Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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It was a bright morning and they were at a window which looked out across green rolling fields to a towering glass-brick building in the distance.

The student who had gone back to his paper suddenly looked up again. “Some Peruvians here claim they saw Syndrome Johnny—”

“Idiotic superstition! You’d think it would have died down when the plague died.”

The other grinned. “The plague didn’t die.” He folded his newspaper slowly, obviously advancing an opening for a debate.

His companion went on eating. “Another of your wild theories, huh?” Then through a mouthful of food: “All right, if the plague didn’t die, where did it go?”

“Nowhere. We have it now. We all have it!” He shrugged. “A virus catalyst of high affinity for the cells and a high similarity to a normal cell protein—how can it be detected?”

“Then why don’t people die? Why aren’t we sick?”

“Because we have sickened and recovered. We caught it on conception and recovered before birth. Proof? Why do you think that the countries which were known as the Hungry Lands are now well-fed, leisured, educated, advanced? Because the birth rate has fallen! Why has the birth rate fallen?” He paused, then very carefully said, “Because two out of three of all people who would have lived have died before birth, slain by Syndrome Plague. We are all carriers now, hosts to a new guest. And”—his voice dropped to a mock sinister whisper—”with such a stranger within our cells, at the heart of the intricate machinery of our lives, who knows what subtle changes have crept upon us unnoticed!”