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for vaccinations. He considered the Asherah virus to be more malignant, capable of being spread through exchange of bodily fluids.”

“So the strict, book-based religion of the deuteronomists inoculated the Hebrews against the Asherah virus.”

“In combination with strict monogamy and other kosher practices, yes,” the Librarian says. “The previous religions, from Sumer up to Deuteronomy, are known as prerational. Judaism was the first of the rational religions. As such, in Lagos’s view, it was much less susceptible to viral infection because it was based on fixed, written records. This was the reason for the veneration of the Torah and the exacting care used when making new copies of it-informational hygiene.”

‘What are we living in nowadays? The postrational erar

“Juanita made comments to that effect”

“I’ll bet she did. She’s starting to make more sense to me, Juanita is.”

“Oh.”

“She never really made much sense before.”

“I see.”

“I think that if I can just spend enough time with you to figure out what’s on Juanita’s mind-well, wonderful things could happen.”

“I will try to be of assistance.”

“Back to work-this is no time for a bard-on. It seems that Asherah was a carrier of a viral infection. The deuteronomists somehow realized this and exterminated her by blocking all the vectors by which she infected new victims.”

“With reference to viral infections,” the Librarian says, “if I may make a fairly blunt? spontaneous cross-reference—something lam coded to do at opportune moments-you may wish to examine herpes simplex, a virus that takes up residence in the nervous system and never leaves. It is capable of carrying new genes into existing neurons and genetically reengineering them. Modern gene therapists use it for this purpose. Lagos thought that herpes simplex might be a modem, benign descendant of Asherah.”

“Not always benign,” Hiro says, remembering a friend of his

who died of AIDS-related complications; in the last days, he had

iió