The Haploids

by Jerry Sohl

  "I guess you know everybody, don't you, Mr. Travis?" the chief asked.

  He nodded. "Yes. I met Dr. Leaf last night."

  "Then we'll get right down to business." Everyone sat down and Travis lit a cigarette. "O'Brien has decided he doesn't need you at the inquest because he figures the girl had nothing to do with the old man's death. That right, Dwight?"

  "Yep," O'Brien said. "She might have figured in the over all scheme of things, in the events leading up to his death, but is not the direct cause."

  "But you still are in this thing," the chief continued. "You were there when the girl came in, they tell me, and you were also out at the house."

  "That's right, Chief."

  "Well, then, do you have any objections to making a deposition about it all?"

  "No. I'll be glad to."

  "I think what you'll have to say may have some bearing on the case, probably a clue, something you might not have thought of yourself as being important. Whenever it's convenient with you I'd like to have our court reporter take down everything you remember about the case from the very beginning up until the present time. Would you do that?"

  Travis said that he would.

  "I've heard that you have a year's leave from the Star. If you left this testimony, you could feel free to leave Union City any time you wanted. Have you decided where you're going?"

  "No, I haven't," Travis admitted. "This thing sort of got me interested in sticking around."

  "It was a blonde, Chief," Captain Tomkins said. "He wrestled with the blonde in the hospital room, remember?"

  Everyone laughed except Travis.

  "What are the latest developments?" Travis asked. "I just read in the Star about four of the men dying."

  "Two more later this morning," Dr. Leaf said. "The total now stands at eight."

  Travis shook his head sadly. "I suppose there's no hope?"

  "It's a cliche I suppose to say where there's life there's hope, Mr. Travis," Dr. Leaf said. "But the other four seem destined to follow right along. It seems odd there are no light cases. Once you get. it you're through. Unless we unearth something we haven't thought of."

  "You had some sort of a report this morning from Chicago, didn't you, Dr. Leaf?" the chief asked.

  The doctor nodded. "They went through the tissue with everything they had. It seems there is more reason to regard it now as some form of radiation than virus, for it is apparent all of the cells seem to be affected in the same degree. The examination showed whatever it is stimulated cell activity beyond the normal state, wrecking the genes and chromosomes, no matter what state of development the cell happened to be in."

  "But no women—" Captain Tomkins hastened to say.

  "I know what you're going to say," Dr. Leaf said earnestly. "No, no women were affected. Now, gentlemen, a cell is a mighty complex thing. The main difference between the cells of a woman and those of a man are in their productive values, what matters they secrete—such as activating the glands that produce the female and male hormones. It has to be something along a sex line, for the cells of men and women have the ordinary functions in common.

  "Just what part of the male cells are attacked in this case remains to be seen, although there are some theories we all have thought of at the hospital. It is now largely a matter of elimination. We'll get to it." Then he shrugged, spoke more gently. "What we'll do with it after we find it, I don't know. It may be only the beginning."

  "Sounds to me like some form of cancer," O'Brien said, taking a chaw of tobacco. "I had a doctor explain that to me once."

  "Yes," Dr. Leaf replied. "It does resemble cancer in the sense that the cells are affected and die, but a few back-fire and produce those splotches of red and purple we've seen on the bodies.

  "There are hundreds of chemicals that start processes that lead to cancer. Ordinary sunshine—if you get too much of it—can lead to skin cancer. Even the air we breathe contains wastes which are believed to cause cancer. The impurities set up an irritation on sensitive areas and the cells change their functions, and the enzymes, the thousands of chemical catalysts which govern growth and the chemistry of the cell itself, are affected."

  While the doctor was talking Travis put his hand absently to his head, happened to touch the hard knob he had there, winced and drew his hand away. Dr. Leaf happened to be looking at him when he did it.

  "Say," the doctor said, coming over to him. "That's a nasty bump you've got there. You ought to do something about that."

  "What happened to you, Travis?" the chief wanted to know.

  "Well," Travis said, "I hadn't intended telling you, but since you bring it up, it was that blonde Captain Tomkins referred to who did it. She sapped me with a gun."

  "Why didn't you mention it before?" Captain Tomkins inquired, half peeved.

  "Because I muffed a chance to get real information, I guess. She was there when I got home last night. Waiting for me behind my door with a gun." He gave an account of his visit with the girl.

  "Her name's Betty Garner, eh?" Captain Tomkins put the name down in a notebook. "Where did you say she lived?"

  Travis told him.

  "Why don't you call a car and have them check the house?" the chief said.

  Captain Tomkins went to the intercom and gave the order.

  "We can't get in touch with the squads that are out right now," a voice answered. "Something's wrong with the radio. The repairman said he'd be right over."

  Captain Tomkins flipped off the box. "We'll have to go out. I don't think we ought to overlook this."

  "I sort of figured last night was strictly between this girl and myself," Travis said.

  "Come along, then," the captain said, smiling. "We'll let you ride in the back seat with her."

  A few minutes later a police car bearing Captain Tomkins and a driver in the front seat and Travis in the back sped along a boulevard to the west end of town, out to a recently developed area of the city. Old, staid homes soon gave way to newer, whiter, single-story structures that showed the influence of modern home design.

