<h2><SPAN name="chapter9" id="chapter9"></SPAN>CHAPTER 9</h2>
<h3>THE INCREDIBLE PEOPLE</h3>
<p>Slowly and patiently they drew the story from the
emissary from the seventh planet of 31 Brucker.</p>
<p>The small, monkey-like creature was painfully shy; he
required constant reassurance that the doctors did not mind
being called, that they wanted to help, and that a contract
was not necessary in an emergency. Even at that the spokesman
was reluctant to give details about the plague and
about his stricken people. Every bit of information had to
be extracted with patient questioning.</p>
<p>By tacit consent the doctors did not even mention the
strange fact that this very planet had been explored by a
Confederation ship eight hundred years before and no sign
of intelligent life had been found. The little creature before
them seemed ready to turn and bolt at the first hint of
attack or accusation. But bit by bit, a picture of the current
situation on the planet developed.</p>
<p>Whoever they were and wherever they had been when
the Confederation ship had landed, there was unquestionably<SPAN name="page108" id="page108"></SPAN>
an intelligent race now inhabiting this lonely planet
in the outer reaches of the solar system of 31 Brucker. There
was no doubt of their advancement; a few well-selected
questions revealed that they had control of atomic power,
a working understanding of the nature and properties of
contra-terrene matter, and a workable star drive operating
on the same basic principle as Earth's Koenig drive but
which the Bruckians had never really used because of their
shyness and fear of contact with other races. They also had
an excellent understanding, thanks to their eavesdropping
on Confederation interstellar radio chatter, of the existence
and functions of the Galactic Confederation of worlds, and
of Hospital Earth's work as physician to the galaxy.</p>
<p>But about Bruckian anatomy, physiology or biochemistry,
the little emissary would tell them nothing. He seemed
genuinely frightened when they pressed him about the
physical make-up of his people, as though their questions
were somehow scraping a raw nerve. He insisted that his
people knew nothing about the nature of the plague that
had stricken them, and the doctors could not budge him
an inch from his stand.</p>
<p>But a plague had certainly struck.</p>
<p>It had begun six months before, striking great masses of
the people. It had walked the streets of the cities and the
hills and valleys of the countryside. First three out of ten
had been stricken, then four, then five. The course of the
disease, once started, was invariably the same: first illness,
weakness, loss of energy and interest, then gradually a fading
away of intelligent responses, leaving thousands of creatures
walking blank-faced and idiot-like about the streets and
countryside. Ultimately even the ability to take food was
lost, and after an interval of a week or so, death invariably
ensued.<SPAN name="page109" id="page109"></SPAN></p>
<p>Finally the doctors retired to the control room for a puzzled
conference. "It's got to be an organism of some sort
that's doing it," Dal said. "There couldn't be an illness like
this that wasn't caused by some kind of a parasitic germ or
virus."</p>
<p>"But how do we know?" Jack said. "We know nothing
about these people except what we can see. We're going to
have to do a complete biochemical and medical survey before
we can hope to do anything."</p>
<p>"But we aren't equipped for a real survey," Tiger protested.</p>
<p>"We've got to do it anyway," Jack said. "If we can just
learn enough to be sure it's an infectious illness, we might
stand a chance of finding a drug that will cure it. Or at least
a way to immunize the ones that aren't infected yet. If this
is a virus infection, we might only need to find an antibody
for inoculation to stop it in its tracks. But first we need a
good look at the planet and some more of the people—both
infected and healthy ones. We'd better make arrangements
as fast as we can."</p>
<p>An hour later they had reached an agreement with the
Bruckian emissary. The <i>Lancet</i> would be permitted to land
on the planet's surface as soon as the doctors were satisfied
that it was safe. For the time being the initial landings would
be made in the patrol ship's lifeboats, with the <i>Lancet</i> in
orbit a thousand miles above the surface. Unquestionably
the first job was diagnosis, discovering the exact nature of
the illness and studying the afflicted people. This responsibility
rested squarely on Jack's shoulders; he was the diagnostician,
and Dal and Tiger willingly yielded to him in
organizing the program.</p>
<p>It was decided that Jack and Tiger would visit the planet's
surface at once, while Dal stayed on the ship and set up the<SPAN name="page110" id="page110"></SPAN>
reagents and examining techniques that would be needed
to measure the basic physical and biochemical characteristics
