Read Online Fourth Horseman by Kate Thompson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kate Thompson
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in God it’s just a way of getting heavenly brownie points. It’s more like a kind of social behaviour.’
‘Do you believe in God?’ I asked him.
‘My father says people’s religious beliefs should be absolutely private. He says any kind of organized religion just leads to fundamentalism. I think he’s right.’
‘So does that mean you’re not going to tell us what you believe?’
‘What does it matter?’ said Javed.
‘Dead on,’ said Alex. ‘And since we’re all only here to replicate ourselves, I think I’d better go out and start looking for women.’
I laughed. ‘You’re not old enough yet,’ I said.
‘Want to bet?’ said Alex, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
But Javed wasn’t entering into the spirit of it. He was expanding his philosophy, there and then, to fit with the new ideas we were examining ‘It’s the same as the aikido, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Our mistake is to think about things too much. It doesn’t do us any good. It’s like batting. You just have to wait and see what the bowler does. We just have to wait and see what life throws at us and then play it as well as we can.’
‘Beautifully put,’ I said, lying flat on my back, the sun in my face. ‘So let’s just lie here and wait.’
But I couldn’t relax the way I wanted to. As I lay there on the grass I realized that I didn’t trust life’s bowler as I had done before. I couldn’t see the ball in his hand. I was afraid that when that next ball came down the pitch at me I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to play it.
6
I HAD BEEN WORRIED that my cynicism might trouble the boys, but I was the one who lay awake half the night fretting about viruses. I couldn’t get my head around them at all. From what Dad had told us I knew that they were little more than microscopic strands of DNA which replicated themselves by hijacking the cells of their hosts. Anything that had cells could be attacked by viruses. Even plants got them.
And computers. People spent endless time creating them, just for the badness of it; just because they could. Did that mean that someone—some great hacker in the sky or in the fiery depths—had created human viruses? Just for badness? Just because they could? I didn’t believe that for a moment, but I was in awe of the sheer ingenuity of a thing that had no brain; no thought process at all, and yet could send people and animals mad so they had to bite any living creature they encountered. I thought about malaria as well, which got the mosquito to do the work of carrying it, and the plague, which rats could spread around an entire city within days. It gave me the creeps, thinking about those things. The white horseman was big and strong in my mind, still casting a huge influence over everything I thought about. And the fact that Dad was working on the manipulation of viruses was worrying. I didn’t know how, but I was fairly certain that the two were related in some way.
It felt as though I’d only been asleep for five minutes when I was woken by the phone ringing. I looked at my watch. It was six a.m. I was about to get up and answer it when I heard Dad’s footsteps and then his voice reacting with rising excitement to whoever was on the line. When he hung up he came straight to my room. Alex, woken by the phone, was behind him.
‘I have to go to Wales,’ he said. ‘They’ve come across a squirrel that they think has a virus and I need to go up and get some blood from it.’
‘What’s the rush?’ I said. ‘It’s only six o’clock.’
‘Mr Davenport phoned from America,’ he said. Apparently they found the squirrel yesterday but they couldn’t get hold of him until now. The thing’s on death’s door and I need to get there before it dies, and the virus with it.’
‘Can we come?’ I said.
‘I’m not going,’ said Alex. ‘It’s Saturday, remember? Javed’s crowd have got a match.’
‘And I need you to hold the fort here, Laurie,’ Dad said. ‘In
‘Do you believe in God?’ I asked him.
‘My father says people’s religious beliefs should be absolutely private. He says any kind of organized religion just leads to fundamentalism. I think he’s right.’
‘So does that mean you’re not going to tell us what you believe?’
‘What does it matter?’ said Javed.
‘Dead on,’ said Alex. ‘And since we’re all only here to replicate ourselves, I think I’d better go out and start looking for women.’
I laughed. ‘You’re not old enough yet,’ I said.
‘Want to bet?’ said Alex, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
But Javed wasn’t entering into the spirit of it. He was expanding his philosophy, there and then, to fit with the new ideas we were examining ‘It’s the same as the aikido, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Our mistake is to think about things too much. It doesn’t do us any good. It’s like batting. You just have to wait and see what the bowler does. We just have to wait and see what life throws at us and then play it as well as we can.’
‘Beautifully put,’ I said, lying flat on my back, the sun in my face. ‘So let’s just lie here and wait.’
But I couldn’t relax the way I wanted to. As I lay there on the grass I realized that I didn’t trust life’s bowler as I had done before. I couldn’t see the ball in his hand. I was afraid that when that next ball came down the pitch at me I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to play it.
6
I HAD BEEN WORRIED that my cynicism might trouble the boys, but I was the one who lay awake half the night fretting about viruses. I couldn’t get my head around them at all. From what Dad had told us I knew that they were little more than microscopic strands of DNA which replicated themselves by hijacking the cells of their hosts. Anything that had cells could be attacked by viruses. Even plants got them.
And computers. People spent endless time creating them, just for the badness of it; just because they could. Did that mean that someone—some great hacker in the sky or in the fiery depths—had created human viruses? Just for badness? Just because they could? I didn’t believe that for a moment, but I was in awe of the sheer ingenuity of a thing that had no brain; no thought process at all, and yet could send people and animals mad so they had to bite any living creature they encountered. I thought about malaria as well, which got the mosquito to do the work of carrying it, and the plague, which rats could spread around an entire city within days. It gave me the creeps, thinking about those things. The white horseman was big and strong in my mind, still casting a huge influence over everything I thought about. And the fact that Dad was working on the manipulation of viruses was worrying. I didn’t know how, but I was fairly certain that the two were related in some way.
It felt as though I’d only been asleep for five minutes when I was woken by the phone ringing. I looked at my watch. It was six a.m. I was about to get up and answer it when I heard Dad’s footsteps and then his voice reacting with rising excitement to whoever was on the line. When he hung up he came straight to my room. Alex, woken by the phone, was behind him.
‘I have to go to Wales,’ he said. ‘They’ve come across a squirrel that they think has a virus and I need to go up and get some blood from it.’
‘What’s the rush?’ I said. ‘It’s only six o’clock.’
‘Mr Davenport phoned from America,’ he said. Apparently they found the squirrel yesterday but they couldn’t get hold of him until now. The thing’s on death’s door and I need to get there before it dies, and the virus with it.’
‘Can we come?’ I said.
‘I’m not going,’ said Alex. ‘It’s Saturday, remember? Javed’s crowd have got a match.’
‘And I need you to hold the fort here, Laurie,’ Dad said. ‘In
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