Harry Turtledove: A Different Flesh

Eventually, one of them proves fatal to the patient.

At the Terminus Disease Research Center, we have created a drug we are cal ing an HIV inhibitor, or HIVI for short. In the laboratory, HIVI seems to help prevent the virus from gaining a foothold in the bodys l-cel s, strengthens the effectiveness of the antibodies the immure system produces to fight AIDS. Let me show you what we have achieved."

He gestured in the direction from which he had come, his hands shaping words almost everyone in the chamber fol owed as easily as speech: Out here. Now. A sturdy male sim emerged to join him at the podium.

"This is Matzo Howard said.

More flashbulbs popped. Matt lowered his head so they his heavy brow-ridges protected his eyes from the bursts of intolerable light.

"How do you feel, Matt?" Howard asked He signed the words as he spoke them, to make sure the sim would understand. I Feel good, Matt answered with his hands; like almost al sims, he found sign-talk much easier than true speech. "Matt feels good now," Howard said.

"Sadly, six month ago he was much less well." The doctor waved a hand and lights dimmed; a large screen dropped into place behind him and Matt. Howard waved again. At the far end of thin hal , a slide projector came on. The hall grew truly quiet at last. Into that silenced Howard said, "This was Matt six months ago." The sim on the slide was sadly different from the one who stood before the reporters in the flesh. The Federated Commonwealths, the world, had seen too many cases of AIDS for them to mistake this one. The image of the emaciated sim, his once , thick hair falling out in clumps all over his body, was vivid and a dreadful il ustration of why in Africa AIDS, was simply called "the slims." Howard went on, "Two days after that picture was taken Matt began receiving HIVI. Today, his T-cells are nearly normal, as are his immune responses. He does not know he still has AIDS."

Feel good, Matt signed again. The reporters could not stand it anymore.

"Why isn't it a cure, then?" one of them shouted.

"Because as I was about to say," Howard added pointy

"the AIDS virus is stil in Matt's bloodstream. He can still transmit it to others, other sims in his case, I suppose, in theory to humans as well, through sexual relations. if he stops receiving HIVI injections, the symptoms of course, will return. Now", he emphasized the word, "I will respond to questions." the frantically waving hands reminded him of stormtossed treetops. He chose one at random. "Yes, you in the row, with the blue ruffled tunic." how many sims have died of AIDS in the course of your experiments?" the man asked. Howard pursed his lips. He had expected questions of that sort. With the demonstrators marching outside the of the Popular Assembly, he would have been an idiot. But he had hoped not to have to deal with them so He should have listened to his colleagues down in Terminus, and planted a few people to ask the questions he wanted asked. He had always been headstrong, though. He thought could deal with anything. Now he'd have to. The program, to date, has seen the expiration of twenty sims," he answered steadily. His luck was not all bad. The reporter simply followed asking, "Wouldn't it have been better to use shimpanses than sims in your research?"

her than sims and men, shimpanses are the only resident in which the AIDS virus will grow,"

Howard akknowledged. "But there are several objections to their use in AIDS research. Most obvious, of course, is the fact that most of them must be caught wild in Africa and then shipped to the FCA.

That makes the supply uncertain and wsive, al the more so because of the growing instability in the African states as the AIDS epidemic debilitates in. Sims, being native to America, are easily available.

Were are also other reasons for preferring them to shimpanses.

Biologically, sims are much closer to humans shimpanses are: as we al know, mixed births between sims and humans are perfectly possible."

The reporters muttered in distaste. Everyone knew that but it was something seldom mentioned outside of dirty jokes.

Howard suspected there would be shocked gasps in living rooms al across the Federated Commonwealth talking about sex between people and sims was not standard television fare.

"Also, of course," the doctor finished, "sims have advantage of being able to report symptoms to us, somthing of which shimpanses are incapable." He pointed to another reporter. "Yes?"

"Isn't that part of the problem, Dr. Howard?" the she asked.

"How do you feel about deliberately subjecting twenty-eight intel igent creatures to the grim, lingering death AIDS brings?"

"I had hoped some of you might perhaps be interested in the success, or at least the partial success, of HIVI, rather than in the failures that preceded it," Howard said "I am, Dr.Howard," the reporter said,

"but that's not l question I asked."

Howard scowled out at the audience, but saw several nodding along with the reporter. If some of these people had their way, he thought with sudden hot anger that he did his best to conceal, he'd be lucky to be able to work shimpanses, let alone sims.

He chose his words with care; he had not come to Philadelphia to antagonize the press. "I always regret the death of any, ah, creatures in the laboratory but, particularly in the case of what is, as you say, a grim diseases as AIDS, I feel justified in doing whatever I must to people's lives."

"But sims, " the reporter persisted.

Howard cut him off. ", are not people. The law never regarded them as such. They are different from animals, true, but they are also very different from us.

sims in my research project were purchased with an appriation from the Senate for that express purpose. Everything I have done has been in accordance with all applicable regulations. And that is all I have to say on that; He looked toward another reporter.

"Yes?"

What is it that makes HIVI more effective against AIDS than er drugs?"

Howard nodded to her and smiled his thanks. At last, a sensable question.

"We're stil not entirely sure, Mistress, ah.. " Reynolds. " Mistress Reynolds, but we believe that the chief achievment has to do with the way HIVI interacts with the cel s outer membranes and strengthens them, making them more resistant to penetration by the AIDS virus. HIVI developed from, "

Round and round, round and round, Ken Dixon was sick of carrying his picket sign. He also did not like half the greencoats that were gathering in front of the Hall of Popular Assembly. He could not read their faces, not the mirrored visors on their helmets. But their body language said they were going to break up the demonstration soon.

Kil ing sims is murder he chanted. He'd been cal ing for a couple of hours now, since before Dr. Howard's conference convened. His throat felt sore and scratchy.

A man walking on the part of the sidewalk the demonstration wasn't using caught his eye. "Not under the law, it's not” he said. He looked prosperous and well-fed, nothing like a sim who'd been given AIDS on purpose.

Probably a lawyer himself, Dixon thought scornful y; Philly was lousy with them. While the chant went on Old the young man, he broke it to say, "The law is g e probable lawyer fell into step beside him.

"Why?" he "Sims aren't people. If using them will help us rid Ives of this terrible disease, why shouldn't we?" Dixon frowned. At the planning meeting for this protest, He'd worried out loud that people would say just what this this jumped up fellow was saying, that the threat of AIDS would let them justify the horror of the Terminus labs.

He'd been talked down then, and now gave back the reasoning the rest of the steering committee had used against him; "Howard's AIDS research is just a fragment of what were talking about here. If you al ow it, you set a precedent fame al owing all the other cruelty that sims have suffered since people first came to America: everything from working them to death on farms and in mines to hunting them and kil ing them for sport." He screwed up his face to show what he thought of that kind of sport. "Sims were here," the plump man shrugged. "We use them to do the work we didn't care to do for ourselves. stil do. why not?" The man's question grated on Dixon all over again, he thought before he answered; the fellow was not a fooll "In the old days we needed them, I admit. I'm not saying what we did then was right, far from it, but it understandable. It isn't anymore, not with machines to do sim-work, and do it better, Easter, and cheaper than sims