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MATE IN TWO MOVES
By WINSTON MARKS
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science FictionMay 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _Murt's Virus was catastrophically lethal, but it killed in away no disease had ever thought of--it loved its victims to death!_]
Love came somewhat late to Dr. Sylvester Murt. In fact, it took theepidemic of 1961 to break down his resistance. A great many people fellin love that year--just about every other person you talked to--so noone thought much about Dr. Murt's particular distress, except a fellowvictim who was directly involved in this case.
High Dawn Hospital, where 38-year-old Dr. Murt was resident pathologist,was not the first medical institution to take note of the "plague." Thesymptoms first came to the attention of the general practitioners, thento the little clinics where the G. P.s sent their patients. But longbefore anything medical was done about it, the plague was sweeping Northand South America and infiltrating every continent and island in theworld.
Murt's assistant, Dr. Phyllis Sutton, spotted the first irregularity inthe _Times_ one morning and mentioned it to him. They were having coffeein Murt's private office-lab, after completing reports on two rushbiopsies.
She looked up from the editorial page and remarked, "You know, someoneshould do a research on the pathology of pantie raids."
* * * * *
Murt spooned sugar into his mug of coffee and stared at her. In theirsix months' association, it was the first facetious remark she had madein his presence. To this moment, he had held an increasing regard forher quiet efficiency, sobriety, professional dignity and decorum. True,she wore her white coat more tightly belted than was necessary and,likewise, she refused to wear the very low hospital heels that thickenedfeminine ankles. But she wore a minimum of come-hither in both hercosmetic and personality makeup. This startling remark, then, was mostunexpected.
"Pantie raids?" he inquired. "Whatever would justify an inquiry intosuch a patently behavioristic problem?"
"The epidemic nature and its increasing virulence," she replied soberly."This spring, the thing has gotten out of hand, according to thiseditorial. A harmless tradition at a few of the more uninhibitedcampuses has turned into a national collegiate phenomenon. And nowsecondary effects are turning up. Instructors say that intramuralromance is turning the halls of ivy into amatory rendezvous."
Murt sipped his coffee and said, "Be thankful you aren't a psychiatrist.Bacterial mutations are enough of a problem, without ponderingunpredictable emotional disturbances."
His assistant pursued it further. "It says the classrooms are emptyinginto the marriage bureaus, and graduation exercises this year will be amockery if something isn't done. What's more, statistics show astartling increase in marriages at the high school level."
Murt shrugged broad shoulders that were slightly bent from long hoursover a microscope. "Then be thankful you aren't an overworkedobstetrician," he offered as an amendment.
She glanced up from the paper, with annoyance showing in her dark,well-spaced eyes. "Is it of no interest to you that several hundredthousand youngsters are leaving high school and college prematurelybecause they can't control their glands?"
"Be glad, then," Murt said coldly, "that you aren't anendocrinologist--now drink your coffee. I hear the microtome working.We'll have some business in a minute."
Dr. Phyllis Sutton rustled the pages of the _Times_ together, folded itup and threw it at the wastebasket with more vigor than was necessary.The subject was momentarily closed.
* * * * *
His staff position at High Dawn paid less, but the life suited Dr. Murtbetter than the hectic, though lucrative, private practices of many ofhis colleagues. He arrived at the hospital early, seven o'clock eachday, to be on hand for quick tissue examinations during the morningoperations. By ten, the biopsies were usually out of the way, and hespent the rest of the morning and early afternoon checking material fromthe bacteriology section and studying post-operative dissections oftumorous tissues and organs removed in surgery.
It was engrossing, important work, and it could be accomplished in anormal work-day, leaving the pathologist considerable leisure to study,read and relax. Shortly after the pantie-raid conversation with PhyllisSutton, he found the evening paper attracting more than his usual quickperusal.
This emotional fuss in the young human animal was beginning to preoccupythe newspaper world. Writers were raising their eyebrows and a new cropof metaphors at the statistics, which they described variously asalarming, encouraging, disheartening, provocative, distressing, romanticor revolting, depending upon the mood and point of view.
As June, the traditional mating month, wore into July, nationalstatistics were assembled to reveal that marriages were occurring atalmost double the highest previous rate, that the trend was acceleratingrather than diminishing.