  They slipped over to West Prairie, past well-kept lawns, flagstone walks, and vacant lots. The even numbers were on the north side. The 1600 block, 1700 block. 1800, 1802, 1806, 1810, 1812, 1818, 1820, 1824.

  "Hey," Travis yelled. "We missed it."

  Captain Tomkins turned around in the front seat and grinned at him. "Yeah, we sure did. Only you missed it first. And it was a boat."

  "Eighteen twenty-two happens to be a vacant lot."

  SEVEN

  Travis spent the rest of the morning at the city hall in the council chambers telling a court reporter everything he knew about the case from the beginning. The only thing he left out was the filing card he had in his pocket with Rosalee Turner's name on it. That was something he intended to investigate himself.

  After lunch he walked to the Star building, went into a tavern across the street from it and phoned the photo lab. "Hal?"

  "Yeah. Who's this?"

  "You mean you don't know my voice? Maybe I'm" going through adolescence again—"

  "Listen, Trav, I've got no time for jokes. I've got real troubles."

  "Got time for a beer?"

  "Hell, I suppose so, but listen, I'll have to get right back."

  "O.K. I'm in Harold's Place across the street."

  In a few minutes Hal Cable came over. He was perspiring, nervous. A stub of a dead cigar was in his mouth.

  "What's the matter with you?" Travis asked.

  "Have I got troubles!" Hal sat at the bar and ran a moist hand over his face.

  "You said that on the phone."

  "Yeah, but these are real troubles. Remember my telling you some of the new guys turned in black film? And some of the rest of them turned in a few sheets?"

  "Yes, I think you mentioned that at the hospital. What about it?"

  "Now it comes out," Hal said gloomily. "It's the film. All the film we've got is bad. Imagine that! We've got dozens of boxes, all of them bad.
You open a new box, develop a sheet. Bing! It's black!" He clenched his fist. "I could murder the guy that sold us that film. And to think I ordered so much of it! I thought the way things are going internationally there'd be a shortage of the stuff before long. So I go and order a box car full."

  They ordered beers. "You won't want to hear what I'm going to tell you, then," Travis said. "It'll only add to your misery."

  "Go ahead. Nothing else could make me feel worse."

  "You are part of a project."

  "I'm not interested. Good looking or not."

  "It's that girl I had a tussle with in the hospital. You know, the one we bumped into with the gun on the street She says she's out to get you and me."

  "Is that so?" Hal said, downing his beer. "Now why should that be?"

  "Because you know what she looks like."

  "You do, too."

  "I know. She conked me on the head last night." Travis brought Hal up to date on the developments.

  "I knew I should have never offered you a helping hand," Hal moaned. "Now I've got a blonde chasing me. It would be all right, but I don't like her having a gun."

  "You're in this as deep as I am now."

  "The hell you say. Listen, the next time you run into that babe you tell her I'm climbing out of this trench you've dug for us. I don't want to get knocked off . . ." Then he brightened. "Or maybe I do! It would be one way to get over my present troubles. Think of the business office when I tell them that film is no good!"

  "Can't you get the company to send you new film? Surely the Star couldn't be expected to pay for bad film."

  "Maybe not. But what am I going to use in the meantime? I got Hayden out trying to round up as much good film as he can from the photo dealers. Cline's about to blow his top. No local art at all. And the engravers—"

  "The engravers?"

  Hal gulped his beer and nodded. "The company sent them bad film, too. I just can't understand it. The whole shipment came in just a few days ago. What gall that company has! 'This shipment packed by operator number so-and-so' and 'this package inspected by number so-and-so.' What good is that if the film is no good?"

  "I sympathize with you," Travis said. "But you'll work yourself out of it somehow."

  "I wish I could believe that," Hal said, lighting what remained of his cigar. He called to the bartender.

  "Yes, Mr. Cable," the bartender said.

  "Give us a couple more beers. Isn't the baseball game on?"

  The bartender shifted uneasily on his feet. "I was afraid somebody'd ask about that," he said glumly. "The TV is busted."

  "Busted? What's wrong?"

  "You watch," the bartender said, going to the panel at one end of the bar. "I always get plenty of customers these afternoons. They sit and watch and drink beer by the case. Except this afternoon. Who's gonna sit and watch this?"

  The screen exploded in a blur of shadows chasing clouds, an occasional pattern like the edge of a saw that swirled around. The sound was a steady crackling, popping and buzzing.

  "You see," Travis said, turning to Hal, "somebody's always got things worse than you have."

  "That's not worse than what I've got. Not by a long shot."

  "Maybe so. But, to add to your misery, I want to borrow your car this afternoon."

  "O.K., O.K.," Hal said. "Take everything I got. If I'm not alive when you come back you can have the thing." He reached into his pocket, gave Travis the keys. "It's in front of the Star south door. What are you going to do?"

  "Just a girl I want to look up."

  "Girl, eh?" Hal downed his second beer. "Well, I guess you can't get into trouble in the middle of the afternoon. You'll be back by five, won't you?"

  "Try to be."

  They left the stools and headed toward the door. "I'll have the television,fixed by tomorrow," the bartender called to them as they walked out.

  "Don't bother, I doubt I'll last out the night," Hal said.

  Travis headed Hal Cable's car toward the east end of Union City, past an industrial district, a park and a large, heavily wooded section of town where some old mansions stood. He drove down a wide street overhung with elm branches that formed a natural ceiling, then burst out into the sunlight as the trees ended.

  He slowed the car as he saw signs proclaiming the "Higgins Development Co." along one side of the road. Soon he saw a marker that identified Drexler Drive, a curved, newly paved street that cut into the center of a real estate subdivision. He turned in, traveled past markers complete with fluttering flags marked "Higgins," past some lots with a large red SOLD sign stuck in the middle of them.

  It was a large development and on some of the lots there was evidence of work already begun: some footings had been poured, some basements had been dug. There were a few cars in the area and one party inspecting a lot paused long enough to look at him curiously as he went by.

  He headed for a one-story building several blocks down the modern roadway. Unless he missed his guess, he thought, he would find Rosalee Turner in that building. Travis put the car in a parking lot next to the structure labeled OFFICE in large letters.

  The office was a single large room with several desks, separated from an area around the doorway by a wood railing. It reminded him of an army orderly room and he guessed the Higgins Development Co. might have purchased the place from war surplus sales. There was no one in the office except a girl who was sitting behind a typewriter. She looked up as he entered.

  "Can I help you?" she asked patronizingly.

  "Are you Rosalee Turner?" he inquired, removing his hat and approaching the rail.

  "Yes, what can I do for you?"

  Miss Turner was an auburn-haired girl with green eyes and a peaches-and-cream complexion. From what he could see of her, she was nicely proportioned. But as he looked at her eyes again he noticed the vaguest coolness, a mere hint of detachment that bothered him. She was lovely, but in a cold sort of way. He realized that it should not have been that way at all, but he could not take the time to analyze his feelings just then.

  "Someone suggested I come to see you," he lied. "Are there any good lots left out here?"

  "Mr. Forrest will be back in about fifteen minutes. He's out with a customer just now. Who gave you my name?"

  "A friend of mine. He bought a lot out here and he thought you might give me some inside information on prices and so on. I don't have much money and I want to get a good deal."

  "Mr. Forrest makes all the deals around here," she said. "Now, if you'll just sit down, please . . ."

  "Thank you." He sat down on a bench in front of the railing, turned to talk over it to her. "This is a pretty nice section out here, isn't it?"

  She eyed him suspiciously. "Yes, I guess so. Mr. Higgins and Mr. Forrest have a lot of satisfied customers."

  "When did they open the subdivision?"

  "A few months ago. Early spring."

  "Been working here since they opened?"

  "Why do you ask that?" The green eyes were interested now, but it was a cool, crafty sort of interest.

  "Oh, I just wondered. Your referring me to Mr. Forrest implies you haven't been here long enough to have much authority."

  "For your information, I'm just the office girl. I don't have anything to do with the selling of the lots."

  He smiled at her. "I should think a pretty girl like you could do more than just be an office girl."

  "Meaning?" She was hostile now.

  "No offense, Miss Turner," he said hurriedly. "I really mean that about your being pretty."

  "Thanks." There was Little gratitude in her voice. She turned to do some typing.

  "You have an eye for clothes," he said matter-of-factly.

  "I try to look nice."

  "Make your own clothes?"

  She turned to him. "Please," she said, "Mr. Forrest will be here soon. I have some typing to do."

  "Sorry. I just thought if you made your own clothes, you certainly do a fine job."

  "Are you, by any cha
nce, a member of the Compliment Club—How to Win Friends and Influence People Society or something? I'm telling you, I don't have anything to do with the lots."

  Travis continued to smile. "You just don't think I'm sincere, that's all. Well, I am."

  "Thanks."

  "Speaking of the Compliment Club, do you belong to any clubs?"

  "No."

  "A club that used to meet at 1722 Winthrop Street, by any chance?"

  Her eyes came up from the papers beside her typewriter. They met his and did not waver.

  "I thought I found your membership card there, Rosalee," he said, fishing for the filing card in his pocket. He brought it out. "Where the deuce is site eighteen?"

  "If I told you, you wouldn't know," she said carefully.

  "It says here your serial number is 17 432."

  The girl got up, turned her back to him and walked to a window.

  "How come your little clubhouse burned down, Rosalee?"

  She turned around to face him, her arms folded across her chest. "You would be almost amusing if you weren't so pathetic, Mr. Travis," she said quietly.

  Travis jumped at the mention of his name.

  "Don't you suppose I knew you were coming here?" she said. "You must think we are fools."

  "We?"

  "You would neither appreciate nor understand what I could tell you. As it is, since this morning it doesn't make any difference anyway. Now you'd better leave." Miss Turner started back to her typewriter.

  "Why shouldn't it make any difference?" he continued. "You're just as guilty as any of them, if you knew what went on in that house on Winthrop Street. It doesn't seem to make any difference to you either, that it's costing the lives of twelve men."