Vitals. Greg Bear
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Vitals - Greg Bear страница

Информация о книге:

Название: Vitals

Автор: Greg Bear

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Триллеры

Серия:

isbn: 9780007321858

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ id="u83ffd950-ded2-51d4-b4ad-4e6634c5b6a3">

      Vitals

      Greg Bear

For Poul Anderson,

my friend, who decided long ago not to

Our bodies are made of cells. Mitochondria are the parts of our cells that generate the energy-rich molecules we use every instant of our lives.

Billions of years ago, mitochondria were bacterial invaders, parasites of early cells. They joined forces with their hosts; now they are essential.

‘My mitochondria compose a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a large, motile colony of bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons, for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.’

– Lewis Thomas, ‘Organelles as Organism’, 1974

‘We love Comrade Stalin more than Mommy and Daddy. May Comrade Stalin live to be one hundred! No, two hundred! No, three hundred!’

– Song sung by Soviet children, early 1950s

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You’ve played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:

Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age

Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:

Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.

Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace

Cover Page

Title Page