of the Bruckians.</p>
<p>Yet in all the excitement of planning, Dal could not throw
off the lingering shadow of doubt in his mind, some instinctive
voice of caution that seemed to say <i>watch out, be careful,
go slowly! This may not be what it seems to be; you
may be walking into a trap....</i></p>
<p>But it was only a faint voice, and easy to thrust aside as
the planning went ahead full speed.</p>
<hr class="shorter" />
<p>It did not take very long for the crew of the <i>Lancet</i> to
realize that there was something very odd indeed about the
small, self-effacing inhabitants of 31 Brucker VII.</p>
<p>In fact, "odd" was not really quite the proper word for
these creatures at all. No one knew better than the doctors
of Hospital Earth that oddness was the rule among the
various members of the galactic civilization. All sorts and
varieties of life-forms had been discovered, described and
studied, each with its singular differences, each with certain
similarities, and each quite "odd" in reference to any of the
others.</p>
<p>In Dal this awareness of the oddness and difference of
other races was particularly acute. He knew that to Tiger
and Jack he himself seemed odd, both anatomically and in
other ways. His fine gray fur and his four-fingered hands
set him apart from them—he would never be mistaken for
an Earthman, even in the densest fog. But these were comprehensible
differences. His close attachment to Fuzzy was
something else, and still seemed beyond their ability to
understand.</p>
<p>He had spent one whole evening patiently trying to make
Jack understand just how his attachment to the little pink<SPAN name="page111" id="page111"></SPAN>
creature was more than just the fondness of a man for his dog.</p>
<p>"Well, what would you call it, then?"</p>
<p>"Symbiosis is probably the best word for it," Dal had
replied. "Two life-forms live together, and each one helps
the other—that's all symbiosis is. Together each one is better
off than either one would be alone. We all of us live in
symbiosis with the bacteria in our digestive tracts, don't we?
We provide them with a place to live and grow, and they
help us digest our food. It's a kind of a partnership—and
Fuzzy and I are partners in the same sort of way."</p>
<p>Jack had argued, and then lost his temper, and finally
grudgingly agreed that he supposed he would have to
tolerate it even if it didn't make sense to him.</p>
<p>But the creatures on 31 Brucker VII were "odd" far beyond
the reasonable limits of oddness—so far beyond it that
the doctors could not believe the things that their eyes and
their instruments were telling them.</p>
<p>When Tiger and Jack came back to the <i>Lancet</i> after their
first trip to the planet's surface, they were visibly shaken.
Geographically, they had found it just as it had been described
in the exploratory reports—a barren, desert land with
only a few large islands of vegetation in the equatorial
regions.</p>
<p>"But the people!" Jack said. "They don't fit into <i>any</i> kind
of pattern. They've got houses—at least I guess you'd call
them houses—but every one of them is like every other one,
and they're all crammed together in tight little bunches, with
nothing for miles in between. They've got an advanced
technology, a good communications system, manufacturing
techniques and everything, but they just don't use them."</p>
<p>"It's more than that," Tiger said. "They don't seem to
<i>want</i> to use them."</p>
<p>"Well, it doesn't add up, to me," Jack said. "There are<SPAN name="page112" id="page112"></SPAN>
thousands of towns and cities down there, all of them miles
apart, and yet they had to go dig an old rusty jet scooter out
of storage and get the motor rebuilt just specially to take us
from one place to another. I know things can get disorganized
with a plague in the land, but this plague just hasn't
been going on that long."</p>
<p>"What about the sickness?" Dal asked. "Is it as bad as it
sounded?"</p>
<p>"Worse, if anything," Tiger said gloomily. "They're
dying by the thousands, and I hope we got those suits of
ours decontaminated, because I don't want any part of this
disease."</p>
<p>Graphically, he described the conditions they had found
among the stricken people. There was no question that a
plague was stalking the land. In the rutted mud roads of
the villages and towns the dead were piled in gutters, and
in all of the cities a deathly stillness hung over the streets.
Those who had not yet succumbed to the illness were nursing
and feeding the sick ones, but these unaffected ones were
growing scarcer and scarcer. The whole living population
seemed resigned to hopelessness, hardly noticing the strangers
from the patrol ship.</p>
<p>But worst of all were those in the final stages of the
disease, wandering vaguely about the street, their faces
blank and their jaws slack as though they were living in a
silent world of their own, cut off from contact with the rest.
