The Coffin Cure

by Alan Edward Nourse

are,"Coffin squeaked. "Don't come a step closer. I can't see you now.I'm--I'm busy, I've got work that has to be done--"

  "You're telling _me_," growled Phillip. He motioned Jake into the officeand locked the door carefully. Then he turned to Coffin. "When did itstart for you?"

  Coffin was trembling. "Right after supper last night. I thought I wasgoing to suffocate. Got up and walked the streets all night. My God,what a stench!"

  "Jake?"

  Dr. Miles shook his head. "Sometime this morning, I don't know when. Iwoke up with it."

  "That's when it hit me," said Phillip.

  "But I don't understand," Coffin howled. "Nobody else seems to noticeanything--"

  "Yet," said Phillip, "we were the first three to take the Coffin Cure,remember? You, and me and Jake. Two months ago."

  Coffin's forehead was beaded with sweat. He stared at the two men ingrowing horror. "_But what about the others?_" he whispered.

  "I think," said Phillip, "that we'd better find something spectacular todo in a mighty big hurry. That's what I think."

  * * * * *

  Jake Miles said, "The most important thing right now is secrecy. Wemustn't let a word get out, not until we're absolutely certain."

  "But what's _happened_?" Coffin cried. "These foul smells, everywhere.You, Phillip, you had a cigarette this morning. I can smell it clearover here, and it's bringing tears to my eyes. And if I didn't knowbetter I'd swear neither of you had had a bath in a week. Every odor intown has suddenly turned foul--"

  "_Magnified_, you mean," said Jake. "Perfume still smells sweet--there'sjust too much of it. The same with cinnamon; I tried it. Cried for halfan hour, but it still smelled like cinnamon. No, I don't think the_smells_ have changed any."

  "But what, then?"

  "Our noses have changed, obviously." Jake paced the floor in excitement."Look at our dogs! They've never had colds--and they practically live bytheir noses. Other animals--all dependent on their senses of smell forsurvival--and none of them ever have anything even vaguely reminiscentof a common cold. The multicentric virus hits primates only--_and itreaches its fullest parasitic powers in man alone_!"

  Coffin shook his head miserably. "But why this horrible stench all of asudden? I haven't had a cold in weeks--"

  "Of course not! That's just what I'm trying to say," Jake cried. "Look,why do we have any sense of smell at all? Because we have tiny olfactorynerve endings buried in the mucous membrane of our noses and throats.But we have always had the virus living there, too, colds or no colds,throughout our entire lifetime. It's _always_ been there, anchored inthe same cells, parasitizing the same sensitive tissues that carry ourolfactory nerve endings, numbing them and crippling them, making thempractically useless as sensory organs. No wonder we never smelledanything before! Those poor little nerve endings never had a chance!"

  "Until we came along in our shining armor and destroyed the virus," saidPhillip.

  "Oh, we didn't destroy it. We merely stripped it of a very slipperyprotective mechanism against normal body defences." Jake perched on theedge of the desk, his dark face intense. "These two months since we hadour shots have witnessed a battle to the death between our bodies andthe virus. With the help of the vaccine, our bodies have won, that'sall--stripped away the last vestiges of an invader that has been almosta part of our normal physiology since the beginning of time. And now forthe first time those crippled little nerve endings are just beginning tofunction."

  "God help us," Coffin groaned. "You think it'll get worse?"

  "And worse. And still worse," said Jake.

  "I wonder," said Phillip slowly, "what the anthropologists will say."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Maybe it was just a single mutation somewhere back there. Just a tinychange of cell structure or metabolism that left one line of primatesvulnerable to an invader no other would harbor. Why else should man havebegun to flower and blossom intellectually--grow to depend so much onhis brains instead of his brawn that he could rise above all others?What better reason than because somewhere along the line in the world offang and claw _he suddenly lost his sense of smell_?"

  They stared at each other. "Well, he's got it back again now," Coffinwailed, "and he's not going to like it a bit."

  "No, he surely isn't," Jake agreed. "He's going to start looking veryquickly for someone to blame, I think."

  They both looked at Coffin.

  "Now don't be ridiculous, boys," said Coffin, turning white. "We're inthis together. Phillip, it was your idea in the first place--you said soyourself! You can't leave me now--"

  The telephone jangled. They heard the frightened voice of the secretaryclear across the room. "Dr. Coffin? There was a student on the line justa moment ago. He--he said he was coming up to see you. Now, he said, notlater."

  "I'm busy," Coffin sputtered. "I can't see anyone. And I can't take anycalls."

  "But he's already on his way up," the girl burst out. "He was sayingsomething about tearing you apart with his bare hands."

  Coffin slammed down the receiver. His face was the color of lead."They'll crucify me!" he sobbed. "Jake--Phillip--you've got to help me."

  Phillip sighed and unlocked the door. "Send a girl down to the freezerand have her bring up all the live cold virus she can find. Get us someinoculated monkeys and a few dozen dogs." He turned to Coffin. "Andstop sniveling. You're the big publicity man around here; you're goingto handle the screaming masses, whether you like it or not."

  "But what are you going to do?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea," said Phillip, "but whatever I do is goingto cost you your shirt. We're going to find out how to catch cold againif we have to die."

  * * * * *

  It was an admirable struggle, and a futile one. They sprayed their nosesand throats with enough pure culture of virulent live virus to havecondemned an ordinary man to a lifetime of sneezing, watery-eyed misery.They didn't develop a sniffle among them. They mixed six differentstrains of virus and gargled the extract, spraying themselves and everyinoculated monkey they could get their hands on with the vile-smellingstuff. Not a sneeze. They injected it hypodermically, intradermally,subcutaneously, intramuscularly, and intravenously. They drank it. Theybathed in the stuff.

  But they didn't catch a cold.

  "Maybe it's the wrong approach," Jake said one morning. "Our bodydefenses are keyed up to top performance right now. Maybe if we breakthem down we can get somewhere."

  They plunged down that alley with grim abandon. They starved themselves.They forced themselves to stay awake for days on end, until exhaustionforced their eyes closed in spite of all they could do. They carefullydevised vitamin-free, protein-free, mineral-free diets that tasted likelibrary paste and smelled worse. They wore wet clothes and sopping shoesto work, turned off the heat and threw windows open to the raw winterair. Then they resprayed themselves with the live cold virus and waitedreverently for the sneezing to begin.

  It didn't. They stared at each other in gathering gloom. They'd neverfelt better in their lives.

  Except for the smells, of course. They'd hoped that they might,presently, get used to them. They didn't. Every day it grew a littleworse. They began smelling smells they never dreamed existed--noxioussmells, cloying smells, smells that drove them gagging to the sinks.Their nose-plugs were rapidly losing their effectiveness. Mealtimes werenightmarish ordeals; they lost weight with alarming speed.

  But they didn't catch cold.

  "_I_ think you should all be locked up," Ellie Dawson said severely asshe dragged her husband, blue-faced and shivering, out of an icy showerone bitter morning. "You've lost your wits. You need to be protectedagainst yourselves, that's what you need."

  "You don't understand," Phillip moaned. "We've _got_ to catch cold."

  "Why?" Ellie snapped angrily. "Suppose you don't--what's going tohappen?"

  "We had three hundred students march on the laboratory today," Phillipsaid patiently. "The smells
were driving them crazy, they said. Theycouldn't even bear to be close to their best friends. They wantedsomething done about it, or else they wanted blood. Tomorrow we'll havethem back and three hundred more. And they were just the pilot study!What's going to happen when fifteen million people find their nosesgoing bad on them?" He