Jewelers and wholesale diamond merchants chalked up fabulous increasesin the sale of engagement and wedding settings. Clergymen and qualifiedpublic officials were swamped with requests for religious and civilmarriage ceremonies.
Parks, beaches and drive-in theaters were jammed with mooning and/orhoneymooning couples, and amusement parks began expanding theirover-patronized tunnel-of-love facilities.
The boom in houses, furniture, appliances and TV was on, and last year'sglut of consumer goods for the home was rapidly turning into a shortage.
All was not good news, however. The divorce courts reported theircalendars stacked months ahead of time, and an increasing number oflurid headlines were devoted to the love-triangular troubles of therich, famous and notorious. Love-nest exposes and bigamous marriagesrocketed in number.
The whole world, adolescent and adult, was falling in love, with theinevitable unrequited infatuations, the jealousies, infidelities and thebitter-sweetness of wholesale, illicit, impossible love situations inwhich vulnerable people found themselves increasing astronomically.
Writers of popular newspaper psychology columns attributed the rampagingemotional fire to everything from mass-hysteria, caused by sunspots, tothe paternalism of a government that gave increased income-taxdeductions to married people.
* * * * *
Dr. Murt's growing interest was not entirely academic. His bachelorhoodwas no accident of fate, but rather a carefully contrived independence,for which he paid the price of eternal vigilance. As the world supply ofeligible bachelors diminished sharply, his wariness increased, and hebecame more and more curt with nurses and female technicians at thehospital.
He revealed the depth of his leeriness one afternoon at the scrub-upsink, where he and his assistant were washing after a messy dissection.Phyllis Sutton remarked, "Holly, down in Personnel, showed me atabulation she ran off for her own curiosity today, Doctor. Do yourealize that in this whole hospital there are only _eight_ unmarriedfemale employees?"
Murt threw water droplets from his bare arms and muttered, "Yes, andevery one of them's giving me the eye--to say nothing of half themarried ones."
His aide dried her long arms and slender hands and looked at him with acrooked smile. "Not to underestimate your good looks, Doctor, but I amone of the unmarried females. I trust I'm not giving you too muchtrouble?"
He looked up, startled. "Yes--no, _no_--of course not. I'm referring tothe nurses and the technicians. What's got into them? The whole lotseems to be on the make!"
"I suppose this ties in somehow with your pantie-raid theory."
"Well, what do _you_ think?"
"I don't think. I just dodge. You'd do well to do the same," Murt toldher, putting on his jacket and adjusting his tie.
She sat down in his oak swivel-chair and crossed her slender ankles."Are you aware of the problem they have downstairs in the out-patientclinic?"
"Hadn't heard," Murt said.
* * * * *
She removed a file from her purse and touched up her short nails. "Theoutlying clinics are sending their overflow to us. They can't seem todiagnose the odd symptoms they're getting."
"I had noticed the large number of negative test results coming out ofthe lab," Murt acknowledged. "Haven't followed any of them through,though."
"I have," Phyllis said with a little frown. "Seems to be a psychosomaticnightmare down there."
"What are the symptoms?"
"Mostly neurotic," she said. "Listlessness, loss of appetite,palpitations, cold sweats and absent-mindedness."
"Why don't they go to the psychiatric clinics?"
"Overloaded. They're sending patients here."
"What age groups?"
"From puberty to senility. I'd like your permission to do a littlespecial work on blood samples."
"Another theory?" he asked caustically.
"Yes. Will you give me your permission to test it?"
Murt adjusted his Panama straw in the mirror and noticed that thenostrils of his straight nose were flared for some reason. "Your time isyour own after three P. M. every day. If you want to take time out fromyour thesis research, that's your business."
He crossed to the door and was opening it when he became aware that hehad had no answer. He looked back at the profile of his assistant'sbody, which was now stretched out full length, suspended at threepoints--her higher-than-practical heels on the linoleum tile, her spineand curved hips using only an inch of the chair's edge, and her headtilted over the chair's back. She inhaled from a king-size filter-tipcigarette and blew a feather of smoke at the ceiling.
"_Yuh!_" she said finally. Her flat abdomen jumped at the exhaledsyllable, and so did her generous breasts under the soft emerald-greenstreet dress.
"Good _night_!" Murt closed the door behind him quickly and became awareof a sharp stab of what he defined as pure rut--the first he hadsuffered in fifteen years.
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