Bug-Eyed Monsters

by Bill Pronzini

  Was she? Did he find that out only now that he needed her? Her nostrils flared and she said flatly, “I am a biologist.”

  He said, “Yes, I know that, but I mean your particular specialty is growth. Didn’t you once tell me you had done work on growth?”

  “You might call it that. I’ve had twenty papers published on the relationship of nucleic acid ‘fine structure’ and embryonic development on my Cancer Society grant.”

  “Good. I should have thought of that.” He was choked with a new excitement. “Tell me, Rose—Look, I’m sorry if I lost my temper with you a moment ago. You’d be as competent as anyone to understand the direction of their researches if you read about it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Fairly competent, yes.”

  “Then tell me how they think the disease is spread. The details, I mean.”

  “Oh, now look, that’s asking a little too much. I spent a few hours in the Academy, that’s all. I’d need much more time than that to be able to answer your question.”

  “An intelligent guess, at least. You can’t imagine how important it is.”

  She said, doubtfully, “Of course, ‘Studies on Inhibition’ is a major treatise in the field. It would summarize all of the available research data.”

  “Yes? And how recent is it?”

  “It’s one of those periodic things. The last volume is about a year old.”

  “Does it have any account of his work in it?” His finger jabbed in the direction of Harg Tholan’s bedroom.

  “More than anyone else’s. He’s an outstanding worker in the field. I looked over his papers especially.”

  “And what are his theories about the origin of the disease? Try to remember, Rose.”

  She shook her head at him. “I could swear he blames Earth, but he admits they know nothing about how the disease is spread. I could swear to that, too.”

  He stood stiffly before her. His strong hands were clenched into fists as his side and his words were scarcely more than a mutter. “It could be a matter of complete overestimation. Who knows—”

  He whirled away. “I’ll find out about this right now, Rose. Thank you for your help.”

  She ran after him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Ask him a few questions.” He was rummaging through the drawers of his desk and now his right hand withdrew. It held a needle-gun.

  She cried, “No, Drake!”

  He shook her off roughly, and turned down the corridor toward the Hawkinsite’s bedroom.

  Drake threw the door open and entered. Rose was at his heels, still trying to grasp his arm, but now she stopped and looked at Harg Tholan.

  The Hawkinsite was standing there motionless, eyes unfocused, his four standing limbs sprawled out in four directions as far as they would go. Rose felt ashamed of intruding, as though she were violating an intimate rite. But Drake, apparently unconcerned, walked to within four feet of the creature and stood there. They were face to face,

  Drake holding the needle-gun easily at a level of about the center of the Hawkinsite’s torso.

  Drake said, “Now keep quiet. He’ll gradually become aware of me.”

  “How do you know?”

  The answer was flat. “I know. Not get out of here.”

  But she did not move and Drake was too absorbed to pay her further attention.

  Portions of the skin on the Hawkinsite’s face were beginning to quiver slightly. It was rather repulsive and Rose found herself preferring not to watch.

  Drake said suddenly, “That’s about all, Dr. Tholan. Don’t throw in connection with any of the limbs. Your sense organs and voice box will be quite enough.”

  The Hawkinsite’s voice was dim. “Why do you invade my disconnection chamber?” Then, more strongly, “and why are you armed?”

  His head wobbled slightly atop a still frozen torso. He had, apparently, followed Drake’s suggestion against limb connection. Rose wondered how Drake knew such partial reconnection to be possible. She herself had not known of it.

  The Hawkinsite spoke again. “What do you want?”

  And this time Drake answered. He said, “The answer to certain questions.”

  “With a gun in your hand? I would not humor your discourtesy so far.”

  “You would not merely be humoring me. You might be saving your own life.”

  “That would be a matter of considerable indifference to me, under the circumstances. I am sorry, Mr. Smollett, that the duties toward a guest are so badly understood on Earth.”

  “You are no guest of mine, Dr. Tholan,” said Drake.

