The Forge of God by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

treatment?"
    "Of course. He just doesn't think it will save him."
    "Five more years. We keep on hearing five more years, and it won't be a killer anymore."
    "He doesn't have five years. He may not have one."
    Francine hugged him closer and they lay together in silence for a moment. "How do you feel?" she finally asked.
    "About Harry? It makes me feel…"He thought for a moment, frowning. "I don't know."
    "Betrayed?" she asked softly.
    "No. We've always been very independent friends. Harry doesn't owe me anything, and I don't owe him anything. Except the friendship, and…"
    "Being there."
    "Yeah. Now he's not going to be there."
    "You don't know that."
    "He does. You should have seen him."
    "He looks bad?"
    "No. He looks pretty good, actually." Arthur tried to imagine one's entire body a battleground, with cancer spreading from point to point, or through the blood, unchecked, a kind of biological madness, a genetic suicide aided by mindless, lifeless clumps of protein and nucleic acid. He hated all errant microscopic things with a sudden passion. Why could not God have designed human bodies with seamless efficiency, that they might face the challenge of everyday life feeling at the very least internally secure?
    "How was the visit?" Francine asked.
    "We had a good couple of days. We'll see each other tomorrow, too, and that's all I can tell you."
    "A week, two weeks?"
    "I'll call if it's longer than a week."
    "Sounds like something big."
    "I'll tell you just one more thing," he said, aching with greater intensity to reveal it all, to share this incredible news with the person he loved most on Earth. (Or did he love Francine less than Harry? Different love. Different niches.)
    "Don't spill the beans," she warned him, smiling slightly.
    "No beans, no cats, just this. If it wasn't for Harry, right now I'd be the happiest man on Earth."
    "Jesus," she said again. "Must be something."
    He wiped his eyes with a corner of the flannel bed sheet. "Yup."
     
    Edward Shaw swirled the spoon in the cup of coffee and stared at the glass port mounted at head level in the sealed chamber door. He had slept soundly during the night. The chamber was as quiet as the desert. The clean white walls and hotel-style furniture made it reasonably comfortable. He could request books and watch anything he wished on the TV in one corner: two hundred channels, the chamber supervisor informed him.
    By intercom, he could speak with Reslaw or Minelli or Stella Morgan, the black-haired woman who had given him permission to call from the grocery store in Shoshone, seven days before. In other rooms, Minelli had told him, were the four Air Force enlisted men who had investigated his call and seen the creature. All of them were undergoing long-term observation. They might be "in stir" for a year or more, depending on… Depending on what, Edward was not sure. But he should have known the creature would mean enormous trouble for all of them.
    The threat of extraterrestrial diseases was sufficiently convincing that they had submitted to the rigorous two-day round of medical tests with few complaints. The days since had been spent in comparative boredom. Apparently, nobody was quite sure what their status was, how they should be treated or what they should be told. Nobody had answered Edward's most urgent question: What had happened to the creature?
    Four days ago, as they were being led to the sealed chambers by men in white isolation suits, Stella Morgan had turned to Edward and asked, conspiratorially, "Do you know Morse code? We can tap out messages. We're going to be here for a long time."
    "I don't know any code," Edward had answered.
    "It's okay," an attendant had said from behind his transparent visor. "You'll have commlink."
    "Can I call my lawyer?" Stella had asked.
    No answer. A shrug of heavily protected shoulders.
    "We're pariahs," Morgan had concluded.
    Breakfast was served at nine o'clock. The food was selected and bland. Edward ate all of it, at the