"One of them almost ran into me," Jack said. "I was right
in front of him, and he didn't see me or hear me."</p>
<p>"But don't they have <i>any</i> knowledge of antisepsis or isolation?"
Dal asked.</p>
<p>Tiger shook his head. "Not that we could see. They don't
know what's causing this sickness. They think that it's some<SPAN name="page113" id="page113"></SPAN>
kind of curse, and they never dreamed that it might be kept
from spreading."</p>
<p>Already Tiger and Jack had taken the first routine steps
to deal with the sickness. They gave orders to move the
unaffected people in every town and village into isolated
barracks and stockades. For half a day Tiger tried to explain
ways to prevent the spread of a bacteria or virus-borne
disease. The people had stared at him as if he were talking
gibberish; finally he gave up trying to explain, and just laid
down rules which the people were instructed to follow.
Together they had collected standard testing specimens of
body fluids and tissue from both healthy and afflicted
Bruckians, and come back to the <i>Lancet</i> for a breather.</p>
<p>Now all three doctors began work on the specimens. Cultures
were inoculated with specimens from respiratory tract,
blood and tissue taken from both sick and well. Half a dozen
fatal cases were brought to the ship under specially controlled
conditions for autopsy examination, to reveal both the normal
anatomical characteristics of this strange race of people
and the damage the disease was doing. Down on the surface
Tiger had already inoculated a dozen of the healthy ones
with various radioactive isotopes to help outline the normal
metabolism and biochemistry of the people. After a short
sleep period on the <i>Lancet</i>, he went back down alone to
follow up on these, leaving Dal and Jack to carry on the
survey work in the ship's lab.</p>
<p>It was a gargantuan task that faced them. They knew that
in any race of creatures they could not hope to recognize
the abnormal unless they knew what the normal was. That
was the sole reason for the extensive biomedical surveys that
were done on new contract planets. Under normal conditions,
a survey crew with specialists in physiology, biochemistry,
anatomy, radiology, pharmacology and pathology<SPAN name="page114" id="page114"></SPAN>
might spend months or even years on a new planet
gathering base-line information. But here there was neither
time nor facilities for such a study. Even in the twenty-four
hours since the patrol ship arrived, the number of dead had
increased alarmingly.</p>
<p>Alone on the ship, Dal and Jack found themselves working
as a well organized team. There was no time here for
argument or duplicated efforts; everything the two doctors
did was closely co-ordinated. Jack seemed to have forgotten
his previous antagonism completely. There was a crisis here,
and more work than three men could possibly do in the
time available. "You handle anatomy and pathology," Jack
told Dal at the beginning. "You can get the picture five
times as fast as I can, and your pathology slides are better
than most commercial ones. I can do the best job on the
cultures, once I get the growth media all set up."</p>
<p>Bit by bit they divided the labor, checking in with Tiger
by radio on the results of the isotopes studies he was running
on the planet's surface. Bit by bit the data was collected,
and Earthman and Garvian worked more closely than ever
before as the task that faced them appeared more and more
formidable.</p>
<p>But the results of their tests made no sense whatever.
