The Haploids

by Jerry Sohl

  But this time he was a little puzzled about it. Ordinarily the feeling was confined to newspaper stories he was doing. For example, there had been the time the whole office was assigned to offer suggestions on just how a series on Dutch McCoy might be done. Dutch was Union City's gambling czar.

  The office wanted a volunteer who had an idea. The same feeling of elation had come when Travis felt he had the right idea.

  "I'll take that assignment on Dutch," Travis said to Cline.

  "You'll take it!" Cline bellowed. "Who the hell says you can have it? You gotta have an idea. I don't want any of my boys knocked off just for a story."

  "I think I've got an idea."

  "It had better be good," Cline rasped. "What is it?"

  "Let Dutch write the story. Let him handle the pictures, too."

  Cline's heavy fist smacked down on the universal desk. Nobody paid any attention. There was a worn spot where the fist had hit the desk before.

  "Let Dutch write your obituary you mean! Of all the simple, lame-brain—"

  "I haven't all day, Cline," Travis said. "I got stories to turn in, remember? I'm not interested in your opinions regarding my wit. All I want to know is when I start and when you want it."

  Being on a newspaper for ten years, as long as the city editor himself, gives a man a certain right to use applied psychology—or at least on a man like Cline, who needed to be needled occasionally.

  City Editor Cline exhaled loud and long.

  "All right," he said. "Write your own ticket and let us know where we can pick up the remains."

  That's when the elation struck him full force in the stomach and spread through every inch of his body. He laughed now that he recalled how simple it had been.

  "Well, well, if it ain't Phillip Gibbs," Dutch McCoy said. "What's the Nose nosing now? Or doesn't the Nose know? And speaking of noses it looks like you've kept yours pretty clean, kid."

  "I aim to, Dutch," Travis said, sitting on the edge of the big man's desk in his office. "How would you like to trade places with me for a while?"

  Dutch turned his beady black eyes on Travis and they were filled with caution. "What's the pitch?"

  "I've got a hell of an assignment, Dutch."

  "Yeah? What's it got to do with me?"

  "It has everything to do with you. The assignment is you."

  At first Dutch's eyes grew hard, his lower lip came up and Travis expected something of an explosion. But then the beady eyes softened and looked curious. "Why me?"

  "Because you're a big shot."

  "Yeah? Who says so?

  "The Star says so.

  In the end of course Dutch accepted the proposition. Dutch, in fact, did all the suggesting; he practically wrote the story. It was a natural because Dutch was the kind of a guy who liked to run things. And when it was over he wanted a couple hundred copies of the paper it was in and a dozen glossies of every picture he had arranged for Hal Cable to take. It had gone over because it bore the McCoy O.K. Dutch practically strong-armed his own mobsters and pay-off boys into posing for photographs.

  The elation Travis had felt before he tackled that assignment had been that it was a challenge. Because it meant Travis had to use his brain to put it over. Now he had that feeling again, that sense of buoyancy, that sort of mental champing at the bit.

  He stood in his pajamas and robe at the window in his hospital room and watched the taillight of the blonde girl's car disappear down the driveway.

  Here was a challenge. It wasn't a newspaper story— exactly. And he didn't need an O.K. to tackle it. It was a mystery he knew he couldn't dismiss idly from his mind. He'd have to do something about it.

  They bring an old man into a hospital. For some reason or other they can't get him quieted. He's out of his head. They finally must knock him out in his room, for he was silent after he got to it. What was it the intern had said? The old man is found on the street, naked. The police grab him, then call the hospital. He can't tell anybody anything, but keeps yapping about not wanting to be "taken back." His flesh is a mottled gray. Later it is darker with redder splotches and some purple ones.

  Evidently nobody knows where he came from. Nobody comes to see him. The hospital authorities try to figure out what's wrong with him. At least, Travis thought, we can assume that, since the intern said nobody seemed to be able to diagnose the old man's condition immediately.

