭ he said softly, his eyes glowing as he looked over the pages. тАЬMarvelous.тАЭ Then he
glanced back at David. тАЬOf course, you are aware of the other implications of your work.тАЭ
David opened his eyes and met Vlasic's gaze. He nodded. Puzzled, Walt looked from one to the
other of them. David got up and stretched. тАЬI have to sleep,тАЭ he said.
But it was a long time before he slept. He had a single room at the hospital, more fortunate
than most, who were sleeping doubled up. The hospital had more than two hundred beds, but few
single rooms. The implications, he mused. He had been aware of them from the start, although he
had not admitted it even to himself then, and was not ready to discuss it now. They werenтАЩt
certain yet. Three of the women were pregnant finally, after a year and a half of barrenness.


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Margaret was near term, the baby well and kicking at the moment. Five more weeks, he thought. Five
more weeks, and perhaps he never would have to discuss the implications of his work.
But Margaret didnтАЩt wait five weeks. In two weeks she delivered a stillborn child. Zelda had
a miscarriage the following week, and in the next week May lost her child. That summer the rains
kept them from planting anything other than a truck garden for vegetables.
Walt began testing the men for fertility, and reported to David and Vlasic that no man in
the valley was fertile.
тАЬSo,тАЭ Vlasic said softly, тАЬwe now see the significance of DavidтАЩs work.тАЭ



Chapter 4


Winter came early in sheets of icy rain that went on day after day after day. The work in
the laboratories increased, and David found himself blessing his grandfather for his purchase of
SelnickтАЩs equipment, which had come with detailed instructions for making artificial placentas as
well as nearly completed work on computer programs for synthetic amniotic fluids. When David had