Part 3 (2/2)

”It's been known for a long time,” said Calhoun impatiently, ”that no form exists alone. Every living creature exists in an environment, in a.s.sociation with all the other living creatures around it. But this is true of compounds, too! Anything that is part of an environment is essential to that environment. So even organic compounds are as much parts of a planetary life system as ... say ... rabbits on a Terran type world. If there are no predators, rabbits will multiply until they starve.”

Murgatroyd said, ”Chee!” as if complaining to himself.

”Rats,” said Calhoun somehow angrily, ”have been known to do that on a derelict s.h.i.+p. There was a man named Malthus who said we humans would some day do the same thing. But we haven't. We've take over a galaxy. If we ever crowd this, there are more galaxies for us to colonize, forever! But there have been cases of rats and rabbits multiplying past endurance. Here we've got an organic molecule that has multiplied out of all reason! It's normal for it to exist, but in a normal environment it's held in check by other molecules which in some sense feed on it; which control the population of this kind of molecule as rabbits or rats are controlled in a larger environment. But the check on this molecule isn't working, here!”

The booming voice of the Planetary President went on and on and on. Memoranda of events taking place were handed to him, and he read them and argued with the paras who had tried to rush the north gate of Government Center, to make its inhabitants paras like themselves. But the Planetary President tried to make oratory a weapon against madness.

Calhoun grimaced at the voice. He said fretfully: ”There's a molecule which has to exist because it can. It's a part of a normal environment, but it doesn't normally produce paras. Now it does! Why? What is the compound or the condition that controls its abundance? Why is it missing here? What is lacking? What?”

The police-frequency speaker suddenly rattled, as if someone shouted into a microphone.

”All police cars! Paras have broken through a building wall on the west side! They're pouring into the Center! All cars rus.h.!.+ Set blasters at full power and use them! Drive them back or kill them!”

The grid operator turned angry, bitter eyes upon Calhoun.

”The paras--we paras!--don't want to be cured!” he said fiercely. ”Who'd want to be normal again and remember when he ate scavengers? I haven't yet, but--who'd be able to talk to a man he knew had devoured ... devoured--” The grid operator swallowed. ”We paras want everybody to be like us, so we can endure being what we are! We can't take it any other way--except by dying!”

He stood up. He reached for the blaster Calhoun had put aside when he changed from the clothes he'd worn in the city.

”...And I'll take it that way!”

Calhoun whirled. His fist snapped out. The grid operator reeled out. The blaster dropped from his hand. Murgatroyd cried out shrilly, from his cubbyhole. He hated violence, did Murgatroyd.

Calhoun stood over the operator, raging: ”It's not that bad yet! You haven't yawned once! You can stand the need for monstrousness for a long while yet! And I need you!”

He turned away. The President's voice boomed. It cut off abruptly. Another voice took its place. And this was the bland and unctuous voice of Dr. Lett.

”My friends! I am Dr. Lett! I have been entrusted with all the powers of the government because I, and I alone, have all the power over the cause of the para condition. From this moment I am the government! To paras--you need not be cured unless you choose. There will be places and free supplies for you to enjoy the deep satisfactions known only to you! To nonparas--you will be protected from becoming paras except by your own choice. In return, you will obey! The price of protection is obedience. The penalty for disobedience will be loss of protection. But those from whom protection is withdrawn will not be supplied with their necessities! Paras, you will remember this! Nonparas, do not forget it!” His voice changed. ”Now I give an order! To the police and to nonparas: You will no longer resist paras! To paras: You will enter Government Center quietly and peacefully. You will not molest the nonparas you come upon. I begin at once the organization of a new social system in which paras and nonparas must co-operate. There must be obedience to the utmost--”

The grid operator cursed as he rose from the floor. Calhoun did not notice. The computer had finally delivered a strip of paper on which was the answer he had demanded. And it was of no use. Calhoun said tonelessly: ”Turn that off, will you?”