  Then in comes the girl. How does she know the old man is here? She has a hypo and she knows how to use it. She wants to kill the old man. Now why should a nice girl like that want to kill an old man already headed for oblivion? Why should she want to push him toward it? Why did she give me that look of hate? Why did she put up such an awful struggle?

  Travis shook his head, trying to settle the questions. Then he turned from the window, walked to the door. Out in the corridor all the squares of light on the hallway floor were gone except his. He turned his room light out, went out into the hall. It was strangely quiet and there wasn't a nurse at the station.

  He went down the hall, listening to the flop of his slippers on the floor. He rounded the station corner and headed toward the old man's room. Perhaps the old man was awake. Perhaps the girl had left something in there that would help identify her.

  When he got to 326 he found the two nurses busy tidying it up.

  "Mr. Travis," the older one, Mrs. Nelson, said, "this may be your last night in the hospital but it won't be if you don't return to your room at once."

  The younger nurse, Miss Pease, was sweeping pieces of the broken hypo onto a dust pan.

  "How's the old—" he started to say, then saw in sudden shock that the sheet had been drawn up over the old man's face.

  "He's dead," Mrs. Nelson said. "He died just a few minutes ago."

  "I'm sorry," he said, glancing around the room. "It was that girl who probably caused it. He got excited because he thought she was going to use that hypo on him."

  "Miss Pease and I were both busy at the time she went by us," Mrs. Nelson said. "We should have stopped her. By the way, Dr. Collins wants to see you."

  "What about?"

  "We reported about the girl to him. We told him where to find you."

  Travis edged toward the bed.

  "Mind?" he said.

  "If you can stand it."

  Both nurses watched him as he raised the sheet. The old man's flesh was black now. Black as coal. The areas of red were distended and some of these had broken open and—the entire sight suddenly sickened him and he let the sheet fall.

  Dr. Collins was coming down the hall when Travis left.

  "You weren't in your room," the young intern said. "What were you doing in 326?"

  "I just wanted to see how the old guy was." They walked toward his room.

  "I have called the police and the coroner," Dr. Collins said. "They'll be talking to you."

  "It's the girl they ought to talk to," Travis said.

  "Mrs. Nelson mentioned something about a girl and a hypodermic syringe. What's that all about?"

  "Suppose you tell me?"

  They were in Travis's room now. He got out a cigarette, offered one to the intern.

  "Suppose I tell you what?"

  Travis sat on his bed, his feet dangling over the side.

  "I've met a lot of doctors in my time, Collins," he said. "I've had to try to get information out of them for newspaper stories. I never found very many ready to cooperate, I remember asking you something about the old guy earlier tonight. You didn't have much to say."

  Dr. Collins sat down in the chair, put the heels of his shiny black shoes on the bed.

  "You have your code, Travis, we have ours. Actually, I don't know a damn thing about the girl you're talking about. Suppose you tell me what you know about her."

  "You mentioned earlier tonight, Doctor, about the old man having a lucid moment."

  "I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it. Beyond that I can't say."

  "Well, let's make a deal. I'll tell you al
l I know about the girl and you tell me about the dead man."

  The intern shook his head. "I shouldn't make such a deal, but considering the circumstances, I will. Yes, he did have a lucid moment, if you could call it that. But I'm afraid it wasn't really very lucid." The doctor reached into his breast pocket, took out a piece of paper. "When I went in just before I bumped into you in the hallway, I found the old guy trying to sit up, believe it or not. He saw me then and started mumbling something. He had a look in his eyes—a kind of pleading look. He motioned to this pocket here"—the intern touched his breast pocket—"where I had this envelope and a pen.

  "I took out the envelope and the pen and handed them to him. I had to unscrew the end of the pen for him. Then he started to draw something on the paper, but he didn't get very far, for he didn't have much control over his actions. He turned the paper over and tried again. I even helped him sit up to try to draw. He made this figure and these numbers and started to draw something more when he collapsed forward and started breathing hard. I put him back on his pillow, picked up the envelope and left. I was trying to figure it out when I bumped into you."