  “You entered my house on false pretenses. You had some reason for it, some way you had planned of using me to further your own purposes. I have no compunction in reversing the process.”

  “You had better shoot. It will save time.”

  “You are convinced that you will answer no questions? That, in itself, is suspicious. It seems that you consider certain answers to be more important than your life.”

  “I consider the principles of courtesy to be very important. You, as an Earthman, may not understand.”

  “Perhaps not. But I, as an Earthman, understand one thing.” Drake had jumped forward, faster than Rose could cry out, faster than the Hawkinsite could connect his limbs. When he sprang backward, the flexible hose of Harg Tholan’s cyanide cylinder was in his hand. At the corner of the Hawkinsite’s wide mouth, where the hose had once been affixed, a droplet of colorless liquid oozed sluggishly from a break in the rough skin, and slowly solidified into a brown jellylike globule, as it oxidized.

  Drake yanked at the hose and the cylinder jerked free. He plunged home the knob that controlled the needle valve at the head of the cylinder and the small hissing ceased.

  “I doubt,” said Drake, “that enough will have escaped to endanger us. I hope, however, that you realize what will happen to you now, if you do not answer the questions I am going to ask you—and answer them in such a way that I am convinced you are being truthful.”

  “Give me back my cylinder,” said the Hawkinsite, slowly. “If not, it will be necessary for me to attack you and then it will be necessary for you to kill me.”

  Drake stepped back. “Not at all. Attack me and I shoot your legs from under you. You will lose them; all four, if necessary, but you will still live, in a horrible way. You will live to die of cyanide lack. It would be a most uncomfortable death. I am only an Earthman and I can’t appreciate its true horrors, but you can, can’t you?”

  The Hawkinsite’s mouth was open and something within quivered yellow-green. Rose wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream, Give him back the cylinder, Drake! But nothing would come. She couldn’t even turn her head.

  Drake said, “You have about an hour, I think, before the effects are irreversible. Talk quickly, Dr. Tholan, and you will have your cylinder back.”

  “And after that—” said the Hawkinsite.

  “After that, what does it matter to you? Even if I kill you then, it will be a clean death; not cyanide lack.”

  Something seemed to pass out of the Hawkinsite. His voice grew guttural and his words blurred as though he no longer had the energy to keep his English perfect. He said, “What are your questions?” and as he spoke, his eyes followed the cylinder in Drake’s hand.

  Drake swung it deliberately, tantalizingly, and the creature’s eyes followed—followed—

  Drake said, “What are your theories concerning the Inhibition Death? Why did you really come to Earth? What is your interest in the Missing Persons Bureau?”

  Rose found herself waiting in breathless anxiety. These were the questions she would like to have asked, too. Not in this manner, perhaps, but in Drake’s job, kindness and humanity had to take second place to necessity.

  She repeated that to herself several times in an effort to counteract the fact that she found herself loathing Drake for what he was doing to Dr. Tholan.

  The Hawkinsite said, “The proper answer would take more than the hour I have left
me. You have bitterly shamed me by forcing me to talk under duress. On my own planet, you could not have done so under any circumstances. It is only here, on this revolting planet, that I can be deprived of cyanide.”

  “You are wasting your hour, Dr. Tholan.”

  “I would have told you this eventually, Mr. Smollett. I needed your help. It is why I came here.”

  “You are still not answering my questions.”

  “I will answer them now. For years, in addition to my regular scientific work, I have been privately investigating the cells of my patients suffering from Inhibition Death. I have been forced to use the utmost secrecy and to work without assistance, since the methods I used to investigate the bodies of my patients were frowned upon by my people. Your society would have similar feelings against human vivisection, for instance. For this reason, I could not present the results I obtained to my fellow physicians until I had verified my theories here on Earth.”

  “What were your theories?” demanded Drake. The feverishness had returned to his eyes.

