surface might be. Almost anything I did that would alter it might have caused trouble. Fortunately, though, it passed light readily. So I concentrated on its optical effects. I did an extremely minute topological light-mapping of its entire surface. With that and its weight, I developed some ideas as to its composition. Now, although I was not especially concerned at the time with anything other than duplicating it, it did strike me that the thing seemed like a mass of strangely crystallized protein-'
'I'll be damned,' I said. 'But ... '
I looked at Ragma.
'Organic, all right,' he said. 'Paul did not really discover anything new in that, as this fact had been known for some time elsewhere. However, what nobody had realized was that it was still living, somehow. It was simply dormant.'
'Living? Crystallized? You make it sound like a massive virus.'
'I suppose that I do. But viruses are not noted for their intelligence, and that thing-in its own way-is intelligent.'
'I do see what you are leading up to, of course,' I said. 'What do I do now? Reason with it? Or take two aspirins and go to bed?'
'Neither. I am going to have to speak for Doctor M'mrm'mirr now, as he is occupied and you deserve an immediate explanation as to what he discovered. The first time that he attempted to penetrate your memories, he was thrown into a state of shock by an encounter with a totally unexpected form of consciousness coexistent with your own. In the course of his practice he has treated representatives of just about every known race in the galaxy, but he never encountered anything like this before. He said that it was something unnatural.'
'Unnatural? In what way?'
'In a strictly technical fashion. He believes it to be an artificial intelligence, a synthetic being. Such things have been produced by a number of our contemporaries, but all of them are fairly simple compared to this.'
'What functions does mine perform?'
'We do not know. The second time that M'mrm'mirr entered your mind, he was braced for the encounter. The creature is itself mildly telepathic, you see. Enough to translate for you back aboard our ship, under ideal conditions. I am told that this can provide additional complications, and apparently it did. However, he succeeded in subduing it and learned sufficient of its nature in the process so that we have an idea as to how to deal with it. He then went on to explore some of your memories touching on the phenomenon, which helped us piece together our line of attack. He is now occupied in holding the creature in a form of mental stasis until things are ready.'
'Things? Ready? What things? How?'
'We should be hearing shortly. It is all tied in, though, with the nature of the thing. In light of M'mrm'mirr's findings, Paul has worked out some ideas as to what happened and what can be done about it.'
Paul took the pause that followed as a cue and said, 'Yes. Picture it this way: You have a synthetic life form that can apparently be switched on and off by means of isometric reversals. Its ‘on' condition, characterized by life functions, is a product of left-handedness. This, as you know, is the normal form amino acids take here on Earth, also; L-amino acids, as they are called. Turn them into their stereoisomer-D-amino acids-and in the case of our specimen, it goes into the ‘off' position. Now, when I examined the star-stone, the optical effects indicated the dextral situation. ‘Off.' All right. I was not thinking along these lines, but now we know a lot more. We know you were drinking the night you got blood on it. We know that grain alcohol has a symmetrical molecule and that if it could react with the specimen in one isometric state it might do it in the other also. Either it is a flaw in its design or an intentionally engineered capability. This we do not know. M'mrm'mirr learned that it did its best communicating with you, however, in the presence of this molecule-so it does seem to stimulate conversation. Whatever, you excited it sufficiently to enable it to partially activate itself and enter your system by way of the incision in your hand. After this exertion, it lay dormant for a long while, as you are not much of a drinker. Every now and then it gained a little stimulation, though, and tried to contact you via one sensory route or another. The medication Ragma administered to you after Australia revived it somewhat as it involved some ethyl alcohol. The night you were drinking with Hal, however, was the breakthrough. If it could persuade you to reverse yourself by means of the Rhennius machine, you would of course be backward, but it would be switched on. Which is what happened. So it is functioning normally at present, in you, but your health is suffering, according to Ragma. What we have to do now is get it out of you and rereverse you.'
'Can you?'
'We think so.'
'But you still have no idea what it does?'
'It is a very sophisticated living machine of unknown function that conned you into placing yourself in a dangerous situation. Also, it displays a predilection for mathematics.'
'Some sort of computer, then?'
'M'mrm'mlrr does not think so. He believes it to be a secondary function.'
'I wonder why it didn't get back in touch with me after it was switched on?'
'There was still the barrier.'
'What barrier?'
'The matter of stereoisomers. Only this time it was you who were reversed. Then, too, it had gotten what it wanted.'
'Give it its due,' said Ragma. 'It did do one thing for him.'
'What was that?' I asked.
'I did not do anything for you back at the hospital,' he said. 'When I removed the dressing and performed a number of tests, I found that you were already completely healed. Your parasite apparently took care of it.'
'Then it seems as if he is trying to be a benign little guy.'
'Well, if anything should happen to you ... '
'Granted, granted. But what about the side effects of the reversal on me?'
'I am not at all certain that he realizes what it could eventually lead to.'
'It seems strange that if he is intelligent and he and M'mrm'mlrr were in contact he did not offer any explanation as to what has been going on.'
'There was small time for amenities,' Ragma said. 'The doctor had to act quickly to freeze him.'
'More of his assault philosophy? It hardly seems fair-'
The telephone rang. Paul answered it, and all of his responses were monosyllables. It lasted perhaps half a minute and then he hung up and turned to Ragma.
'Ready,' he said.
'All right,' Ragma replied.
'What is ready?' I asked.
'That was Ted,' Paul told me. 'He is across the street. He had to get authorization-and the key-to open up the place. We are all going over now.'
'To rereverse me?'
'Right,' said Ragma.
'Do you know how to do it?' I asked. 'That machine has several settings. I tested its program once, and I have a great respect for the variations it can toss off.'
'Charv will be meeting us there,' he replied, 'and he is bringing along a copy of the operator's manual.'
Paul moved off into the bedroom, returned pushing a padded cart.
'Give me a hand with the leafy bloke, will you, Fred?' he said.
'Sure.'
It was with very mixed feelings that I moved forward and did so, taking care the while not to get any more of the slop on me.
As we pushed Doctor M'mrm'mlrr through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk, the reflection of a neon sign seemed, in the after-image of a blinking, to read DO YOU SMELL ME DED?
'Yes,' I muttered under my breath. 'Tell me what to do.'
'Our Snark is a Boojum,' came a whisper as we were crossing the street.
When I looked around, of course, there was no one there.
