Дэймон Найт - Orbit 7

Martie shook his head. “You wanted me. Now what?”

Wymann leaned forward. “We’re not monsters, no more than any other human being, anyway. Smithers had exactly what he said he had. You know about that. He really died of a heart attack. So much for history. It works, Sayre. For forty percent of the people. What would you do with it? Should we have made it public? Held a lottery? It would have gone underground even more than it has now, but it would be different. We don’t want to kill anyone. The others, the ones who couldn’t use it, would search us out and exterminate us like vermin. You know that. In the beginning we needed time. We were too accessible, too vulnerable. A handful of people knew what it was, how to prepare it, how to test for results, how to administer it, what to watch for, all the rest. It’s very complicated. We had to protect them and we had to add numbers.”

Martie watched him, thinking, Julia knew. The babies. Both of them. The new pregnancy. She was afraid time was running out. This man, or another like him. Had they done anything, or simply failed to do something for the first two? Was there any difference really? His skin felt clammy and he opened his hands when he realized that his fingers were getting stiff.

“It’s going on everywhere, more or less like here. Have you read … ? No, of course not… . I’ll be frank with you, Sayre. The world’s on a powder keg, has been for over a year. Martial law in Spain, Portugal, Israel, most of the Mid-East. Nothing at all out of China. Japan ripped wide open by strikes and riots, tighter than a drum right now. Nothing’s coming out of there. It’s like that everywhere. Clampdown on all news. No travel that isn’t high-priority. France has been closed down for six months. More restrictions than when they were occupied. Same with England. Canada has closed her borders for the first time in history, as has Mexico. UNESCO recommended all this, in an effort to stop the epidemics, ostensibly. But really to maintain secrecy regarding the climbing death rate. And everyone’s panic-stricken, terrified of being hit next. It must have been like this during the Plague outbreaks. Walled cities, fear. Your story coming now would ignite the whole world. There’d be no way to maintain any sort of order. You know I’m right. We couldn’t let you and Boyle go on with it.”

Martie stood up. “If you try to sell yourselves as humanitarians, I might kill you right now.”

“It depends entirely on where you’re standing. Most men with any kind of scientific training see almost immediately that what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, was the only way this could have been handled. Out in the open, with more than half the people simply not genetically equipped to tolerate the RNA, there would have been a global catastrophe that would have destroyed all of mankind. Governments are made up of old men, Sayre. Old men can’t use it. Can you imagine the uprising against all the world governments that would have taken place! It would have been a holocaust that would have left nothing. We’ve prevented that.”

“You’ve set yourselves up as final judges, eliminating those who can’t take it. …”

“Eliminating? We upset the entire Darwinian framework for evolution by our introduction of drugs, our transplants, life-saving machines. We were perpetuating a planet of mental and physical degenerates, with each generation less prepared to live than the last. I know you think we’re murderers, but is it murder to fail to prescribe insulin and let a diabetic die rather than pass on the genes to yet another generation?” Wymann started to pace, after glancing at his watch, checking it against the wall clock.

“There have been hard decisions, there’ll be more even harder ones. Every one of us has lost someone he cared for. Every one! Conant lost his first wife. My sister … We aren’t searching out people to kill, unless they threaten us. But if they come to us for treatment, and we know that they are terminal, we let them die.”

Martie moistened his lips. “Terminal. You mean mortal, with a temporary sore throat, or a temporary appendix inflammation, things you could treat.”

“They are terminal now, Sayre. Dying in stages. Dying from the day they are born. We don’t prolong their lives.”

“Newborn infants? Terminal?”

“Would you demand that newborn idiots be preserved in institutions for fifty or sixty years? If they are dying, we let them die.”

Martie looked at the other doctors, who hadn’t spoken. Neither of them had moved since arriving and sitting down. He turned again to Wymann. “You called me. What do you want?”

“Your help. We’ll need people like you. Forty percent of the population, randomly chosen, means that there will be a shortage of qualified men to continue research, to translate that research into understandable language. The same sort of thing you’re doing now. Or, if you prefer, a change of fields. But we will need you.”

“You mean I won’t suffer a thrombosis, or have a fatal wreck for the next twenty years, if I play along?”

“More than that, Martie. Much more than that. During your last physical examination for insurance you were tested, a routine test by the way. Not conclusive, but indicative. You showed no gross reactions to the synthetic RNA. You would have to be tested more exhaustively, of course, but we are confident that you can tolerate the treatments. …”

“What about Julia? What do you plan for her?”

“Martie, have you thought at all about what immortality means? Not just another ten years tacked on at the end, or a hundred, or a thousand. As far as we know now, from all the laboratory data, there is no end, unless through an accident. And with our transplant techniques even that is lessening every week. Forever, Martie. No, you can’t imagine it. No one can. Maybe in a few hundred years we’ll begin to grasp what it means, but not yet. …”

“What about Julia?”

“We won’t harm her.”

“You’ve tested her already. You know about her.”

“Yes. She cannot tolerate the RNA.”

“If anything goes wrong, you’ll fold your hands and let her die. Won’t you? Won’t you!”

“Your wife is a terminal case! Can’t you see that? If she were plugged into a kidney machine, a heart-and-lung machine, with brain damage, you’d want the plug pulled. You know you would. We could practice preventive medicine on her, others like her, for the next forty years or longer. But for what? For what, Dr. Sayre? As soon as they know, they’ll turn on us. We can keep this secret only a few more years. We know we are pushing our luck even now. We took an oath that we would do nothing to prolong the lives of those who are dying. Do you think they would stop at that? If they knew today, we’d be hunted, killed, the process destroyed. Lepers would rather infect everyone with their disease than be eradicated. Your wife will be thirty-five when the child is born. A century ago she would have been doomed by such a late pregnancy. She would have been an old woman. Modern medicine has kept her youthful, but it’s an artificial youthfulness. She is dying!”

Martie made a movement toward Wymann, who stepped behind his desk warily. Conant and Fischer were watching him very closely. He sank back down in the chair, covering his face. Later, he thought. Not now. Find out what you can now. Try to keep calm.

“Why did you tell me any of this?” he asked after a moment. “With Boyle gone my job is gone. I couldn’t have hurt you.”

“We don’t want you to light that fuse. You’re a scientist. You can divorce your emotions from your reason and grasp the implications. But aside from that, your baby, Martie. We want to save the baby. Julia has tried and tried to find a book on obstetrics, hasn’t she? Has she been successful?”