  “It became more and more obvious to me as I proceeded with my studies that the entire direction of research into the Inhibition Death was wrong. The answer was neither bacterial nor viral.”

  Rose interrupted, “Surely, Dr. Tholan, it isn’t psychosomatic.”

  A thin, gray, translucent film had passed over the Hawkinsite’s eyes. He no longer looked at them. He said, “No, Mrs. Smollett, it is not psychosomatic. It is a true infection, but more subtle than could be expected of either bacteria or viruses. I worked with Inhibition Death patients of other races than my own, and the conclusion was eventually forced upon me. There is a whole variety of infection never yet suspected by the medical science of any of the planets.”

  Rose said, faintly, “This is wild, impossible. You must be mistaken, Dr. Tholan.”

  “I am not mistaken. Until I came to Earth, I thought I might be. But my stay at the Institute, my researches at the Missing Persons Bureau have convinced me that this is not so. What is so impossible about the concept of a supremely subtle, yet unsuspected class of infections? The very subtlety would militate against their discovery. In your history and in ours, there were thousands of years in which the causes of bacterial infections were unknown. And when tools were developed capable of studying bacteria, viruses remained unknown for generations.

  “Is it impossible to proceed a step further? Bacteria, by and large, are extracellular creatures. They compete with the cells of the body for foodstuffs, sometimes too successfully, and they release their waste products, or toxins, into the bloodstream. The virus goes a step further. It lives within the cell, utilizing cellular machinery for its own purposes. You know all this, Mrs. Smollett, so I need not elaborate. Perhaps your husband knows it as well.”

  “Go on,” said Drake.

  “Proceed one more stage, then. Imagine a parasite that lives not only inside the cell, but inside the chromosomes of the cell. In other words, a parasite that takes its place along with the genes, so that it is something we might call a pseudo-gene. It would have a hand in the manufacture of enzymes, which is the primary function of genes, and in that way a very firm finger in the biochemistry of the terrestrial organism.”

  Rose said, “Why particularly the terrestrial?”

  “Have you not surmised that the pseudo-gene I speak of is a native of Earth? Terrestrial beings from the beginning have lived with it, have adapted to it, are unconscious of it. These pseudo-genes feed on the organization of the body.

  Bacteria feed on the foodstuffs, viruses on the cells, pseudogenes on the economy of the cellular macrostructure as a whole through their control of the body’s biochemistry. It is why the higher species of terrestrial animals, including man, do not grow after maturity, and, eventually, die what is called natural death. It is the inevitable end result of this universal parasitic infestation.”

  “A disease of the soul—” Rose said, wistfully.

  The Hawkinsite said, “What is the soul?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Drake, abruptly, “do not get mystical, Rose!”

  She flushed. “I’m sorry. Go on, Dr. Tholan.”

  “As a pseudo-gene, it is perfectly obvious how the universal disease is transmitted. It is placed along with the true genes in every ovum or spermatazoon formed by the infected organism. Every organism is already infected at the moment of conception. But there is another form of transmission—there must be to account for all the facts. Chemically, genes and viruses are similar, since both are nuclear proteins. A pseudo-gene can, therefore, exist independently of the chromosomes.

  “Perhaps it infects a virus, or perhaps it forms a viruslike body itself at some stage of its development. As such, it can be transmitted in the ordinary fashion of other viral infections—by contact, by air, through waste materials and so on. Naturally, Earthmen have nothing to fear from such contact; they are already infected. On Earth, such a process is purely vestigial, dating back to the days when infections could yet be made. It is different on the extraterrestrial worlds, however.”

  “I see,” said Rose.

  “I don’t,” objected Drake, bluntly.

  The Hawkinsite sighed. “We of the other worlds have not lived with these parasites for millions of years, as man and his ancestors had. We have not adapted ourselves to it. Our weak strains have not been killed off gradually through hundreds of generations until only the resistants were left. So, where Earthmen could survive the infection for decades with little harm, we others, once infected by the viral stage of the disease, die a quick death within a year.”

