The Giving Plague Read online

same as the other, right up to the point where the original disease disappears.”

  “Or goes into hiding.”

  “Surely. As E. coli took refuge in our innards. Doubtless long ago the ancestors of E. coli killed a great many of our ancestors before eventually becoming the beneficial symbionts they are now, helping us digest our food.

  “The same applies to viruses, I’d wager. Heritable cancers and rheumatoid arthritis are just temporary awkwardnesses. Eventually, those genes will be comfortably incorporated. They’ll be part of the genetic diversity that prepares us to meet challenges ahead.

  “Why, I’d wager a large portion of our present genes came about in such a way, entering our cells first as invaders...”

  Crazy sonovabitch. Fortunately he didn’t try to lead the lab’s research effort too far to the right on his magic diagram. Our Boy Genius was plenty savvy about the funding agencies. He knew they weren’t interested in paying us to prove we’re all partly descended from viruses. They wanted, and wanted badly, progress on ways to fight viral infections themselves.

  So Les concentrated his team on vectors.

  Yeah, you viruses need vectors, don’t you? I mean, if you kill a guy, you’ve got to have a life raft, so you can desert the ship you’ve sunk, so you can cross over to some new hapless victim. Same applies if the host proves tough, and fights you off -- gotta move on. Always movin’ on.

  Hell, even if you’ve made peace with a human body, like Les suggested, you still want to spread, don’t you? Big-time colonizers, you tiny beasties.

  Oh, I know. It’s just natural selection. Those bugs that accidentally find a good vector spread. Those that don’t, don’t. But it’s so eerie. Sometimes it sure feels purposeful...

  So the flu makes us sneeze. Salmonella gives us diarrhea. Smallpox causes pustules that dry, flake off and blow away to be inhaled by the patient’s loved ones. All good ways to jump ship. To colonize.

  Who knows? Did some past virus cause a swelling of the lips that made us want to kiss? Heh. Maybe that’s a case of Les’s “benign incorporation”... we retain the trait, long after the causative pathogen went extinct! What a concept.

  So our lab got this big grant to study vectors. Which is how Les found you, ALAS. He drew this big chart covering all the possible ways an infection might leap from person to person, and set us about checking all of them, one by one.

  For himself he reserved straight blood-to-blood infection. There were reasons for that.

  First off, Les was an altruist, see. He was concerned about all the panic and unfounded rumors spreading about Britain’s blood supply. Some people were putting off necessary surgery. There was talk of starting over here what some rich folk in the States had begun doing -- stockpiling their own blood in silly, expensive efforts to avoid having to use the blood banks if they ever needed hospitalization.

  All that bothered Les. But even worse was the fact that lots of potential donors were shying away from giving blood because of some stupid rumors that you could get infected that way.

  Hell, nobody ever caught anything from giving blood... nothing except maybe a little dizziness and perhaps a zit from all the biscuits and sweet tea they feed you afterward. As for contracting HIV from receiving blood, well, the new antibodies tests soon had that problem under control. Still, the inane rumors spread.

  A nation has to have confidence in its blood supply. Les wanted to eliminate all those silly fears once and for all, with one definitive study. But that wasn’t the only reason he wanted the blood-to-blood vector for himself.

  “Sure, there are some nasty things like AIDS that use that route. But that’s also where I might find the older ones,” he said, excitedly. “The viruses that have almost finished the process of becoming benign. The ones that have been so well selected that they keep a low profile, and hardly inconvenience their hosts at all. Maybe I can even find one that’s commensal! One that actually helps the human body.”

  “An undiscovered human commensal,” I sniffed doubtfully.

  “And why not? If there’s no visible disease, why would anyone have ever looked for it! This could open up a whole new field, Forry!”

  In spite of myself, I was impressed. It was how he got to be known as a Boy Genius, after all, this flash of half-crazy insight. How he managed not to have it snuffed out of him at OxBridge, I’ll never know, but it was one reason why I’d attached myself to him and his lab, and wrangled mighty hard to get my name attached to his papers.

  So I kept watch over his work. It sounded so dubious, so damn stupid. And I knew it just might bear fruit, in the end.