  "Let's see it-."

  Dr. Collins handed it to him. On the face of the envelope there was something that resembled a circle. It was the side the old man had given up on, for lines ran in several directions from the sort of egg-shaped circle.

  On the other side of the envelope the figure was a little better defined, except the circle was not completely round and the line from it was ragged. In the center of the circle was written "23X."

  "Looks like a typewriter key or a tennis racket," Travis said.

  "If that is the way it is meant. I mean if that cross goes on the bottom. I presume it does."

  "What do you make of it?"

  Dr. Collins shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, I've seen such symbols used in botany and in biology. When I was a kid I was crazy about astronomy. It seems to me it has some significance in that field, too. I just don't recall what it is, though. I'd have to look it up."

  Travis handed the envelope to him.

  "Still don't know what killed him, eh?"

  "I never heard of anything that affected the body like that," Dr. Collins said soberly. "Of course I am no authority. I'm just out of medical school. There are some things somewhat similar, but nothing quite as pronounced and marked. I don't see how he lived so long. But you were going to tell me about the girl."

  "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," Travis said, swinging his feet to the floor. "I was over by the window when I saw her drive in. She was in an awful hurry, the way she jerked the car to a stop. She got out, inspected her purse, then came in the building.

  "I heard her on the stairs, went to the door and watched her. She was quite a looker and I was going to make some sort of wisecrack when she came by the door. She seemed to be looking for someone. Of course I discovered later it was the old man. I went after her down the hall, found her ready to give him the hypo. It seemed pretty irregular, so I stopped her.

  "Instead of trying to make any explanation, she started fighting. She was as mad as hell. I managed to knock the hypo out of her hands, but I couldn't hold her. She gave me quite a kick in the shins."

  He pulled, up his pajama leg. There was a dull red bulge in the middle of his shin.

  "I got back to the room here in time to see her take off in her car. She was in a mighty big hurry."

  "She was trying to kill him."

  "You think so?"

  "I imagine. I'm having the syringe sample tested. What other reason would she have to be here? The thing I can't understand is what did she want to keep him from telling?"

  "Your guess, as you say, is as good as mine," Travis replied.

  The late morning sun slanted through the windows of the captain's office, and Travis, who had been baking in it for nearly an hour, decided to move his chair out of the sunlight.

  Captain Tomkins's heavy eyebrows were lowered in thought and as he smoked his pipe he studied the newspaperman.

  "This girl," the police captain said. "I just can't see her angle. Just what did she look like?"

  Travis drew on his cigarette, then exhaled slowly, watching the smoke.

  "She was about a head shorter than I, perfect legs, shape as pretty as a picture, blonde hair about shoulder length in back, blue eyes, fine features. She had a little blue hat, dark coat with a belt. She wasn't just a kid; I'd judge her around twenty-two."

  The captain leaned back in his swivel chair, his eyes boring into Travis's. "Pretty nicely stacked, eh?"

  "Definitely. She had what I call sparkle."

  "Sort of like the girls you're running around with, I remember."

  "Meaning?"

  "Look, Travis," the captain said. "I've known you for a long time. You've been,giving us nothing but trouble for ten years. Like that time you did the Dutch McCoy story. You had the public clamoring for us to lock him up. Dutch is pretty smart; we couldn't hang a thing on him. Hell, we can't do anything if people are so lily livered they don't register a complaint. Not one person went to the state's attorney. But we got plenty of calls from people who thought we ought to do something about it.

  "Now you're sitting there telling me something about a babe who comes in to stab an old guy with a hypo loaded with—what was it? Strychnine sulphate. Hell, nobody's going to chase a girl all the way down a hall into a room and stop her from murder without knowing she was up to something. You must have known what the score was."

  "It was your idea to question me about the girl. Your idea and Dwight O'Brien's."

  "A coroner has to check every detail. It was Dr. Collins who told O'Brien about the girl."