  Rose said, “And is that why the incidence has increased since interstellar travel between Earth and the other planets began?”

  “Yes. There were infections previously. It has long been suspected that bacterial spores and virus molecules can drift off into space and through it. Absolute zero will not kill them, but rather keep them alive indefinitely. Statistically, a certain percentage of them will reach other planets. Before space travel there were cases which could be accounted for, perhaps, by such a mechanism. Since then, it has increased ten thousand times and more.”

  For a moment there was silence, and then the Hawkinsite said with a sudden access of energy, “Give me back my cylinder. You have your answer.”

  Drake said, coolly, “What about the Missing Persons Bureau?” He was swinging the cylinder again; but now the Hawkinsite did not follow its movements. The gray translucent film on his eyes had deepened and Rose wondered whether that was simply an expression of weariness or an example of the changes induced by cyanide lack.

  The Hawkinsite said, “As we are not well adapted to the pseudo-genes that infest man, neither are they well adapted to us. It can live on us, but it cannot reproduce with ourselves alone as the source of its life. Infections of Inhibition Death before the advent of space travel set off tiny epidemics that would last through ten or twenty transfers, growing gradually milder, until it died out altogether. Now, the disease transfers indefinitely, getting milder where thorough quarantines are imposed and then, suddenly and erratically, growing completely virulent again.”

  Rose looked at him with a growing horror. “What are you implying, Dr. Tholan?”

  He said, “The Earthman remains the prime host for the parasite. An Earthman may infect one of us if he remains among us. But the pseudo-gene, once located within our cells, cannot maintain its vigor indefinitely. Sooner or later, within twenty infections, perhaps, it must somehow return to an Earthman, if it expects to continue reproduction. Before interstellar travel this was possible only by returning through space, which was so unlikely as to be considered zero. Now—”

  Rose said faintly, “The missing persons.”

  “Yes. They are the intermediate hosts. Almost all the young men who disappeared in the last decade were space-travelers. They had been on other inhabited planets at least once in their lives. Once the period of incubation within the human being has transpired, they return to an outer plan
et. He disappears, as far as Earth is concerned.”

  “But this is impossible,” insisted Rose. “What you say implies that the pseudo-gene can control the actions of its host! This cannot be!”

  “Why not? They control the biochemistry, at least in part, by their very role as pseudo-genes. There is no intelligence, or even instinct, behind their control. It is purely chemical. If adrenalin is injected into your bloodstream, there is no imposition of a superior intelligence that makes your heart double its rate, your breathing quicken, your clotting time decrease, your blood vessels dilate—purely chemical.

  “—But I am quite ill now and cannot speak much longer. I have only this to say. In this pseudo-gene, your people and mine have a common enemy. Earthmen, too, need not die involuntarily. I thought that perhaps if I found myself unable to return to my own world with my information, due to my own infection, perhaps, I might bring it to the authorities on Earth, and ask their help in stamping out this menace. Imagine my pleasure when I found that the husband of one of the biologists at the Institute was a member of one of Earth’s most important investigating bodies. Naturally, I did what I could to be a guest at his home in order that I might deal with him privately; convince him of the terrible truth; utilize his position to help in the attack on the parasites.

  “This is, of course, now impossible. I cannot blame you too far. As Earthmen, you cannot be expected to understand thoroughly the psychology of my people. Nevertheless, you must understand this. I can have no further dealing with either of you. I could not even bear to remain any longer on Earth.”

  Drake said, “Then you, alone, of all your people have any knowledge of this theory of yours.”

  “I alone.”

  Drake held out the cylinder. “Your cyanide, Dr. Tholan.”

  The Hawkinsite groped for it eagerly. His supple fingers manipulated the hose and the needle valve with the utmost delicacy. In the space of ten seconds, he had it in place and was inhaling the gas in huge breaths. His eyes were growing clear and transparent.