  That’s why I was ready when Les invited me along to a conference down in Bloomsbury, one day. The colloquium itself was routine, but I could tell he was near to bursting with news. Afterward we walked down Charing Cross Road to a pizza place, one far enough from the University area to be sure there’d be no colleagues anywhere within earshot -- just the pretheatre crowd, waiting till opening time down at Leicester Square.

  Les breathlessly swore me to secrecy. He needed a confidant, you see, and I was only too happy to comply.

  “I’ve been interviewing a lot of blood donors lately,” he told me after we’d ordered. “It seems that while some people have been scared off from donating, that has been largely made up by increased contributions by a central core of regulars.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. And I meant it. I had no objection to there being an adequate blood supply. Back in Austin I was pleased to see others go to the Red Cross van, just so long as nobody asked me to contribute. I had neither the time nor the interest, so I got out of it by telling everybody I’d had malaria.

  “I found one interesting fellow, Forry. Seems he started donating back when he was twenty-five, during the Blitz. Must have contributed thirty-five, forty gallons, by now.”

  I did a quick mental calculation. “Wait a minute. He’s got to be past the age limit by now.”

  “Exactly right! He admitted the truth, when he was assured of confidentiality. Seems he didn’t want to stop donating when he reached sixty-five. He’s a hardy old fellow ... had a spot of surgery a few years back, but he’s in quite decent shape, overall. So, right after his local Gallon Club threw a big retirement party for him, he actually moved across the county and registered at a new blood bank, giving a false name and a younger age!”

  “Kinky. But it sounds harmless enough. I’d guess he just likes to feel needed. Bet he flirts with the nurses and enjoys the free food... sort of a bi-monthly party he can always count on, with friendly appreciative people.”

  Hey, just because I’m a selfish bastard doesn’t mean I can’t extrapolate the behavior of altruists. Like most other user-types, I’ve got a good instinct for the sort of motivations that drive suckers. People like me need to know such things.

  “That’s what I thought too, at first,” Les said, nodding. “I found a few more like him, and decided to call them ‘addicts’. At first I never connected them with the other group, the one I named ‘converts’.”

  “Converts?”

  “Yes, converts. People who suddenly become blood donors -- get this -- very soon after they’ve recovered from surgery themselves!”

  “Maybe they’re paying off part of their hospital bills that way?”

  “Mmm, not really. We have nationalized health, remember? And even for private patients, that might account for the first few donations only.”

  “Gratitude, then?” An alien emotion to me, but I understood it, in principle.

  “Perhaps. Some few people might have their consciousnesses raised after a close brush with death, and decide to become better citizens. After all, half an hour at a blood bank, a few times a year, is a small inconvenience in exchange for...”

  Sanctimonious twit. Of course he was a donor. Les went on and on about civic duty and such until the waitress arrived with our pizza and two fresh bitters. That shut him up for a momen
t. But when she left, he leaned forward, eyes shining.

  “But no, Forry. It wasn’t bill paying, or even gratitude. Not for some of them, at least. More had happened to these people than having their consciousnesses raised. They were converts, Forry. They began joining Gallon Clubs, and more! It seems almost as if, in each case, a personality change had taken place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that a significant fraction of those who have had major surgery during the last five years seem to have changed their entire set of social attitudes! Beyond becoming blood donors, they’ve increased their contributions to charity, joined the parent-teacher organizations and Boy Scout troops, become active in Greenpeace and Save The Children...”

  “The point, Les. What’s your point?”

  “My point?” He shook his head. “Frankly, some of these people were behaving like addicts... like converted addicts to altruism. That’s when it occurred to me, Forry, that what we might have here is a new vector.”

  He said it as simply as that. Naturally I looked at him, blankly.

  “A vector!” he whispered, urgently. “Forget about typhus, or smallpox, or flu. They’re rank amateurs! Wallies who give the show away with all their sneezing and flaking and shitting. To be sure, AIDS uses blood and sex, but it’s so damned savage, it forced us to become aware of it, to develop tests, to begin the long, slow process of isolating it.