The Haploids

by Jerry Sohl

  "Well, I should be getting back in there, now," Dr. Leaf said abruptly, putting his cigarette out. "Since you didn't remember anything about the diagram or about the girl, I don't suppose it will be necessary for you to come back with me." He rose.

  "Thanks, Doctor. I have a friend waiting for me. I'd better go."

  The two walked down the corridor to room ten. When they came to it Dr. Leaf turned to Travis.

  "You seem interested in this thing. If you have any ideas or find anything of interest, let us know, will you?" He smiled and extended a hand.

  Travis shook it and promised he would.

  Back in the car with Hal there were a lot of questions asked as Travis knew there would be. He explained as carefully as he could what had gone on as they rode to Travis's apartment.

  "So you're going to continue to play Hawkshaw, eh?" Hal commented.

  Travis looked at him. "From the way you talk you make me think you might have a hand in this thing, Hal."

  "yeah, I got time for it, haven't I? No, it's just I think you're making a fool of yourself. We have police to investi-ate things like this. The big medicine boys from Springfield are here to look after the health end of it. Neither of them seems to be making any progress. What do you think you can do?"

  "I haven't really tried to do anything yet. I've sort of been an innocent bystander."

  "Yeah, and like an innocent bystander, you were almost shot in the leg this afternoon."

  "That afternoon incident has only made me more determined to pursue the thing."

  Hal grunted, swung the car onto the street in front of Travis's apartment hotel. "Where will you start?"

  "Oh, I've got a couple of ideas," he said, fingering the filing card in his pocket.

  "Well, I hate being a sucker," Hal said as the car stopped in front of the hotel, "but call me if you need me."

  "O.K., pal," Travis said, climbing out and slamming the door.

  Hal waved and drove away.

  Travis turned and walked into the building, his head reeling with thoughts about a dozen men with gray, mottled skin waiting to die in Union City Hospital, thoughts about viruses and radiation and cells that didn't seem to want to work any more.

  What was the answer? Arrowsmith, he remembered, could have set up a laboratory with a microscope and a toothpick. Well, Travis thought, I wouldn't know what to do with the microscope, but I might be able to handle the toothpick. At any rate I do know something about logic. And science is just common sense. He remembered covering a speech by a famous scientist once and he remembered using in his lead a quotation by Albert Einstein: "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

  He could think as well as any scientist, he reasoned. The only difference is a scientist has a lot more factual information. He got his familiar feeling of elation, of having decided to pursue a definite course. So far he hadn't really done half badly. Besides, he had a filing card in his pocket that might help uncover something.

  He rode the elevator up to his floor and got out. Rosa-lee Turner. Nice name. He wondered what she was like. He decided he would look her up the next day where she worked, that development company out on Drexler Drive.

  He yawned as he stuck the key in the lock of the door to his room and opened the door. He caught sight of a sudden quick movement through the crack behind the partly open door. His muscles tensed and the hair on the nape of his neck bristled.

  He shoved the door open with all his might, heard it hit yielding flesh. Then he dropped to the floor, jumped around the door and rushed up at the person standing there.

  SIX

  Travis came up swinging. His arm hit the other and he heard a metal object hit the wall and fall to the floor. He vaguely wondered if it was a gun, as the rest of his attention was focused on getting in a punch that would settle the issue.

  His fist glanced off a face he could barely see in the light from the hall and then he collided with the body. He pinned the other's arms down and wrestled the intruder away from the wall. As he did so he knew it was a woman. There was an aura of perfume or cologne that proved it.

  He twisted one arm around behind her, forced her to go with him to the wall where he flicked on a light. He saw at once it was the blonde in the hospital, the girl who had shot at him in the alley. He shoved her from him and she stumbled forward a few steps as he retrieved the gun on the floor and pointed it at her.