While the grid operator obeyed, Calhoun read and reread the strip of tape. He had lacked something of good color before, but as he reread, he grew paler and paler. Murgatroyd got down restlessly from his cubbyhole. He sniffed. He went toward the small locked chest in which Calhoun had put away the plastic container of living scavengers. He put his nose to the crack of that chest's cover.

”Chee!” he said confidently. He looked at Calhoun. Calhoun did not notice.

”This,” said Calhoun, completely white, ”This is bad! It's ... it's an answer, but it would take time to work it out, and we haven't got the time! And to make it and to distribute it--”

The grid operator growled. Dr. Lett's broadcast had verified everything Calhoun said. Dr. Lett was now the government of Tallien Three. There was n.o.body who could dare oppose him. He could make anybody into a para, and then deny that para his unspeakable necessities. He could turn anybody on the planet into a madman with ferocious and intolerable appet.i.tes, and then deny them their satisfaction. The people of Tallien Three were the slaves of Dr. Lett. The grid operator said in a deadly voice: ”Maybe I can get to him and kill him before--”

Calhoun shook his head. Then he saw Murgatroyd sniffing at the chest now holding the container of live scavengers. Open, it had had a faint but utterly disgusting odor. Locked up, Calhoun could not smell it. But Murgatroyd could. He sniffed. He said impatiently to Calhoun: ”Chee! Chee-chee!”

Calhoun stared. His lips tightened. It was the function of the tormal members of the Med Service to react to any infection more swiftly than humans could do, and to develop antibodies which destroyed that infection and could be synthesized to cure it in humans. But Murgatroyd was immune only to infections. To toxins. He was not immune to an appet.i.te-causing molecule demanding more of itself on penalty of madness. Murgatroyd had no more inherent resistance than a man.

”Chee-chee!” he chattered urgently. ”Chee-chee-chee!”

”It's got him,” said Calhoun. He felt sickened. ”It'll have me. Because I can't synthesize anything as complex as the computer says is needed to control the molecular population that makes paras!”

Murgatroyd chattered again. He was indignant. He wanted something and Calhoun didn't give it to him. He could not understand so preposterous a happening. He reached up and tugged at Calhoun's trouser-leg. Calhoun picked him up and tossed him the width of the control room. He'd done it often, in play, but this was somehow different. Murgatroyd stared incredulously at Calhoun.

”To break it down,” said Calhoun bitterly, ”I need aromatic olefines and some acetone, and acetic-acid radicals and methyl submolecular groups. To destroy it absolutely I need available unsaturated hydrocarbons--they'll be gases! And it has to be kept from reforming as it's broken up, and I may need twenty different organic radicals available at the same time! It's a month's work for a dozen competent men just to find out how to make it, and I'd have to make it in quant.i.ty for millions of people and persuade them of its necessity against all the authority of the government and the hatred of the paras, and then distribute it--”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Murgatroyd was upset. He wanted something that Calhoun wouldn't give him. Calhoun had shown impatience--almost an unheard-of thing! Murgatroyd squirmed unhappily. He still wanted the thing in the chest. But if he did something ingratiating....

He saw the blaster, lying on the floor. Calhoun often petted him when, imitating, he picked up something that had been dropped. Murgatroyd went over to the blaster. He looked back at Calhoun. Calhoun paced irritably up and down. The grid operator stood with clenched hands, contemplating the intolerable and the monstrous.

Murgatroyd picked up the blaster. He trotted over to Calhoun. He plucked at the man's trouser-leg again. He held the blaster in the only way his tiny paw could manage it. A dark, sharp-nailed finger rested on the trigger.

”Chee-chee!” said Murgatroyd.

