to stare at them with glittering hate. “I loathe myself!” she hissed.
What was it Mendelhaus had said, about the dermie going insane because of being an outcast rather than be-cause of the plague? But she wouldn’t be an outcast here. Only among nonhypers, like himself…
“Get well quick, Willie,” he muttered, then hurriedly slipped out into the corridor. She called his name twice, then fell silent.
“That was quick,” murmured Mendelhaus, glancing at his pale face.
“Where can I get a car?”
The priest rubbed his chin. “I was just speaking to Brother Matthew about that. Uh… how would you like to have a small yacht instead?”
Paul caught his breath. A yacht would mean access to the seas, and to an island. A yacht was the perfect solution. He stammered gratefully.
“Good,” said Mendelhaus. “There’s a small craft in dry dock down at the basin. It was apparently left there because there weren’t any dock crews around to get her afloat again. I took the liberty of asking Brother Matthew to find some men and get her in the water.”
“Dermies?”
“Of course. The boat will be fumigated, but it isn’t really necessary. The infection dies out in a few hours. It’ll take a while, of course, to get the boat ready. Tomorrow… next day, maybe. Bottom’s cracked; it’ll need some patching.”
Paul’s smile weakened. More delay. Two more days of living in the gray shadow. Was the priest really to be trusted? Why should he even provide the boat? The jaws of an invisible trap, slowly closing.
Mendelhaus saw his doubt. “If you’d rather leave now, you’re free to do so. We’re really not going to as much trouble as it might seem. There are several yachts at the dock; Brother Matthew’s been preparing to clean one or two up for our own use. And we might as well let you have one. They’ve been deserted by their owners. And… well… you helped the girl when nobody else would have done so. Consider the boat as our way of returning the favor, eh?”
A yacht. The open sea. A semitropical island, uninhabited, on the brink of the Caribbean. And a woman, of course—chosen from among the many who would be willing to share such an escape. Peculiarly, he glanced at Willie’s door. It was too bad about her. But she’d get along okay. The yacht… if he were only certain of Mendelhaus’ intentions…
The priest began frowning at Paul’s hesitation. “Well?”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble….”
“Nonsense! You’re still afraid of us! Very well, come with me. There’s someone I want you to see.” Mendelhaus turned and started down the corridor.
Paul lingered. “Who… what—”
“Come on!” the priest snapped impatiently.
Reluctantly, Paul followed him to the stairway. They descended to a gloomy basement and entered a smelly laboratory through a double-door. Electric illumination startled him; then he heard the sound of a gasoline engine and knew that the power was generated locally.
“Germicidal lamps,” murmured the priest, following his ceilingward gaze. “Some of them are. Don’t worry about touching things. It’s sterile in here.”
“But it’s not sterile for your convenience,” growled an invisible voice. “And it won’t be sterile at all if you don’t stay out! Beat it, preacher!”
Paul looked for the source of the voice, and saw a small, short-necked man bending his shaggy gray head over a microscope at the other end of the lab. He had spoken without glancing up at his visitors.
“This is Doctor Seevers, of Princeton, son,” said the priest, unruffled by the scientist’s ire. “Claims he’s an atheist, but personally I think he’s a puritan. Doctor, this is the young man I was telling you about. Will you tell him what you know about neuroderm?”
Seevers jotted something on a pad, but kept his eye to the instrument. “Why don’t we just give it to him, and let him find out for himself?” the scientist grumbled sadistically.
“Don’t frighten him, you heretic! I brought him here to be illuminated.”
“Illuminate him yourself. I’m busy. And stop calling me names. I’m not an atheist; I’m a biochemist.”
“Yesterday you were a biophysicist. Now, entertain my young man.” Mendelhaus blocked the doorway with his body. Paul, with his jaw clenched angrily, had turned to leave.
“That’s all I can do, preacher,” Seevers grunted. “Entertain him. I know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have some observed data. I have noticed some correlations. I have seen things happen. I have traced the patterns of the happenings and found some probable common denominators. And that is all! I admit it. Why don’t you preachers admit it in your racket?”
“Seevers, as you can see, is inordinately proud of his humility—if that’s not a paradox,” the priest said to Paul.
“Now, Doctor, this young man—”
Seevers heaved a resigned sigh. His voice went sour-sweet. “All right, sit down, young man. I’ll entertain you as soon as I get through counting free nerve-endings in this piece of skin.”
Mendelhaus winked at his guest. “Seevers calls it masochism when we observe a fast-day or do penance. And there he sits, ripping off patches of his own hide to look at through his peeping glass. Masochism—heh!”
“Get out, preacher!” the scientist bellowed.
Mendelhaus laughed mockingly, nodded Paul toward a chair, and left the lab. Paul sat uneasily watching the back of Seevers’ lab jacket.
“Nice bunch of people really—these black-frocked yahoos,” Seevers murmured conversationally. “If they’d just stop trying to convert me.”
“Doctor Seevers, maybe I’d better—”
“Quiet! You bother me. And sit still, I can’t stand to have people running in and out of here. You’re in; now stay in.”
Paul fell silent. He was uncertain whether or not Seevers was a dermie. The small man’s lab jacket bunched up to hide the back of his neck, and the sleeves covered his arms. His hands were rubber-gloved, and a knot of white cord behind his head told Paul that he was wearing a gauze mask. His ears were bright pink, but their color was meaningless; it took several months for the gray coloring to seep to all areas of the skin. But Paul guessed he was a dermie—and wearing the gloves and mask to keep his equipment sterile.
He glanced idly around the large room. There were several glass cages of rats against the wall. They seemed airtight, with ducts for forced ventilation. About half the rats were afflicted with neuroderm in its various stages. A few wore shaved patches of skin where the disease had been freshly and forcibly inflicted. Paul caught the fleeting impression that several of the animals were staring at him fixedly. He shuddered and looked away.
He glanced casually at the usual maze of laboratory glassware, then turned his attention to a pair of hemispheres, suspended like a trophy on the wall. He recognized them as the twin halves of one of the meteorites, with the small jelly-pocket in the center. Beyond it hung a large picture frame containing several typewritten sheets. Another frame held four pictures of bearded scientists from another century, obviously clipped from magazine or textbook. There was nothing spectacular about the lab. It smelled of clean dust and sour things. Just a small respectable workshop.
Seevers’ chair creaked suddenly. “It checks,” he said to himself. “It checks again. Forty per cent increase.” He threw down the stub pencil and whirled suddenly. Paul saw a pudgy round face with glittering eyes. A dark splotch of neuroderm had crept up from the chin to split his mouth and cover one cheek and an eye, giving him the appearance of a black and white bulldog with a mixed color muzzle.
“It checks,” he barked at Paul, then smirked contentedly.
“What checks?”
The scientist rolled up a sleeve to display a patch of adhesive tape on a portion of his arm which had been discolored by the disease. “Here,” he grunted. “Two weeks ago this area was normal. I took a centimeter of skin from right next to this one, and counted the nerve endings. Since that time, the derm’s crept down over the area. I took another square centimeter today, and recounted. Forty per cent increase.”
Paul frowned with disbelief. It was generally known that neuroderm had a sensitizing effect, but new nerve endings… No. He didn’t believe it.