  Travis stood up, walked to the window and looked out. There were police cars in the lot behind the building. The scene reminded him of the view from his hospital room, the hospital he had left that morning after the autopsy.

  "I've told you everything I know about her, Captain. I saw her pull in the yard with her car, I followed her to the room because I was curious about her, that's all, coming as she did after regular visiting hours. Besides, she seemed so dead serious about what she was up to. Besides, she was as cute as hell and I hadn't seen a dame—at least one like her— in ten days."

  "Well, we're not holding you, of course," the captain said, knocking ashes out of his pipe. "There's no reason to anyway. It's simply a case of attempted murder and we only have your word for what went on in that room. We're not going to put out any Jane Doe warrant for the girl, either. But we're working on it. The least you'll be asked to do is to testify before the coroner's jury at the inquest."

  "There's something I don't understand, Captain," Travis said, turning from the window and putting his cigarette out in a tray on the desk. "Why should O'Brien call for an inquest? The girl didn't kill the old man."

  "No, but nobody can figure out why he died."

  "It ought to be a tougher job to figure out how he managed to live. Did you see him?"

  "I was there this morning. He was a mess all right.. Funny, the medicos drew a blank. I guess they took everything apart. They chopped him up for display at the doctor's meeting. Somebody said they're going to write him up for the medical association as one of the strangest case$ of the year."

  "The way I get it," Travis said, "is he was a sort of living boil or cancer or something. He went to pieces all over, not in just one spot, both inside and out."

  Travis turned to go, then turned around again. "Just a couple things more. How about the fingerprints on this guy?"

  "A blank there, too, as far as we're concerned. His flesh prevented us from getting really good ones, since it was sort of glassy, but because we haven't got him doesn't mean Washington hasn't."

  "How about that thing he drew on the paper? I presume Dr. Collins showed you that."

  Captain Tomkins sighed, reached into his drawer. "You guys are always persistent, aren't you? The way you're trained, I guess. Well, since I'm not speaking for publication, I'
ll tell you about that." He leafed through the sheets he took from the drawer. "Last night we got a lot of people out of bed. Professors, an astrologist, a historian, a chemist, an astronomer, a biologist, an engineer—we gave the thing to all of them."

  "And . . . ?"

  "I'm coming to it. It's a symbol for Venus—"

  "Aha! Space ships and all that. The old man was the first victim of a new and terrible disease brought here by Venusians."

  "Do you want to be funny or do you want to hear the report?" The captain put down the papers and glowered at him.

  "O.K., Captain. I'm sorry. I won't interrupt again. I was just imagining what the Star could do to a story like that."

  "I better not see one in there or it will be your neck and I mean that! Besides, the thing has a lot of other meanings." He picked up the papers again. "It's actually the symbol for Venus, the goddess, because it's a drawing of her looking glass, an attribute of Venus, one of the professors said.

  "Here again it's the symbol for Friday. Yesterday was Monday. Its meaning in botany is a female flower, a pistillate, whatever that is, a fertile plant or a plant bearing such flowers. In biology it's also female. If he'd drawn it upside down it would mean a male organism or cell or organ. If there were other symbols to go with it, it might mean certain kinds of flowering plants.

  "And one guy we saw said if it was drawn upside down it would be Ankh or what he said was similar to a Crux Ansata, an ancient Egyptian symbol for life, retained by the Copts of Egypt as a symbol of Christianity, it says here."

  "Anybody figure out the numbers and the 'X'?"

  "Nobody had any ideas about them."

  "Well, as I see it," Travis said, "it means the beginning of an interplanetary war, or the old man got the disease on Friday or he got the disease through a flower or a woman killed him or it's the curse from an old Egyptian tomb!"

  "Yeah, and all very reasonable."

  "To be sure. And all very good copy."

  "No copy, Travis."

  "O.K., Captain. No copy."

  Travis left the police captain's office and went down the hall to the desk sergeant.

  "Hell, Travis," Sergeant Webster said. "Where have you been keeping yourself? Haven't seen you in months."