The Second Science Fiction Megapack Page 21

  “Tight security,” said Calhoun.

  “They know me,” said the Minister heavily, “but they are checking my certificate that as of morning I wasn’t a para.”

  “I’ve seen quarantines before,” said Calhoun, “but never one like this! Not against disease!”

  “It isn’t against disease,” said the Minister, thinly. “It’s against Something intelligent…from the jungle…who chooses victims by reason for its own purposes.”

  Calhoun said very carefully:

  “I won’t deny more than the jungle.”

  Here the Minister for Health rapped on a door and ushered Calhoun through it. They entered a huge room filled with the complex of desks, cameras, and observing and recording instruments that the study of a living organism requires. The setup for study of dead things is quite different. Here, halfway down the room’s length, there was a massive sheet of glass that divided the apartment into two. On the far side of the glass there was, obviously, an aseptic environment room now being used as an isolation chamber.

  A man paced up and down beyond the glass. Calhoun knew he must be a para because he was cut off in idea and in fact from normal humanity. The air supplied to him could be heated almost white-hot and then chilled before being introduced into the aseptic chamber for him to breath, if such a thing was desired. Or the air removed could be made incandescent so no possible germ or its spores could get out. Wastes removed would be destroyed by passage through a carbon arc after innumerable previous sterilizing processes. In such rooms, centuries before, plants had been grown from antiseptic-soaked seeds and chicks hatched from germ-free eggs, and even small animals delivered by aseptic Caesarean section to live in an environment in which there was no living microorganism. From rooms like this men had first learned that some types of bacteria outside the human body were essential to human health. But this man was not a volunteer for such research.

  He paced up and down, his hands clenching and unclenching. When Calhoun and the Minister for Health entered the outer room, he glared at them. He cursed them, though inaudibly because of the sheet of glass. He hated them hideously because they were not as he was; because they were not imprisoned behind thick glass walls through which his every action and almost his every thought could be watched. But there was more to his hatred than that. In the midst of fury so great that his face seemed almost purple, he suddenly yawned uncontrollably.

  Calhoun blinked and stared. The man behind the glass wall yawned again and again. He was helpless to stop it. If such a thing could be, he was in a paroxysm of yawning, though his eyes glared and he beat his fists together. The muscles controlling the act of yawning worked independently of the rage that should have made yawning impossible. And he was ashamed, and he was infuriated, and he yawned more violently than seemed possible.

  “A man’s been known to dislocate his jaw, yawning like that,” said Calhoun detachedly.

  A bland voice spoke behind him.

  “But if this man’s jaw is dislocated, no one can help him. He is a para. We cannot join him.”

  * * * *

  Calhoun turned. He found himself regarded with unctuous condescension by a man wearing glittering thick eyeglasses—and a man’s eyes have to be very bad if he can’t wear contacts—and a uniform with a caduceus at his collar. He was plump. He was beaming. He was the only man Calhoun had so far seen on this planet whose expression was neither despair nor baffled hate and fury.

  “You are Med Service,” the beaming man observed zestfully. “Of the Interstellar Medical Service, to which all problems of public health may be referred! But here we have a real problem for you! A contagious madness! A transmissible delusion! An epidemic of insanity! A plague of the unspeakable!”

  The Minister for Health said uneasily:

  “This is Dr. Lett. He was the greatest of our physicians. Now he is nearly the last.”

  “Agreed,” said the bland man, as zestfully as before. “But now the Interstellar Medical Service sends someone before whom I should bow! Someone whose knowledge and experience and training is so infinitely greater than mine that I become abashed! I am timid! I am hesitant to offer an opinion before a Med Service man!”

  It was not unprecedented for an eminent doctor to resent the implied existence of greater skill or knowledge than his own. But this man was not only resentful. He was derisive.

  “I came here,” said Calhoun politely, “on what I expected to be a strictly routine visit. But I’m told there’s a very grave public health situation here. I’d like to offer any help I can give.”

  “Grave!” Dr. Lett laughed scornfully. “It is hopeless for poor planetary doctors like myself! But not, of course, for a Med Ship man!”

  Calhoun shook his head. This man would not be easy to deal with. Tact was called for. But the situation was appalling.

  “I have a question,” said Calhoun ruefully. “I’m told that paras are madmen, and there’s been mention of suspicion and secretiveness which suggests schizo-paranoia and—so I have guessed—the term para for those affected in this way.”

  “It is not any form of paranoia,” said the planetary doctor, contemptuously. “Paranoia involves suspicion of everyone. Paras despise and suspect only normals. Paranoia involves a sensation of grandeur, not to be shared. Paras are friends and companions to each other. They co-operate delightedly in attempting to make normals like themselves. A paranoiac would not want anyone to share his greatness!”

  Calhoun considered, and then agreed.

  “Since you’ve said it, I see that it must be so. But my question remains. Madness involves delusions. But paras organize themselves. They make plans and take different parts in them. They act rationally for purposes they agree on—such as assassinating me. But how can they act rationally if they have delusions? What sort of delusions do they have?”

  The Minister for Health said thinly:

  “Only what horrors out of the jungles might suggest! I…I cannot listen, Dr. Lett. I cannot watch, if you intend to demonstrate!”

  The man with thick glasses waved an arm. The Minister for Health went hastily out. Dr. Lett made a mirthless sound.

  “He would not make a medical man! Here is a para in this aseptic room. He is an unusually good specimen for study. He was my assistant and I knew him when he was sane. Now I know him as a para. I will show you his delusion.”

  He went to a small culture oven and opened the door. He busied himself with something inside. Over his shoulder he said with unction:

  “The first settlers here had much trouble establishing a human-use ecology on this world. The native plants and animals were useless. They had to be replaced with things compatible with humans. Then there was more trouble. There were no useful scavengers—and scavengers are essential! The rat is usually dependable, but rats do not thrive on Tallien. Vultures—no. Of course not. Carrion beetles…Scarabeus beetles…The flies that produce maggots to do such good work in refuse disposal.… None thrive on Tallien Three! And scavengers are usually specialists, too. But the colony could not continue without scavengers! So our ancestors searched on other worlds, and presently they found a creature which would multiply enormously and with a fine versatility upon the wastes of our human cities. True, it smelled like an ancient Earth-animal called skunk—butyl mercaptan. It was not pretty—to most eyes it is revolting. But it was a scavenger and there was no waste product it would not devour.”

  Dr. Lett turned from the culture oven. He had a plastic container in his hand. A faint, disgusting odor spread from it.

  “You ask what the delusions of para may be?” he grinned derisively. He held out the container. “It is the delusion that this scavenger, this eater of unclean things, this unspeakable bit of slimy, squirming flesh—paras have the delusion that it is the most delectable of foodstuffs!”

  He thrust the plastic container under Calhoun’s nose. Calhoun did not draw in his breath while it remained there. Dr. Lett said in mocking admiration:

  “Ah! You have the s
trong stomach a medical man should have! The delusion of the para is that these squirming, writhing objects are delightful! Paras develop an irresistible craving for them! It is as if men on an Earth-like world develop an uncontrollable hunger for vultures and rats and—even less tolerable things. These scavengers—paras eat them! So normal men would rather die than become paras!”

  Calhoun gagged in purely instinctive revulsion. The things in the plastic container were gray and small. Had they been still, they might have been no worse to look at than raw oysters in a cocktail. But they squirmed. They writhed.

  “I will show you,” said Dr. Lett amiably.

  He turned to the glass plate which divided the room into halves. The man behind the thick glass now pressed eagerly against it. He looked at the container with a horrible, lustful desire. The thick-eyeglassed man clucked at him, as if at a caged animal one wishes to soothe. The man beyond the glass yawned hysterically. He seemed to whimper. He could not take his eyes from the container in the doctor’s hands.

  “So!” said Dr. Lett.

  He pressed a button. A lock-door opened. He put the container inside it. The door closed. It could be sterilized before the door on the other side would open, but now it was arranged to sterilize itself to prevent contagion from coming out.

  The man behind the glass uttered inaudible cries. He was filled with beastly, uncontrollable impatience. He cried out at the mechanism of the contagion-lock as a beast might bellow at the opening through which food was dropped into its cage.

  That lock opened, inside the glass-walled room. The plastic container appeared. The man leaped upon it. He gobbled its contents, and Calhoun was nauseated. But as the para gobbled, he glared at the two who—with Murgatroyd—watched him. He hated them with a ferocity which made veins stand out upon his temples and fury empurple his skin.

  Calhoun felt that he’d gone white. He turned his eyes away and said squeamishly:

  “I have never seen such a thing before.”

  “It is new, eh?” Said Dr. Lett in a strange sort of pride. “It is new! I…even I!…have discovered something that the Med Service does not know!”

  “I wouldn’t say the Service doesn’t know about similar things,” said Calhoun slowly. “There are…sometimes…on a very small scale…dozens or perhaps hundreds of victims…there are sometimes similar irrational appetites. But on a planetary scale…no. There has never been a…an epidemic of this size.”

  He still looked sick and stricken. But he asked:

  “What’s the result of this…appetite? What does it do to a para? What change in…say…his health takes place in a man after he becomes a para?”

  “There is no change,” said Dr. Lett blandly. “They are not sick and they do not die because they are paras. The condition itself is no more abnormal than…than diabetes! Diabetics require insulin. Paras…something else. But there is prejudice against what paras need! It is as if some men would rather die than use insulin and those who did use it became outcasts! I do not say what causes this condition. I do not object if the Minister for Health believes that jungle creatures creep out and…make paras out of men.” He watched Calhoun’s expression. “Does your Med Service information agree with me?”

  “No-o-o,” said Calhoun. “I’m afraid it inclines to the idea of a monstrous cause, but it really isn’t much like diabetes.”

  “But it is!” insisted Lett. “Everything digestible, no matter how unappetizing to a modern man, has been a part of the regular diet of some tribe of human savages! Even prehistoric Romans ate dormice cooked in honey! Why should the fact that a needed substance happens to be found in a scavenger…”

  “The Romans didn’t crave dormice,” said Calhoun. “They could eat them or leave them alone.”

  The man behind the thick glass glared at the two in the outer room. He hated them intolerably. He cried out at them. Blood vessels in his temples throbbed with his hatred. He cursed them.

  * * * *

  “I point out one thing more,” said Dr. Lett. “I would like to have the co-operation of the Interstellar Medical Service. I am a citizen of this planet and not without influence. But I would like to have my work approved by the Med Service. I submit that in some areas on ancient Earth, iodine was put into the public water-supply systems to prevent goiters and cretinism. Fluorine was put into drinking water to prevent caries. On Tralee the public water supply has traces of zinc and cobalt added. These are necessary trace elements. Why should you not concede that here there are trace elements or trace compounds needed—”

  “You want me to report that,” said Calhoun, flatly. “I couldn’t do it without explaining—a number of things. Paras are madmen, but they organize. A symptom of privation is violent yawning. This…condition appeared only six months ago. This planet has been colonized for three hundred years. It could not be a naturally needed trace compound.”

  Dr. Lett shrugged, eloquently and contemptuously.

  “Then you will not report what all this planet will certify,” he said curtly. “My vaccine—”

  “You would not call it a vaccine if you thought it supplied a deficiency—a special need of the people of Tallien. Could you give me a small quantity of your…vaccine?”

  “No,” said Dr. Lett blandly. “I am afraid you are not willing to be co-operative. The little of my vaccine that is available is needed for high officials, who must be protected from the para condition at all costs. I am prepared to make it on a large scale, though, for the whole population. I will see, then, that you have as much of it as you need.”

  Calhoun seemed to reflect.

  “No,” he admitted, “I’m not ready to co-operate with you, Dr. Lett. I have a very uncomfortable suspicion. I suspect that you carry a small quantity of your vaccine with you all the time. That you cannot bear the idea of being without it if you should need it. I say that because it is a symptom of other…similar conditions. Of other…abnormal appetites.”

  Dr. Lett had been bland and grinning in mockery. But the amusement left his face abruptly.

  “Now…what do you mean by that?” he demanded.

  Calhoun nodded his head toward the para behind the glass wall.

  “That poor devil nearly yawned his head off before you gave him his diet of scavengers, Dr. Lett. Do you ever yawn like that…so you make sure you’ve always your vaccine with you to stop it? Aren’t you a para, Dr. Lett? In fact, aren’t you the…monstrous cause of…paras?”

  Murgatroyd cried “Chee! Chee! Chee!” in great agitation, because Dr. Lett had snatched up a dissecting scalpel and crouched to leap upon Calhoun. But Calhoun said:

  “Easy, Murgatroyd! He won’t do anything regrettable!”

  He had a blaster in his hand, bearing directly upon the greatest and most skillful physician on Tallien Three. And Dr. Lett did not do anything regrettable. But his eyes burned with the fury of a madman.

  CHAPTER III

  Five minutes later, or possibly ten, Calhoun went out to where the Minister for Health paced miserably up and down the corridor outside the laboratory. The Minister looked white and sick, as if despite himself he’d been picturing the demonstration Lett would have given Calhoun. He did not meet Calhoun’s eyes. He said uneasily:

  “I’ll take you to the Planetary President, now.”

  “No,” said Calhoun. “I got some very promising information from Dr. Lett. I want to go back to my ship first.”

  “But the President is waiting to see you!” protested the Minister for Health. “There’s something he wants to discuss!”

  “I want,” Calhoun observed, “to have something to discuss with him. There is intelligence back of this para business. I’d almost call it demoniac intelligence. I want to get back to my ship and check on what I got from Dr. Lett.”

  The Minister for Health hesitated, and then said urgently:

  “But the President is extremely anxious—”

  “Will you,” asked Calhoun politely, “arrange for me to be taken back to my ship?”
<
br />   The Minister for Health opened his mouth and closed it. Then he said apologetically—and it seemed to Calhoun—fearfully:

  “Dr. Lett has been our only hope of conquering this…this epidemic. The President and the Cabinet felt that they had to…give him full authority. There was no other hope! We didn’t know you’d come. So…Dr. Lett wished you to see the President when you left him. It won’t take long!”

  Calhoun said grimly:

  “And he already has you scared! I begin to suspect I haven’t even time to argue with you!”

  “I’ll get you a car and driver as soon as you’ve seen the President. It’s only a little thing—”

  Calhoun growled and moved toward the exit from the laboratory. Past the sentries. Out to the open air. Here was the wide clear space which once had been a park for the city and the site of the government building of Tallien Three. A little distance away, children played gaily. But there were women who watched them with deep anxiety. This particular space contained all the people considered certainly free of the para syndrome. Tall building surrounded the area which once had been tranquil and open to all the citizens of the planet. But now those buildings were converted into walls to shut out all but the chosen—and the chosen were no better off for having been someone’s choice.

  “The capital building’s over yonder,” said the Minister, at once urgently and affrightedly and persuasively. “It’s only a very short walk! Just yonder!”

  “I still,” said Calhoun, “don’t want to go there.” He showed the Minister for Health the blaster he’d aimed at Dr. Lett only minutes ago. “This is a blaster,” he said gently. “It’s adjusted for low power so that it doesn’t necessarily burn or kill. It’s the adjustment used by police in case of riot. With luck, it only stuns. I used it on Dr. Lett,” he added unemotionally. “He’s a para. Did you know? The vaccine he’s been giving to certain high officials to protect them against becoming para—it satisfies the monstrous appetite of para without requiring them to eat scavengers. But it also produces that appetite. In fact, it’s one of the ways by which paras are made.”