Моральный вирусолог

 "The plague. Listen! I know more about the plague than anyone else on the planet." The woman mimed disbelief and impatience. "It's true! I'm an expert virologist, I work for, ah, I work for the Centres for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Georgia. Everything I'm going to tell you will be made public in a couple of days, but I'm telling you now, because you're at risk from this job, and in a couple of days it might be too late."

 He explained, in the simplest language he could manage, the four stages of the virus, the concept of a stored host fingerprint, the fatal consequences if a third person's SVM ever entered her blood. She sat through it all in silence.

 "Do you understand what I've said?"

 "Sure I do. That doesn't mean I believe it."

 He leapt to his feet and shook her. "I'm deadly serious! I'm telling you the absolute truth! God is punishing adulterers! AIDS was just a warning; this time no sinner will escape! No one!"

 She removed his hands. "Your God and my God don't have a lot in common."

 "Your God!" he spat.

 "Oh, and aren't I entitled to one? Excuse me. I thought they'd put it in some United Nations Charter: Everyone's issued with their own God at birth, though if you break Him or lose Him along the way there's no free replacement."

 "Now who's blaspheming?"

 She shrugged. "Well, my God's still functioning, but yours sounds a bit of a disaster. Mine might not cure all the problems in the world, but at least he doesn't bend over backwards to make them worse."

 Shawcross was indignant. "A few people will die. A few sinners, it can't be helped. But think of what the world will be like when the message finally gets through! No unfaithfulness, no rape; every marriage lasting until death -"

 She grimaced with distaste. "For all the wrong reasons."

 "No! It might start out that way. People are weak, they need a reason, a selfish reason, to be good. But given time it will grow to be more than that; a habit, then a tradition, then part of human nature. The virus won't matter any more. People will have changed."

 "Well, maybe; if monogamy is inheritable, I suppose natural selection would eventually -"

 Shawcross stared at her, wondering if he was losing his mind, then screamed, "Stop it!

There is no such thing as 'natural selection'!" He'd never been lectured on Darwinism in any brothel back home, but then what could he expect in a country run by godless socialists? He calmed down slightly, and added, "I meant a change in the spiritual values of the world culture."

 The woman shrugged, unmoved by the outburst. "I know you don't give a damn what I think, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You are the saddest, most screwed-up man I've set eyes on all week. So, you've chosen a particular moral code to live by; that's your right, and good luck to you. But you have no real faith in what you're doing; you're so uncertain of your choice that you need God to pour down fire and brimstone on everyone who's chosen differently, just to prove to you that you're right. God fails to oblige, so you hunt through the natural disasters - earthquakes, floods, famines, epidemics - winnowing out examples of the 'punishment of sinners'. You think you're proving that God's on your side? All you're proving is your own insecurity."

 She glanced at her watch. "Well, your five minutes are long gone, and I never talk theology for free. I've got one last question though, if you don't mind, since you're likely to be the last 'expert virologist

' I run into for a while."

 "Ask." She was going to die. He'd done his best to save her, and he'd failed. Well, hundreds of thousands would die with her. He had no choice but to accept that; his faith would keep him sane.

 "This virus that your God's designed is only supposed to harm adulterers and gays? Right?"

 "Yes. Haven't you listened? That's the whole point! The mechanism is ingenious, the DNA fingerprint -"

 She spoke very slowly, opening her mouth extra wide, as if addressing a deaf or demented person. "Suppose some sweet, monogamous, married couple have sex. Suppose the woman becomes pregnant. The child won't have exactly the same set of genes as either parent. So what happens to it? What happens to the baby?"

 Shawcross just stared at her. What happens to the baby? His mind was blank. He was tired, he was homesick . . . all the pressure, all the worries . . . he'd been through an ordeal - how could she expect him to think straight, how could she expect him to explain every tiny detail? What happens to the baby? What happens to the innocent, newly made child? He struggled to concentrate, to organise his thoughts, but the absolute horror of what she was suggesting tugged at his attention, like a tiny, cold, insistent hand, dragging him, inch by inch, towards madness.