Read Online The Cobra Event by Richard Preston - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Preston
Ads: Link
you listened to Walt Mellis with his theories. He’s a nut,” Dudley said.
Nathanson shrugged and flashed a smile at Austen. “You’re not a nut, are you, Doctor?”
“I hope not,” she said.
Dudley stood up suddenly. “Let’s get going.” He picked up a manila file folder that had been sitting on an empty chair. “We can talk in the morgue.”
They stepped into a freight elevator. It went to the basement of the O.C.M.E. On the way down, Nathanson turned to her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Kind of young for a fed,” Glenn Dudley remarked, standing behind them.
“It’s a training job,” she said.
THE MORGUE was in the first basement level, next to the receiving garage. A mortuary van had just pulled in, and a couple of dieners, or morgue attendants, were unloading a body covered with a sheet of blue paper. The attendants transferred the body to a mortuary gurney known as a pan, which is a sort of metal trough on wheels. The pan was shaped like a trough so that fluids would not drip out of bodies onto the floor.
The receiving garage was crowded with bright red Dumpsters marked with biohazard symbols, spiky three-lobed flowers. A sign on the wall said:
PLEASE DO NOT THROW LOOSE CLOTH OR BLOODY SHEETS ON THE DUMPSTERS .
Nathanson approached a man dressed in a green scrub suit. “We’re ready, Ben,” he said. “Let me introduce you to our C.D.C. investigator. This is Dr. Alice Austen. And this is Ben Kly. He’ll be the attendant. Ben, we’re keeping quiet about Dr. Austen’s presence here.”
“Sure,” Kly said, and smiled. His name rhymed with “fly.” He and Austen shook hands.
Ben Kly was a slender man of medium height, an Asian-American with dark, creamy skin. He had a quiet voice. “I’ll be with you in a second,” he said. He wheeled the pan with the body on it into the hallway.
They pushed through a pair of battered swinging doors into the morgue, where they were enveloped by a thick smell, sour and penetrating—a smell as old as the world. It hung in the air like a liquescent fog, and seemed to coat the back of one’s mouth. It was the smell of bacteria converting meat into energy. The bacteria were liquefying human meat and giving off gases. In the Manhattan morgue, this smell rose and fell and changed day by day, depending on the weather and events around the city, but it never went away. The Manhattan morgue emitted an endless Gregorian chant of smell.
It was Charles Darwin who first understood that evolution is caused by natural selection, and that natural selection is death. He also understood that vast amounts of death (vast amounts of natural selection) are required to effect a small permanent change in the shape or behavior of an organism. Without huge amounts of death, organisms do not change over time. Without death, life would never have become more complex than the simplest self-copying molecules. The arms of a starfish could not have happened without countless repetitions of death. Death is the mother of structure. It took four billion years of death—a third of the age of the universe—for death to invent the human mind. Given another four billion years of death, or perhaps a hundred billion years of death, who can say that death will not create a mind so effective and subtle that it will reverse the fate of the universe and become God? The smell in the Manhattan morgue is not the smell of death; it is the smell of life changing its form. It is evidence that life is indestructible.
THE MORGUE WAS ring-shaped, with a central rectangular core where bodies were stored inside crypts. You circled around the core to gain access to a particular crypt. The walls were made of bricks painted a pale green. The crypt doors were made of stainless steel. Various smaller rooms led off from the main room. Some of these smaller rooms were for holding severely putrefied bodies, so that the
Nathanson shrugged and flashed a smile at Austen. “You’re not a nut, are you, Doctor?”
“I hope not,” she said.
Dudley stood up suddenly. “Let’s get going.” He picked up a manila file folder that had been sitting on an empty chair. “We can talk in the morgue.”
They stepped into a freight elevator. It went to the basement of the O.C.M.E. On the way down, Nathanson turned to her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Kind of young for a fed,” Glenn Dudley remarked, standing behind them.
“It’s a training job,” she said.
THE MORGUE was in the first basement level, next to the receiving garage. A mortuary van had just pulled in, and a couple of dieners, or morgue attendants, were unloading a body covered with a sheet of blue paper. The attendants transferred the body to a mortuary gurney known as a pan, which is a sort of metal trough on wheels. The pan was shaped like a trough so that fluids would not drip out of bodies onto the floor.
The receiving garage was crowded with bright red Dumpsters marked with biohazard symbols, spiky three-lobed flowers. A sign on the wall said:
PLEASE DO NOT THROW LOOSE CLOTH OR BLOODY SHEETS ON THE DUMPSTERS .
Nathanson approached a man dressed in a green scrub suit. “We’re ready, Ben,” he said. “Let me introduce you to our C.D.C. investigator. This is Dr. Alice Austen. And this is Ben Kly. He’ll be the attendant. Ben, we’re keeping quiet about Dr. Austen’s presence here.”
“Sure,” Kly said, and smiled. His name rhymed with “fly.” He and Austen shook hands.
Ben Kly was a slender man of medium height, an Asian-American with dark, creamy skin. He had a quiet voice. “I’ll be with you in a second,” he said. He wheeled the pan with the body on it into the hallway.
They pushed through a pair of battered swinging doors into the morgue, where they were enveloped by a thick smell, sour and penetrating—a smell as old as the world. It hung in the air like a liquescent fog, and seemed to coat the back of one’s mouth. It was the smell of bacteria converting meat into energy. The bacteria were liquefying human meat and giving off gases. In the Manhattan morgue, this smell rose and fell and changed day by day, depending on the weather and events around the city, but it never went away. The Manhattan morgue emitted an endless Gregorian chant of smell.
It was Charles Darwin who first understood that evolution is caused by natural selection, and that natural selection is death. He also understood that vast amounts of death (vast amounts of natural selection) are required to effect a small permanent change in the shape or behavior of an organism. Without huge amounts of death, organisms do not change over time. Without death, life would never have become more complex than the simplest self-copying molecules. The arms of a starfish could not have happened without countless repetitions of death. Death is the mother of structure. It took four billion years of death—a third of the age of the universe—for death to invent the human mind. Given another four billion years of death, or perhaps a hundred billion years of death, who can say that death will not create a mind so effective and subtle that it will reverse the fate of the universe and become God? The smell in the Manhattan morgue is not the smell of death; it is the smell of life changing its form. It is evidence that life is indestructible.
THE MORGUE WAS ring-shaped, with a central rectangular core where bodies were stored inside crypts. You circled around the core to gain access to a particular crypt. The walls were made of bricks painted a pale green. The crypt doors were made of stainless steel. Various smaller rooms led off from the main room. Some of these smaller rooms were for holding severely putrefied bodies, so that the
Similar Books
