“We’ll have to wait on Father Mendelhaus,” the driver called. “He’ll be a few minutes.”
“You a dermie?”
“Of course. But don’t worry. I’ve plugged my nose and I’m wearing rubber gloves. I can’t smell you. The sight of a nonhyper arouses some craving, of course. But it can be overcome with a little will power. I won’t infect you, although I don’t understand why you nonhypers fight so hard. You’re bound to catch it sooner or later. And the world can’t get back to normal until everybody has it.”
Paul avoided the startling thought. “You the surgeon?”
“Uh, yes. Father Williamson’s the name. I’m not really a specialist, but I did some surgery in Korea. How’s the girl’s condition? Suffering shock?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
They fell silent until Father Mendelhaus returned. He came across the street carrying a bag in one hand and a brown bottle in the other. He held the bottle by the neck with a pair of tongs and Paul could see the exterior of the bottle steaming slightly as the priest passed through the beam of the , ambulance’s headlights. He placed the flask on the curb without touching it, then spoke to the man in the shadows.
“Would you step behind the hedge and disrobe, young man? Then rub yourself thoroughly with this oil.”
“I doubt it,” Paul snapped. “What is it?”
“Don’t worry, it’s been in the sterilizer. That’s what took me so long. It may be a little hot for you, however. It’s only an antiseptic and deodorant. It’ll kill your odor, and it’ll also give you some protection against picking up stray microorganisms.”
After a few moments of anxious hesitation, Paul decided to trust the priest. He carried the hot flask into the brush, undressed, and bathed himself with the warm aromatic oil. Then he slipped back into his clothes and reapproached the ambulance.
“Ride in back,” Mendelhaus told him. “And you won’t be infected. No one’s been in there for several weeks, and as you probably know, the microorganisms die after a few hours exposure. They have to be transmitted from skin to skin, or else an object has to be handled very soon after a hyper has touched it.”
Paul warily climbed inside. Mendelhaus opened a slide and spoke through it from the front seat. “You’ll have to show us the way.”
“Straight out Broadway. Say, where did you get the gasoline for this wagon.”
The priest paused. “That has been something of a secret. Oh well… I’ll tell you. There’s a tanker out in the harbor. The people left town too quickly to think of it. Automobiles are scarcer than fuel in Galveston. Up north, you find them stalled everywhere. But since Galveston didn’t have any through-traffic, there were no cars running out of gas. The ones we have are the ones that were left in the repair shop. Something wrong with them. And we don’t have any mechanics to fix them.”
Paul neglected to mention that he was qualified for the job. The priest might get ideas. He fell into gloomy silence as the ambulance turned onto Broadway and headed down-island. He watched the back of the priests’ heads, silhouetted against the headlighted pavement. They seemed not at all concerned about their disease. Mendelhaus was a slender man, with a blond crew cut. and rather bushy eyebrows. He had a thin, aristocratic face—now plague-gray—but jovial enough. It might be the face of an ascetic, but for the quick blue eyes that seemed full of lively interest rather than inward-turning mysticism. Williamson, on the other hand, was a rather plain man, with a stolid tweedy look, despite his black cassock.
“What do you think of our plan here?” asked Father Mendelhaus.
“What plan?” Paul grunted.
“Oh, didn’t the boy tell you? We’re trying to make the island a refuge for hypers who are willing to sublimate their craving and turn their attentions toward reconstruction. We’re also trying to make an objective study of this neural condition. We have some good scientific minds, too—Doctor Relmone of Fordham, Father Seyes of Notre Dame, two biologists from Boston College….”
“Dermies trying to cure the plague?” Paul gasped.
Mendelhaus laughed merrily. “I didn’t say cure it, son. I said ‘study it.’”
“Why?”
“To learn how to live with it, of course. It’s been pointed out by our philosophers that things become evil only through human misuse. Morphine, for instance, is a product of the Creator; it is therefore good when properly used for relief of pain. When mistreated by an addict, it becomes a monster. We bear this in mind as we study neuroderm.”
Paul snorted contemptuously. “Leprosy is evil, I suppose, because Man mistreated bacteria?”
The priest laughed again. “You’ve got me there. I’m no philosopher. But you can’t compare neuroderm with leprosy.”
Paul shuddered. “The hell I can’t! It’s worse.”
“Ah? Suppose you tell me what makes it worse? List the symptoms for me.”
Paul hesitated, listing them mentally. They were: discoloration of the skin, low fever, hallucinations, and the insane craving to infect others. They seemed bad enough, so he listed them orally. “Of course, people don’t die of it,” he added. “But which is worse, insanity or death?”
The priest turned to smile back at him through the porthole. “Would you call me insane? It’s true that victims have frequently lost their minds. But that’s not a direct result of neuroderm. Tell me, how would you feel if everyone screamed and ran when they saw you coming, or hunted you down like a criminal? How long would your sanity last?”
Paul said nothing. Perhaps the anathema was a contributing factor….
“Unless you were of very sound mind to begin with, you probably couldn’t endure it.”
“But the craving… and the hallucinations…”
“True,” murmured the priest thoughtfully. “The hallucinations. Tell me something else, if all the world was blind save one man, wouldn’t the world be inclined to call that man’s sight a hallucination? And the man with eyes might even come to agree with the world.”
Again Paul was silent. There was no arguing with Mendelhaus, who probably suffered the strange delusions and thought them real.
“And the craving,” the priest went on. “It’s true that the craving can be a rather unpleasant symptom. It’s the condition’s way of perpetuating itself. Although we’re not certain how it works, it seems able to stimulate erotic sensations in the hands. We do know the microorganisms get to the brain, but we’re not yet sure what they do there.”
“What facts have you discovered?” Paul asked cautiously.
Mendelhaus grinned at him. “Tut! I’m not going to tell you, because I don’t want to be called a ‘crazy dermie.’ You wouldn’t believe me, you see.”
Paul glanced outside and saw that they were approaching the vicinity of the fishing cottage. He pointed out the lamplit window to the driver, and the ambulance turned onto a side road. Soon they were parked behind the shanty. The priests scrambled out and carried the stretcher toward the light, while Paul skulked to a safer distance and sat down in the grass to watch. When Willie was safe in the vehicle, he meant to walk back to the bridge, swim across the gap, and return to the mainland.
Soon Mendelhaus came out and walked toward him with a solemn stride, although Paul was sitting quietly in the deepest shadow—invisible, he had thought. He arose quickly as the priest approached. Anxiety tightened his throat. “Is she… is Willie… ?”
“She’s irrational,” Mendelhaus murmured sadly. “Almost… less than sane. Some of it may be due to high fever, but…”
“Yes?”
“She tried to kill herself. With a knife. Said something about buckshot being the best way, or something…”
“Jeezis! Jeezis!” Paul sank weakly in the grass and covered his face with his hands.
“Blessed be His Holy Name,” murmured the priest by way of turning the oath aside. “She didn’t hurt herself badly, though. Wrist’s cut a little. She was too weak to do a real job of it. Father Will’s giving her a hypo and a tetanus shot and some sulfa. We’re out of penicillin.”
He stopped speaking and watched Paul’s wretchedness for a moment. “You love the girl, don’t you?”
Paul stiffened. “Are you crazy? Love a little tramp dermie? Jeezis…”