He offered the blaster. Calhoun jumped when he saw it in Murgatroyd's paw. The blaster jerked, and Murgatroyd's paw tightened to hold it. He pulled the trigger. A blaster-bolt crashed out of the barrel. It was a miniature bolt of ball-lightning. It went into the floor, vaporizing the surface and carbonizing the multi-ply wood layer beneath it. The Med s.h.i.+p suddenly reeked of wood smoke and surfacer. Murgatroyd fled in panic to his cubbyhole and cowered in its farthest corner.

But there was a singular silence in the Med s.h.i.+p. Calhoun's expression was startled; amazed. He was speechless for long seconds. Then he said blankly: ”d.a.m.nation! How much of a fool can a man make of himself when he works at it? Do you smell that?” He shot the question at the grid operator. ”Do you smell that? It's wood smoke! Did you know it?”

Murgatroyd listened fearfully, blinking.

”Wood smoke!” said Calhoun between his teeth. ”And I didn't see it! Men have had fires for two million years and electricity for half a thousand. For two million years there was no man or woman or child who went a full day without breathing in some wood smoke! And I didn't realize that it was so normal a part of human environment that it was a necessary one!”

There was a crash. Calhoun had smashed a chair. It was an oddity because it was make of wood. Calhoun had owned it because it was odd. Now he smashed it to splinters and piled them up and flung blaster-bolt after blaster-bolt into the heap. The air inside the Med s.h.i.+p grew pungent; stinging; strangling. Murgatroyd sneezed. Calhoun coughed. The grid operator seemed about to choke. But in the white fog Calhoun cried exultantly: ”Aromatic olefines! Acetone! Acetic acid radicals and methyl submolecular groups! And smoke has unsaturated hydrocarbon gases. This is the stuff our ancestors have breathed in tiny quant.i.ties for a hundred thousand generations! Of course it was essential to them! And to us! It was a part of their environment, so they had to have a use for it! And it controlled the population of certain molecules....”

The air system gradually cleared away the smoke, but the Med s.h.i.+p still reeked of wood-smoke smells.

”Let's check on this thing!” snapped Calhoun. ”Murgatroyd!”

Murgatroyd came timidly to the door of his cubbyhole. He blinked imploringly at Calhoun. At a repeated command he came unhappily to his master. Calhoun petted him. Then he opened the chest in which a container held living scavengers which writhed and swam and seemed to seethe. He took out that container. He took off the lid.

Murgatroyd backed away. His expression was ludicrous. There was no question but that his nose was grievously offended. Calhoun turned to the grid operator. He extended the sample of scavengers. The grid man clenched his teeth and took it. Then his face worked. He thrust it back into Calhoun's hand.

”It's--horrible!” he said thickly. ”Horrible!” Then his jaw dropped. ”I'm not a para! Not ... a para--” Then he said fiercely. ”We've got to get this thing started! We've got to start curing paras--”

”Who,” said Calhoun, ”will be ashamed of what they remember. We can't get co-operation form them! And we can't get co-operation from the government! The men who were the government are paras and they've given their authority to Dr. Lett. You don't think he'll abdicate, do you? Especially when it's realized that he was the man who developed the strain of scavengers that secrete this modified butyl mercaptan that turns men into paras!”

Calhoun grinned almost hysterically.

”Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he found himself the first para and was completely astonished. But he couldn't be alone in what he knew was--degradation. He wanted others with him in that ghastly state. He got them. Then he didn't want anybody not to be like himself.... We can't get help from him!”

Exultantly, he flipped switches to show on vision screens what went on in the world outside the s.h.i.+p. He turned on all the receivers that could pick up sounds and broadcasts. Voices came in: ”There's fighting everywhere! Normals won't accept paras among them! Paras won't leave normals alone.... They touch them; breathe on them--and laugh! There's fighting--” The notion that the para state was contagious was still cherished by paras. It was to be preferred to the notion that they were possessed by devils. But there were some who gloried in the more dramatic opinion. There were screamings on the air, suddenly, and a man's voice panting: ”Send police here fast! The paras have gone wild. They're--”

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