  He kicked the door shut and stood there taking her in. The same beautiful blonde with mayhem in her heart. Tonight she wore no hat or coat, just a suit that was tailored to accentuate her small waist. She stood there eyeing him defiantly, her lower lip protruding determinedly. There was something about her that made her different from any other woman he had ever known. Perhaps it was that she gave no quarter, that she was bent on doing a job even if he didn't want it done—perhaps even if it meant his life. It might have been that he had never met anyone who had hated him so much, or someone in whom malevolence was so definite.

  "Sit down," he ordered, gesturing to a cushioned chair with the gun.

  "I'll stand, thank you," she said. Her voice was rich and vibrant.

  "Suit yourself," he said, sinking into another chair. "What's on your mind?"

  "Nothing, frankly, except killing you," she replied calmly.

  "Why are you so intent on killing me? Aren't there enough other people?"

  "You're my special case. My own little project. I'll do it yet, regardless of what happens to me now?"

  "Yeah? What's going to happen now?"

  "You're going to call the police."

  "That's right, baby. Only I thought we might have a little talk first, just a talk to iron out our petty differences."

  "Our differences aren't petty. You're the only one—no, there are two of you—who know I am the one who went to the hospital."

  Travis's eyebrows went up. "You admit that?"

  "You and a man named Hal Cable. You two are my projects."

  Travis opened the gun, took the shells out, put them in his pocket. "I don't intend holding this thing in my hand all night." He looked at the gun. "Looks like a new one."

  "It's never been fired, if that's what you mean."

  "Probably never will be—now." He tossed it on a table.

  "Don't be too sure about that."

  He leaned forward. "Look, honey," he said, "what's this all about? Why did you try to kill the old man?"

  "I should tell you?" she smirked.

  "You might as well tell me, you'll be telling the police soon enough. I just want to have first chance at it, that's all."

  "The police will learn nothing."

  "What connection does the old man's death have with all the other sick men?"

  She eyed him sardonically, said nothing.

  Travis got up, approached the girl, started to put his hand in one of her suit coat pockets when she hit it away.

  "What do you think you're doing?" she said angrily.

  "Shut up!" he answered, catching her arm and twisting it behind her.

  "You're hurting my arm!"

  "I'll let it go once I've gone through your pockets."

  The girl squirmed, but he went through the two pockets of her jacket, found a small beaded purse in one of them.

  "Now, sit down!" He pushed her to the sofa, and she fell ,on it from the force of the push, then turned and sat, glaring at him. He went to the door, locked it, walked to the sofa, opening the purse.

  "You won't find anything in it," she said.

  "No?" He shook the contents out on the sofa. Lipstick, mirror, compact, cigarettes, lighter, billfold. He opened the billfold. There were two tens, a one, some change, social security card made out to Betty Garner, an Illinois driver's license made out to the same, 1822 West Prairie Street, Union City, Illinois.

  "So, you're Betty, eh? Betty Garner. Pretty name."

  "You think you've found something." She crossed her trim legs and looked away.

  "Betty," he s
aid slowly. "Somebody's going to ask you this sooner or later. How did a nice-looking girl like you ever get mixed up in this thing?"

  "Thanks for the compliment. No comment."

  "How much is Dutch McCoy paying to have me rubbed out?"

  Her glance at him was one of genuine amusement. "Rubbed out? That's a quaint phrase. I don't believe I've heard it for years. Don't you think it's a little melodramatic?"

  He examined the driver's license. "You make yourself sound old, but it says here you're only twenty-two. What kind of a mother and father did you have that let you get into a mess like this, Betty?"

  "Kindly leave my mother and father out of this."

  "A sore point, eh?" He reached into his breast pocket, took out a notebook, flipped it open to a blank page, moved over close to her and started to draw. At first she didn't pay any attention, then she stole a glance as he drew a circle appended by a cross and wrote "23X" in the middle of the circle.

  She grabbed the notebook and tore the sheet out. She was looking at him with fear now. Her face was white, her eyes were large and her breath came fast.

  "How much do you know?" she asked in horror.

  "Enough."

  She bit her upper lip, looked at him concernedly, her hand crunching the crumpled paper. "You can't know," she said softly.

  "No? Why?" He grinned at her.

  "If you did you wouldn't be sitting where you are," she replied.

  "Where would I be?" He stole an arm around her.

  "Oh, I don't know." She put her hand to her forehead and massaged it. "Let me think. You—you've upset me."

  "I've upset you?" He laughed. "You've upset me, not once but three times. First in the hospital, then on the street and now here in my apartment. And you think I've upset you!" He put a hand on either shoulder and turned her to him. "Why don't you tell me all about it?"

  "I'm not buying any." She shook her head.

  "Why didn't you shoot me when Hal and I came out of the Laughing Boy Tavern?"

  "I don't know. I . . . I . . ."

  He was close to her now, saw the bewilderment in her eyes, the trembling of pretty lips, the halo of light on her blonde hair.

  Suddenly he crushed her to him in answer to an overpowering urge that flooded him. Their lips met.

  Instantly she was like spring steel. Her body was rigid, her arms clawing, pushing, pulling, pounding, her legs kicking. But Travis held her in a sure grip and did not relinquish her lips. Soon she weakened, her arms dropped away and she submitted. But she did not respond.

  When he released her she sank back on the sofa and looked at him in wonder.

  "I—I," she stammered, shaken. "I didn't think it would be like that ..."

  "You're beautiful," he said, leaning toward her, as if he were going to take her again.

  "No!" she cried. "Please don't do that again." She rose from the sofa, walked across the room. "What have I done!"

  Travis grunted. "What have you done? Talk about being melodramatic! "What have I done! That's real corn."

  She stood looking at him seriously. "I see now why I didn't kill you this afternoon. Mr. Travis, there's something about you . . ." Her eyes narrowed. "You really don't know about that symbol, do you? No, of course you don't. Otherwise—"

  "Otherwise . . . ?"

  She shrugged resignedly, then sat down in an armchair.

  "I was told such a thing as this might happen. I really had no idea . . ." She seemed to be talking to herself.

  "You are about the queerest-talking girl I ever met," Travis said. "Always talking in riddles. What does it all mean?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  Well, then, what can you tell me?"

  "I can tell you one thing," she said soberly. "I can give you one piece of advice. I don't know why I should, but believe me it comes from the bottom of my heart. Commit suicide."

  "Suicide!" He laughed. "Are you crazy?"

  "Now that I've given the advice," she said coolly, "why don't you call the police as you said you would? I'm quite ready to go." She avoided his eyes.

  It was Travis's turn to be bewildered. If he called the police the girl and his chance to extract whatever information he could from her would be gone. He had asked her a few questions; she had volunteered nothing, except that obvious reaction about the symbol.

  "What went on at 1722 Winthrop Street, Betty?"

  "Call the police."

  "How can you sit there being so flippant about all this when a dozen men are dying in Union City Hospital?"

  When she only sat there, he continued, "What do you know about viruses?"

  Still no answer.

  "Radiation?"

  She shot a look at him at that.

  "It's silly, Mr. Travis, to keep asking me these questions," she said quietly. "I will not answer them. You'd better call the police."

  The girl had regained something of her composure, something of her former defiant attitude.

  "The police have methods of getting information."

  "Perhaps I have methods of not letting them have it."

  "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"

  "I have reason to be."

  Travis rose, walked in front of the girl to the phone. It was a bluff, a pure delaying action, but he wanted to see what she would do if he did start to call the police.

  Only for an instant while he was thinking was his back to her. But it was long enough. He heard a swishing movement behind him, in the split second that he saw an arm moving through the air, a shine of metal, he cursed himself for being momentarily off guard. Then there was a burst of white fire in his head, followed by darkness.

  When Travis woke he was lying on the floor of his apartment and the lights were on. There was a ringing in his ears and as he struggled to rise his head throbbed like a washing machine.

  He chided himself for his stupidity. In all his years of newspapering such a thing had never happened before. He had been threatened, pushed around, swung at, spat upon, kicked, punched, sworn at, thrown out, slapped at, scratched —but never had anyone had the nerve to really knock him out.

  As he got groggily to his feet he marveled at being alive at all. The girl had meant business, there was little doubt of that. She had said he was—and Hal Cable, too!—her special project. He went out to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink, stopping for a moment to look at himself in the mirror.

  "You poor son of a bitch," he said to his image in the closet door mirror. He felt the bump on his head, drew his hand hurriedly away when even the light pressure of his fingers sent the throbbing through his whole body.

  Why hadn't she killed him? He remembered now that she had said there was something about him that stopped her. Maybe she was in love with him. He grunted in disgust. If she were this was a hell of a way to begin a romance. A bang on the head. What had she hit him with? He went back to the front room, looked around for a weapon.

  Then he remembered the glint of metal. He looked for the gun, but it was gone. He felt in his pocket. The shells were gone, too. Nothing else was missing.

  "Thorough little devil!" He went back in the kitchen, poured himself another drink and looked at the clock. Three a.m. Nothing he could do about it at this hour.

  What was the girl's angle? What did the symbol mean? The damned thing was getting grotesque! But it did prove the old man had had a clear head when he had drawn it.

  He tossed off another drink, put the throbbing head to bed.

  He was awakened the next morning by a telephone call from Captain Tomkins, who said both Chief of Police Ward Riley and Coroner Dwight O'Brien wanted to see him. After a hurried breakfast Travis went down to the city hall.

  "Captain Tomkins asked me to come down," he told Sergeant Webster. "Evidently the chief and the coroner want to see me."

  "They told me to have you wait, Travis," the desk sergeant said.

  Travis sat down on a bench outside the chief's office, picked up the Thursday morning Star. There he read that f
our of the men who had entered the hospital Wednesday had died.

  Sansona, Tobias and Kronansky were gone, as Dr. Leaf had said they would be, plus a man named Rills who had evidently come in later. Travis hoped their widows were not taking it too hard.

  Though the story of the epidemic and the announcement of the death toll as six occupied an important spot on page one, Travis admired the Star for not playing it up all out of proportion, for a thing like that could cause havoc. The stories were restrained, though descriptive and factual. The pictures of Dr. Leaf and Dr. Wilhelm had a steadying effect.

  The Star hinted that the flash epidemic would soon be brought under control, since the state health department was now on hand at the request of the local health department.

  Even Travis felt reassured to read that no new cases had been reported up to press time Thursday—that would be 3 a.m., the time he was waking up after having been slugged. He rubbed the bump on his head reflectively.

  The news columns carried a full discussion of the case in an interview with Dr. Leaf, written b Donald Gilberts. It was a story Travis probably would have written if he had not been on leave. Dr. Leaf was quoted at length on the virus theory versus the radiation theory. He chuckled to himself, knowing Gilberts had no doubt found Dr. Leaf much more co-operative than Dr. Wilhelm. That the situation was a serious one was evidenced by the fact that a doctor was willing to be quoted.

  The squawk box on the desk sergeant's desk came to life.

  "Is Travis here yet?" it asked.

  "Yes, Captain," Sergeant Webster replied. "He's waiting."

  The door to the chief's office opened and Captain Tomkins appeared. "Come on in, Travis," he said.

  Travis put the paper to one side and went into the chief's large office. He knew Chief Riley, a great, hulking man with black hair streaked with gray—a man who always wore glasses except when he spoke at graduation exercises and patriotic events. He also knew Coroner O'Brien, a thin, balding man, an emaciated fellow with a long, thin nose, gray eyes, crooked teeth and an eternal plug of tobacco in his mouth; O'Brien looked exactly as one would expect a coroner to look. Captain Tomkins was there, too, taking his seat. The last person Travis saw was Dr. Leaf wearing his usual wry smile.