Tiger returned to the ship after forty-eight hours with circles
under his eyes, looking as though he had been trampled in
a crowd. "No sleep, that's all," he said breathlessly as he
crawled out of his decontaminated pressure suit. "No time
for it. I swear I ran those tests a dozen times and I still didn't
get any answers that made sense."</p>
<p>"The results you were sending up sounded plenty strange,"
Jack said. "What was the trouble?"</p>
<p>"I don't know," Tiger said, "but if we're looking for a<SPAN name="page115" id="page115"></SPAN>
biological pattern here, we haven't found it yet as far as
I can see."</p>
<p>"No, we certainly haven't," Dal exploded. "I thought
I was doing something wrong somehow, because these blood
chemistries I've been doing have been ridiculous. I can't even
find a normal level for blood sugar, and as for the enzyme
systems...." He tossed a sheaf of notes down on the counter
in disgust. "I don't see how these people could even be
alive, with a botched-up metabolism like this! I've never
heard of anything like it."</p>
<p>"What kind of pathology did you find?" Tiger wanted
to know.</p>
<p>"Nothing," Dal said. "Nothing at all. I did autopsies on
the six that you brought up here and made slides of every
different kind of tissue I could find. The anatomy is perfectly
clear cut, no objections there. These people are very
similar to Earth-type monkeys in structure, with heart and
lungs and vocal cords and all. But I can't find any reason
why they should be dying. Any luck with the cultures?"</p>
<p>Jack shook his head glumly. "No growth on any of the
plates. At first I thought I had something going, but if I did,
it died, and I can't find any sign of it in the filtrates."</p>
<p>"But we've got to have <i>something</i> to work on," Tiger
said desperately. "Look, there are some things that always
measure out the same in <i>any</i> intelligent creature no matter
where he comes from. That's the whole basis of galactic
medicine. Creatures may develop and adapt in different
ways, but the basic biochemical reactions are the same."</p>
<p>"Not here, they aren't," Dal said. "Take a look at these
tests!"</p>
<p>They carried the heap of notes they had collected out
into the control room and began sifting and organizing the
data, just as a survey team would do, trying to match it with<SPAN name="page116" id="page116"></SPAN>
the pattern of a thousand other living creatures that had
previously been studied. Hours passed, and they were farther
from an answer than when they began.</p>
<p>Because this data did not fit a pattern. It was <i>different</i>.
No two individuals showed the same reactions. In every test
the results were either flatly impossible or completely the
opposite of what was expected.</p>
<p>Carefully they retraced their steps, trying to pinpoint
what could be going wrong.</p>
<p>"There's <i>got</i> to be a laboratory error," Dal said wearily.
"We must have slipped up somewhere."</p>
<p>"But I don't see where," Jack said. "Let's see those culture
tubes again. And put on a pot of coffee. I can't even think
straight any more."</p>
<p>Of the three of them, Jack was beginning to show the
strain the most. This was his special field, the place where
he was supposed to excel, and nothing was happening. Reports
coming up from the planet were discouraging; the
isolation techniques they had tried to institute did not seem
to be working, and the spread of the plague was accelerating.
The communiqués from the Bruckians were taking on a
note of desperation.</p>
<p>Jack watched each report with growing apprehension.
He moved restlessly from lab to control room, checking and
rechecking things, trying to find some sign of order in the
chaos.</p>
<p>"Try to get some sleep," Dal urged him. "A couple of
hours will freshen you up a hundred per cent."</p>
<p>"I can't, I've already tried it," Jack said.</p>
<p>"Go ahead. Tiger and I can keep working on these things
for a while."</p>
<p>"No, no, it's not that," Jack said. "Without a diagnosis,
we can't do a thing. Until we have that, our hands are tied,<SPAN name="page117" id="page117"></SPAN>
and we aren't even getting close to it. We don't even know
whether this is a bacteria, or a virus, or what. Maybe the
Bruckians are right. Maybe it's a curse."</p>
<p>"I don't think the Black Service of Pathology would buy
that for a diagnosis," Tiger said sourly.</p>
<p>"The Black Service would choke on it—but what other
answer do we have? You two have been doing all you can,
but diagnosis is <i>my</i> job. I'm supposed to be good at it, but
the more we dig into this, the farther away we seem to get."</p>
<p>"Do you want to call for help?" Tiger said.</p>
<p>Jack shook his head helplessly. "I'm beginning to think
we should have called for help a long time ago," he said.
"We're into this over our heads now and we're still going
down. At the rate those people are dying down there, we
don't have time to call for help now." He stared at the piles
of notes on the desk and his face was very white. "I don't
know, I just don't know," he said. "The diagnosis on this
thing should have been duck soup. I thought it was going
to be a real feather in my cap, just walking in and nailing it
down in a few hours. Well, I'm whipped. I don't know
what to do. If either of you can think of an answer, it's all
yours, and I'll admit it to Black Doctor Tanner himself."</p>
<hr class="shorter" />
<p>It was bitter medicine for Blue Doctor Jack Alvarez to
swallow, but that fact gave no pleasure to Dal or Tiger now.
They were as baffled as Jack was, and would have welcomed
help from anyone who could offer it.</p>
<p>And, ironically, the first glimpse of the truth came from
the direction they least expected.</p>
<p>From the very beginning Fuzzy had been watching the
proceedings from his perch on the swinging platform in the
control room. If he sensed that Dal Timgar was ignoring
him and leaving him to his own devices much of the time,<SPAN name="page118" id="page118"></SPAN>
he showed no sign of resentment. The tiny creature seemed
to realize that something important was consuming his
master's energy and attention, and contented himself with
an affectionate pat now and then as Dal went through the
control room. Everyone assumed without much thought
that Fuzzy was merely being tolerant of the situation. It was
not until they had finally given up in desperation and Tiger
was trying to contact a Hospital Ship for help, that Dal
stared up at his little pink friend with a puzzled frown.</p>
<p>Tiger put the transmitter down for a moment. "What's
wrong?" he said to Dal. "You look as though you just bit
into a rotten apple."</p>
<p>"I just remembered that I haven't fed him for twenty-four
hours," Dal said.</p>
<p>"Who? Fuzzy?" Tiger shrugged. "He could see you were
busy."</p>
<p>Dal shook his head. "That wouldn't make any difference
to Fuzzy. When he gets hungry, he gets hungry, and he's
pretty self-centered. It wouldn't matter what I was doing,
he should have been screaming for food hours ago."</p>
<p>Dal walked over to the platform and peered down at his
pink friend in alarm. He took him up and rested him on his
shoulder, a move that invariably sent Fuzzy into raptures
of delight. Now the little creature just sat there, trembling
and rubbing half-heartedly against Dal's neck.</p>
<p>Dal held him out at arm's length. "Fuzzy, <i>what's the
matter with you</i>?"</p>
<p>"Do you think something's wrong with him?" Jack said,
looking up suddenly. "Looks like he's having trouble keeping
his eyes open."</p>
<p>"His color isn't right, either," Tiger said. "He looks kind
of blue."</p>
<p>Quite suddenly the little black eyes closed and Fuzzy<SPAN name="page119" id="page119"></SPAN>
began to tremble violently. He drew himself up into a tight
pink globule as the fuzz-like hair disappeared from view.</p>
<p>Something was unmistakably wrong. As he held the shivering
creature, Dal was suddenly aware that something had
been nibbling at the back of his mind for hours. Not a clear-cut
thought, merely an impression of pain and anguish and
sickness, and now as he looked at Fuzzy the impression grew
so strong it almost made him cry out.</p>
<p>Abruptly, Dal knew what he had to do. Where the
thought came from he didn't know, but it was crystal clear
in his mind. "Jack, where is our biggest virus filter?" he
asked quietly.</p>
<p>Jack stared at him. "Virus filter? I just took it out of the
autoclave an hour ago."</p>
<p>"Get it," Dal said, "and the suction machine too. <i>Quickly!</i>"</p>
<p>Jack went down the corridor like a shot, and reappeared
a moment later with the big porcelain virus filter and the
suction tubing attached to it. Swiftly Dal dumped the limp
little creature in his hand into the top of the filter jar, poured
in some sterile saline, and started the suction.</p>
<p>Tiger and Jack watched him in amazement. "What are
you doing?" Tiger said.</p>
<p>"Filtering him," Dal said. "He's infected. He must have
been exposed to the plague somehow, maybe when our little
Bruckian visitor came on board the other day. And if it's a
virus that's causing this plague, the virus filter ought to hold
it back and still let Fuzzy's molecular structure through."</p>
<p>They watched and sure enough a bluish-pink fluid began
moving down through the porcelain filter, and dripping
through the funnel into the beaker below. Each drop
coalesced in the beaker as it fell until Fuzzy's whole body
had been sucked through the filter and into the jar below.
He was still not quite his normal pink color, but as the filter<SPAN name="page120" id="page120"></SPAN>
went dry, a pair of frightened shoe-button eyes appeared
and he poked up a pair of ears. Presently the fuzz began
appearing on his body again.</p>
<p>And on the top of the filter lay a faint gray film. "Don't
touch it!" Dal said. "That's real poison." He slipped on a
mask and gloves, and scraped a bit of the film from the filter
with a spatula. "I think we have it," he said. "The virus
that's causing the plague on this planet."</p>
<hr class="longer" />
<p><SPAN name="page121" id="page121"></SPAN></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />