now, ALAS. And in their newfound, inexplicable, rationalized altruism, they set the tone followed by all the others.
Everybody behaves so damned well in the present calamity. They help each other, they succor the sick, they all give so.
Funny thing, though. If you hadn’t made us all so bloody cooperative, we’d probably never have made it to bloody Mars, would we? Or if we had, there’d have still been enough paranoia around so we’d have maintained a decent quarantine.
But then, I remind myself, you don’t plan, do you? You’re just a bundle of RNA, packed inside a protein coat, with an incidentally, accidentally acquired trait of making humans want to donate blood. That’s all you are, right? So you had no way of knowing that by making us “better” you were also setting us up for TARP, did you? Did you?
5
We’ve got some palliatives, now. A few new techniques seem to be doing some good. The latest news is great, in fact. Apparently, we’ll be able to save maybe fifteen percent or so of the children. At least half of them may even be fertile.
That’s for nations who’ve had a lot of racial mixing. Heterozygosity and genetic diversity seem to breed better resistance. Those peoples with “pure”, narrow bloodlines will be harder to save, but then, racism has its inevitable price.
Too bad about the great apes and horses, but then, at least all this will give the rain forests a chance to grow back.
Meanwhile, everybody perseveres. There is no panic, as one reads about happening in past plagues. We’ve grown up at last, it seems. We help each other.
But I carry a card in my wallet saying I’m a Christian Scientist, and that my blood group is AB Negative, and that I’m allergic to nearly everything. Transfusions are one of the treatments commonly used now, and I’m an important man. But I won’t take blood.
I won’t.
I donate, but I’ll never take it. Not even when I drop.
You won’t have me, ALAS. You won’t.
I am a bad man. I suppose, all told, I’ve done more good than evil in my life, but that’s incidental, a product of happenstance and the bizarre caprices of the world.
I have no control over the world, but I can make my own decisions, at least. As I make this one, now.
Down, out of my high research tower I’ve come. Into the streets, where the teeming clinics fester and broil. That is where I work now. And it doesn’t matter to me that I’m behaving no differently than anyone else today. They are all marionettes. They think they’re acting altruistically, but I know they are your puppets, ALAS.
But I am a man, do you hear me? I make my own decisions.
Fever wracks my body now, as I drag myself from bed to bed, holding their hands when they stretch out to me for comfort, doing what I can to ease their suffering, to save a few.
You’ll not have me, ALAS.
This is what I choose to do.
***
Afterword by the Author
The Giving Plague was a reflection on the times, written as the first deadly pandemic of post-industrial society shattered our brief, blithe illusion that the old dangers were behind us. AIDS has transformed the way people look upon each other, the world, and life itself. The cruel ironies of disease and death were poignant for most of human history, when illness was a dark mystery. Now, as we unravel the genetic codes and begin looking our enemies in the face, so to speak, the paradoxes seem only to multiply. Symbiosis and genetic “negotiation” are also contemplated as themes in a novel I wrote with Gregory Benford, Heart of the Comet.
One editor rejected The Giving Plague because he thought it “irresponsible to undermine confidence in the blood supply.” I leave it to the reader to compare that unique proposition to the tale itself, and decide which is more far-fetched. Fortunately, weighty matters of public policy remain unaffected by scary SF tales... even Hugo nominees.
If you enjoyed The Giving Plague, you can find it and others in my short story collection, Otherness.
About the Author
David Brin is a physicist, futurist, and science fiction author. His books include The Postman, Earth, Existence, Startide Rising, The Uplift War and Kiln People. His nonfiction book, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? explores issues of secrecy and accountability in the modern world.
Website: https://www.davidbrin.com/
Twitter: @davidbrin
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends