by D. F. Jones
She paused; Freedman looked grim, Scott pale. “Brace yourselves, my friends, it gets worse. First, no cause for the heart failure could be determined. I am assured that the preoperative check revealed nothing, and the patient’s postoperative condition was good. Still he died.” She drank again. “Secondly, the tumor had been excised intact; two doctors and three nurses testified to the fact. Placed in a dish, it was put aside for later examination, and was not observed until after the patient’s wound had been cleaned, sutured, and dressed. Only then did the surgeon look in the dish. The tumor had ruptured; a serous fluid lay in the bottom of the dish. Under the collapsed skin lay a hollow hemisphere of fibrous tissue about one centimeter thick. No one in the institute had ever seen anything like it. At that point I was summoned from Moscow.” Abruptly she stopped. “But I am tired of talking.” She produced a paper from her wallet. “A summary of my findings. Read it if you wish; in short, it says I didn’t know what I was examining. Excuse me.” She got up, padding off silently in her stocking feet to the bathroom.
Freedman skimmed through the paper; both men remained silent. Freedman passed the paper to Scott and went to the phone. He had not warned his wife that they had a guest. He did so, adding he would take Tatyana out for dinner.
Tatyana paid little attention to her meal. She was wrapped up in her subject, talking technically of the cell tissue, drawing diagrams on napkins, using the word discontinuity in a context neither Freedman nor Scott understood. But they got the gist of her main argument. The structure of the tumor was entirely new to her, yet the serous fluid appeared upon analysis to be normal. She reserved the most dramatic observation until the end.
Freedman ordered coffee — Would she care for a liqueur? Only water had been taken with the meal. Yes, said Tatyana; vodka. She tossed away three without visible effect. Over the last she ended the story of the Ilyushin pilot.
She cupped her strong hands. “The tumor, like half a small tennis ball — yes? Above the cut top, the collapsed dermal layer.” Thumb and forefinger indicated a millimeter’s thickness. “Between, the fluid.” She stopped, marshaling her thoughts. “A definitive answer is not possible, but I feel” — she placed one hand on her ample breast — “even allowing for evaporation, the fluid present, did not, could not, fill the cavity.”
Freedman saw it all too plainly. “You guessed the rupture was due to some other agent, present in the intact tumor, now no longer there.”
“ ‘Guessed’ is not correct, Mark,” she replied. “I prefer ‘evaluated.’”
It was all so conversational, so academic, that Scott was slow to grasp the significance. When he did, however, he thought of Shane, and the color ebbed from his face. “Good God,” he whispered huskily, “a parasite!” Tatyana gave him the slightest of nods.
Back in the office Scott brewed coffee. Tatyana shifted gears effortlessly back to whiskey, waiting patiently for the men to settle down. Freedman consulted a book, read briefly, then resumed his seat.
“Now,” said Tatyana, “I tell you of the copilot.”
For the past two hours the implications of her story had been racing through Mark’s mind, but impatient as he was to proceed he admired her methodical approach. One thing at a time.
“First, a question,” he said. “It seems to me your conclusion that the cyst was in fact an egg which hatched unobserved is based on two points: the ruptured membrane, and your guess — and frankly, that’s all it is — that the serous fluid was insufficient to fill the cavity.”
“I come to that.” Tatyana was in no way put off by the criticism. “On Day Three, shortly before his colleague died the copilot showed similar extreme symptoms. The lethargy they had in common, but he was slower to pass into deep coma. At this point I arrived; from here the observations are mine, not secondhand. With the experience gained in the first case, we decided against surgery; instead, we watched. Coma developed with the same amazing speed — so did a tumor on his right wrist.
“We kept watch through the night. Nothing happened while I had the duty. I then thought he had little chance of survival beyond the morning. His arm had been secured by bandages so that it lay outside the bedclothes, resting on his stomach, the tumor plainly visible under a spotlight, the room otherwise in darkness.”
Scott breathed deeply, his face set, imagining the scene. “At one o’clock in the morning another doctor took over.” Anger mounted in her voice. “He denies nodding off, yet he can only say he was suddenly aware that the tumor had ruptured — unobserved.” She spat the word out. “Unforgivable! For twelve hours the man’s condition remained marginal; yet, strangely, I had the feeling that the standard intensive care given him did little to aid recovery.” She smiled at Mark. “A guess, of course. Whatever the reason, by the end of Day Four a slight but general improvement was evident. At the same time the tumor regressed, shriveled. The progress continued at an increasing rate. On Day Seven, an estimated eighty-four hours after the rupture, the tumor lost adhesion and dropped away, leaving a clean wound. Thereafter he recovered quickly.”
Mark interrupted. “I don’t see the additional evidence — ”
“It is this: The arm was secured, a small kidney dish placed under the wrist, resting on the patient’s stomach. The bulk of the fluid drained into that, but an irregular row of small stains, none greater than two millimeters in diameter, extended for roughly thirty centimeters across the sheet, away from the man’s hand. The inference is obvious.”
Shakily Scott asked, “The spots — they were analyzed?”
“Of course. Serous fluid.”
Freedman broke the silence. “The actual point of rupture, anything significant?”
Tatyana nodded approvingly. “Some fool cut into the first tumor at that point; by the time I saw it, no useful opinion could be given. In the second case — ” She paused. “So far as could be seen — remember, we had decided not to intervene in any way — the opening was circular, perhaps four millimeters in diameter.” She shrugged. “Undue significance cannot be attached to size or shape because of natural elasticity of the skin.” She shrugged again.
“Getting back to the patient,” said Scott, thinking only of Shane, “when you say he recovered, was it to his ‘perfect’ state, or the way he was before the flight?”
“His pre-flight condition.”
“Can you be sure he is not, as you said earlier, perfect? I mean, short of a specific condition, how can you know?”
“Two reasons. His pre-Event health record showed he had a tendency to mild dyspepsia — that returned. Secondly, in his ‘perfect’ state, his skin was exactly that, resembling a newborn infant. I examined him three days ago; dermatology is not my subject, but he seemed to have a normal quota of skin eruptions for a man of his age.”
Freedman tossed his glasses on the desk, pinched the bridge of his nose, and blinked shortsightedly at Tatyana. “But the parasite — ” He got no further.
The flat of Tatyana’s hand smacked down hard on the desk. “In the case of the pilot the failure is forgivable. In the second case — ” She spat the words out with typical Russian fervor. “That imbecile son of a pig, the doctor who fell asleep! A disgrace to Soviet medicine!” She poured herself a generous shot from the near-empty bottle. “Nothing! No trace. In the copilot’s case, every square centimeter of the room was checked. I cannot describe the shame I feel admitting this.”
Mark quickly intervened. “Yes, but have you inferred anything from the known facts?”
Tatyana accepted his slight reproof, checking her fierce Slavic temperament. “I have inferred,” she said slowly, “that the parasite, size and structure unknown, occupied the cyst, which was roughly the size of a table tennis ball, perhaps a little larger. I guess” — she stressed the word — “it had legs, possibly wings, and at least an elementary sensory system — how else could either of the parasites have escaped?”
“Presumably you searched the operation theater after the second case?”
“Oh y
es. That produced one negative item. The theater staff was positive that the doors had not been opened until well after the discovery that the excised tumor had ruptured. It is possible that it left through the only exit — under the door. The gap had been measured: fifty millimeters.”
Silence filled the room. Freedman and Scott were trying to visualize a creature which could occupy the space of a large table tennis ball, capable of passing through a fifty-millimeter slot.
Scott repressed a shudder. He visualized it as a nematode, a human tapeworm, dirty white, glistening with slime.
Freedman had even more nightmarish thoughts. Two parasites were involved; neither had been found. Whatever its structure — he saw it as a fast-moving millipede — he was much more concerned with the creature’s brain. Conceived in space, from the moment of birth both creatures had sought escape from the artificial confines of man, and both had made it. Freedman, too, briefly considered tapeworms and at once discarded the idea. Nematodes had none of the physical ability, sensory equipment, or primal urge.
With the careful precision that marked all his movements, Mark took the whiskey bottle, emptied it into his glass, and after a moment’s consideration, downed it in one gulp.
“Tomorrow we must consider the implications for our Special List.” He spoke calmly. “I think we’ve had enough for one day.”
But despite the whiskey, Freedman couldn’t sleep. The discussion, however horrific, had at least dealt with medical practicalities, staggering but observed facts. Now, alone in the darkness, he felt that most awful fear — the fear of something unknown, incomprehensible — tearing at his insides. Somewhere up there lay the cause: some body, some thing …
XVII.
Essentially a simple, cheerful girl, Shane de Byl was bright enough to know she had no great brain. Okay, she could live with that. She knew she had a fine body, and the instincts to enjoy it and to use it for its proper function, children. But not just yet.
By 1983, those women who sought it had long won the battle for equality. But Shane was cast in an older, more elemental mold, and she saw her purpose in life as the enjoyment of her youth, later her husband and children, and in due course her grandchildren. Not that she had consciously worked it out. But had she been pressed, that would have been her answer.
Secretly she delighted in her body, watching its magical progression from puberty, from skinny flatness to ample, gentle curves. Every morning, flanked by a mirror on one side, an open window on the other, she had her private session of self-admiration, turning this way and that, craning her neck to see herself from all angles, conscious of the fresh air that added to her awareness by its chill touch.
She enjoyed too the approaches of men as natural tributes to an attractive girl, but lately she had repulsed all advances.
Jaimie was the man she wanted and intended to marry, even if he did not know it yet. Jaimie filled her thoughts, and the others could go jump in the nearest available lake. Shane was a nice, old-fashioned girl.
So when Jaimie asked her, as a favor, to allow herself to be examined by a specialist — purely in the interests of science — she was happy to oblige. She had no interest in knowing why, nor did she mind old Freedman being present. He had brought her into the world, and mentally she had already assigned him the task of helping her with her first child.
But she felt a faint twinge of disappointment when the specialist turned out to be a woman. She felt defensive before another female — especially this one, with her funny accent and cold, sharp manner. She might be a big wheel someplace, Shane decided, but she was still woman enough to feel jealous of Shane’s splendid breasts, when hers showed all too clearly the weight of her years.
The examination was certainly thorough. Shane felt there was not a single inch the specialist did not examine with chilling dispassion; she was glad Jaimie was not present.
And then a whole stack of questions, that made no sense to her. Did she feel well? What a stupid question! Her broken leg seemed to fascinate the woman.
Old Freedman said little during the examination or the questioning, but he asked the question that got the specialist away from her leg. Had she recently suffered from any ailments, no matter how slight? Strange, really — she’d tried hard to remember, for Doc Freedman in his funny old voice seemed very anxious to know, his dark eyes watching her intently. For his sake, she thought hard, finally remembering a spot on her arm that had itched.
She indicated the area, and wished she hadn’t. Doc and the woman examined the whole arm as if they were looking for gold. Finding nothing, they questioned her again about the location, and the more she thought about it, the less sure she was where it had been. The specialist, ignoring Shane as a person while her strong fingers kneaded the muscles of her arm, said to Freedman that she didn’t think X ray would reveal anything. That alarmed Shane: but Freedman, who did not regard her as a dummy, calmed her fears.
When she left, bruises were beginning to appear on her arm. Stupid old cow! Carrying on about a bite she’d forgotten, something that happened way back, after that crazy flight.
*
Two more Specials came in for checkups that morning. Freedman introduced Tatyana Marinskiya as “a colleague from Europe.” She said nothing, sticking to a nod and a smile, but she listened carefully. Freedman slipped in questions about insect bites without raising his patients’ suspicions. The first recalled nothing. The second, a seventy-year-old widow, said yes, she’d had a bite about the time she got back. She’d been a regular martyr to insects all her life, she explained at length. The smallest bite would blow up …
Nodding understandingly, Freedman stemmed the flood of reminiscence. Had that particular bite given her a bad time?
Funny he should ask, said the widow. No, it hadn’t. She’d rubbed it with some ointment, and that was the last she’d thought of it until now.
Treating Tatyana to a lunch of hamburgers and coffee at Mom’s Diner, Mark casually named the unknown parasite. It had to be called something, he said, and Xeno struck him as apt, being Greek for “Stranger.” It sure as hell was that.
When they returned to the office, they found Scott eating lunch with one hand while writing his case notes with the other. He had one item: a Special had recalled a bite on her breast. She was sure of the timing; she’d figured it was a flea bite collected in a particularly seedy hotel she’d stayed in on the tour. Scott had examined the area — the breastbone, where the tissue over the sternum has little thickness — and found no sign of anything.
Tatyana remained silent. Leaning back in her chair, she lit one of her black Russian cigarettes, eased her shoes off under the desk, and asked Mark his views on Xeno.
First of all, said Freedman, the Soviet experience demonstrated that Xeno found the human body an acceptable host. Their scant knowledge of the creature made speculation on how or why a waste of time. He would concentrate on the practicalities of dealing with the intruder. With only two cases to study, it was impossible to form hard and fast opinions, but he felt the indications were that after a dormant period, the embryo established an exceedingly close relationship with its host — witness the sudden death of the pilot on surgical separation. Tentatively, he felt that surgical intervention at the earliest moment might still be the answer, but speed of an unprecedented order would be necessary; minutes could count.
Scott was horrified by Mark’s calm, dispassionate appraisal, but Tatyana listened with deep attention. She was an eminent authority in cytology, but had no specialized knowledge of parasites — certainly nothing to compare to Freedman’s expertise. In the ten years before he settled in Abdera, he had deliberately sought a varied medical experience around the world. In Africa he had become familiar with bilharzia, caused by the parasite schistosoma, whose life cycle was hardly less fantastic than that of Xeno.
Freedman turned to the Papa Kilo victims. The evidence was scant, but he had no serious doubt that some, possibly all, had been implanted. He based his case on the insect
bites and the inordinate craving for foods high in vitamin B-12. True, neither of the Russians appeared to have this desire; perhaps, he said tactfully, their “social environment” made it difficult for such cravings to be known or satisfied.
As to the time scale, in the Ilyushin case some fourteen months had elapsed before the acute stage began. If the dormant stage was always that long, then, at least in Abdera, they had time to think and prepare. Currently, he ruled out exploratory surgery, for the exact locations of the bites or implants were uncertain, and to go digging during the dormant stage for something that was evidently very small, without knowing what to look for, would certainly be a waste of time. No, they must wait, and be prepared to attack the parasites at various stages of active growth with the knife, radio therapy, or chemotherapy. The recovery of a fully grown Xeno was of vital importance to greater understanding. “Obviously, no two or three doctors can tackle this threat,” he said. “Potentially we have seventy-odd patients, all likely to require sophisticated treatment around the same time. I shall put this to Malin immediately.”
Tatyana nodded vigorously. “The problem cannot be met in this clandestine way. I too will take the same line with my government and Mr. Malin. Total cooperation! Immediate hospitalization of all patients!”
“Yes … ” Mark regarded her thoughtfully. “But here in the States it’s not that easy. Interference with a citizen’s rights — well, interference he or she objects to — is political dynamite.”
She glared as if it was his fault. “They must be made to obey! In the Soviet Union … ”
*