The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [20]
“Actually, no,” said Lisa. “We already have defenses against the individual hyperflus and their kin—the problem is that they mutate so quickly and so promiscuously that they keep one step ahead of our immune systems. Morgan’s new delivery system wouldn’t get around that problem. Nor would it fortify us against the next wave of biowarfare agents, which will undoubtedly be transformers themselves. If this mess has anything to do with Morgan’s research, it must relate to something he found by accident—but if Morgan had discovered anything relevant to biowar defense, he’d have handed it straight to the MOD. He wouldn’t even have asked for a quid pro quo. Obsessive-compulsive he might be, but he’s not conscienceless, and he would never try to play political or commercial games with something that might save lives.”
“According to Sweet,” DS Hapgood put in, “he was nutty about overpopulation. Just like the Gaean Libs. Always argued that plague war was inevitable, and not entirely a bad thing, Sweet said.”
“That’s right,” said Lisa. “Morgan always said that everything that’s happening now had been inevitable for nearly a century, and easily foreseeable to anyone with half a mind at least since the days of his childhood. He’s always argued that the coming collapse would have an upside as well as a down—but that doesn’t mean he regards it as any less hideous and tragic than it seems to be working out to be. He’d never have admitted to obsession, but he always pleaded guilty to being a victim of the Cassandra Complex: the sense of powerlessness and world-weariness that comes from knowing that terrible things are going to happen without anyone being able to prevent them. The Gaean Libs and other pious econuts might be prepared to tell the world that the death of millions of people is a blessing and exactly what Mother Ecosphere needs, and that we all deserve everything we get, but Morgan Miller despised that kind of sanctimony. If he’d stumbled across a cure for hyperflu, he’d have done everything he could to get it to everyone who might benefit from it. Believe me, I know.”
She became uncomfortably aware that everybody in the room was staring at her, embarrassed by the intensity of her polemic. Jerry Hapgood had finally got the message, and he shut up—but Mike Grundy had heard that kind of sermon far too many times to give it his full attention, and he was still mulling over the conversation he and Lisa had had at the door of Mouseworld. “What if it weren’t a new means of defense?” he asked quietly. “What if it were a new means of attack?”
That, Lisa had to admit, was a horse of a different color. If Morgan had had a secret, and a powerful motive for keeping it… .
“This is all rather hypothetical, isn’t it?” said Judith Kenna’s voice from the doorway of the surveillance room. “Wouldn’t you be better employed helping the constable scan the tapes, DS Hapgood? Have you seen the paramedic yet, Dr. Friemann?”
“It was my fault,” Mike put in quickly. “We were sidetracked.”
“I needed a cup of coffee more than I needed sealant,” Lisa said. “Given that you ordered me to stick around instead of going back to the labs with Steve or to Professor Miller’s house, I thought I’d be best employed in helping to fit the various pieces of the puzzle together. If your people are trying to establish Morgan Miller as the prime suspect in this affair, they’re barking up the wrong tree, and if I can direct them to more profitable lines of inquiry, I might be able to save you a great deal of work.”
“How many of the mice in the burned-out lab belonged to Morgan Miller?” Kenna asked abruptly. The eyes that she fixed on Lisa had a distinctly predatory gleam.
“I doubt that there were more than a couple of hundred involved in current experiments,” Lisa told her. “Stella Filisetti will probably be able to give you an exact number, and a full account of any transformations Morgan had carried out on them.”
“What about mice left over from