<h2><SPAN name="VIII" id="VIII"></SPAN>VIII</h2>
<h3>Fool</h3>
<p>Three days later, Doc saw his first runner.</p>
<p>The tractor was churning through the sand just before
sundown, heading toward another one-night stand
at a new village. Lou was driving, while Doc and Jake
brooded silently in the back, paying no attention to the
colors that were blazoned over the dunes. The cat-and-mouse
game was getting to Doc. There was no real assurance
that the village they were approaching might
not be the target the Lobby had chosen for the next
investigation.</p>
<p>Lou braked the tractor to a sudden halt, and pointed.</p>
<p>A figure was running frantically over one of the low
dunes with the little red sun behind him. He seemed
headed toward them, but as he drew nearer they could
see that he had no definite direction. He simply ran,
pumping his legs frantically as if all the devils of hell
were after him. His body swayed from side to side in
exhaustion, but his arms and legs pumped on.</p>
<p>"Stop him!" Jake ordered, and Lou swung the tractor.
It halted squarely in the runner's path, and the figure
struck against it and toppled.</p>
<p>The legs went on pumping, digging into the dirt and
gravel, but the man was too far gone to rise. Jake and
Lou shoved him through the doors into the tractor and
Doc yanked off his aspirator.</p>
<p>The man was giving vent to a kind of ululating cry,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></SPAN></span>
weakened now almost to a whine that rose and fell with
the motion of his legs. Sweat had once streaked his
haggard face, but it was dry and blanched to a pasty
gray.</p>
<p>Doc injected enough narcotic to quiet a maddened
bull. It had no effect, except to upset the rhythm of the
arms and legs. It took five more minutes for the man
to die.</p>
<p>The specks were larger this time—the size of periods
in twelve-point type. The lump at the base of the skull
was as big as a small hen's egg.</p>
<p>"From Edison, like the others so far. Jack Kooley,"
Jake answered Doc's question. "Durwood spent a lot of
time here on his first expedition, so it's getting the worst
of it."</p>
<p>Doc pulled the aspirator mask back over the man's
face and they carried him out and laid him on a low
dune. They couldn't risk returning the corpse to its
people.</p>
<p>This was only the primary circle of infection, direct
from Durwood. The second circle could be ten times
as large, as the infection spread from one to a few to
many. So far it was localized. But it wouldn't stay that
way.</p>
<p>Doc climbed slowly out of the tractor, lugging his
small supplies of equipment, while Jake made arrangements
for them to spend the night in a deserted house.
But the figure of the runner and his own failures to
find more about the disease kept haunting Doc. He
began setting up his equipment grimly.</p>
<p>"Better get some sleep," Jake suggested. "You're a
mite more tired than you think. Anyhow, I thought
you told me you couldn't do any more with what you've
got."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Feldman looked at the supplies he had spread out,
and shook his head wearily. He'd been over every
chemical and combination a dozen times, without results
that showed in the limited magnification of the optical
mike.</p>
<p>He snapped the case shut and hit the rude table with
the heel of his hand. "There are other supplies. Jake,
do you have any signal to get in touch with Molly
at the Ryan house?"</p>
<p>"Three raps on the rear left window. I'll get Lou."</p>
<p>"No!" Doc came to his feet, reaching for his jacket.
"They're looking for three men now. It's safer if I go
alone—and I'm the only one who knows what supplies
are needed. With luck, I may even get the electron mike.
Got a gun I can borrow?"</p>
<p>Jake found one somewhere, an old revolver with a
few loads. He began protesting, but Doc overruled him
sharply. Three men could no more fight off the police
than one, if they were spotted. He swung toward the
tractor.</p>
<p>"You'd better start spreading the word on everything
we know. If people realize they're already safe or
doomed it'll be better than having them going crazy to
avoid contagion."</p>
<p>"Most of the villages know already," Jake told him.
"And damn it, get back here, Doc. If you can't make
it, turn tail quick, and we'll think of something else."</p>
<p>Southport seemed normal enough as Doc drove
through its streets. The stereo house was open, and the
little shops were brightly lighted. He stopped once to
pull a copy of Southport's little newspaper from a dispenser.
All was quiet on its front page, too.</p>
<p>As usual, though, the facts were buried inside. The
editorial was pouring too much oil on the waters in its<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></SPAN></span>
lauding of the role of Medical Lobby on Mars for no
apparent reason. The death notices no longer listed the
cause of death. Medical knew something was up, at least,
and was worried.</p>
<p>He parked the tractor behind Chris' house and slipped
to the proper window. Everything was seemingly quiet
there. At his knock, the shade was drawn back, and he
caught a brief glimpse of Molly looking out. A moment
later she opened the rear lock to let him into the
kitchen.</p>
<p>"Shh. She's still up, I think. What can I do, Doc?"</p>
<p>He tried to smile at her. "Hide me until it's safe to
get into her laboratory. I've got to—"</p>
<p>The inner kitchen was kicked open and Chris stood
beyond it, holding a cocked gun in her hand.</p>
<p>"It took longer than I expected, Dan," she said
quietly. "But after your letter, I knew you'd swallow the
bait. You bloody fool! Did you really believe I'd start
doing research here just because of your imaginings?"</p>
<p>He slumped slowly back against the sink. "So this is
a fool's errand, then? There never was any equipment
here?"</p>
<p>"The equipment's here—in my office. I guessed your
spies would report it, so it had to be here. But it won't
help you now, pariah Feldman!"</p>
<p>He came from his braced position against the sink
like a spring uncoiling. He expected her to shoot, but
hoped the surprise would ruin her aim. Then it was
too late, and his boot hit the gun savagely, knocking it
from her hand. Life in the villages had hardened him
surprisingly. She was comparatively helpless in his
hands. A few minutes later, he had her bound securely
with surgical tape Molly brought him. She raged furiously
in the chair where he'd dumped her, then gave up.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"They'll get you, Daniel Feldman!" Surprisingly,
there was no rage in her voice now. "You won't get
away from us. The planet isn't big enough."</p>
<p>"I got away from your trial," he reminded her. "And
I got away and lived when you left me without a
chance on the ground of the spaceport."</p>
<p>She laughed harshly. "<i>You</i> got away then? You fool,
who do you think gave you the extra battery so you
could live long enough to be helped at the spaceport?
Who hired a fool like Matthews so you wouldn't get the
death sentence you deserved? Who let you get away
as an herb doctor for months before you set yourself
up as God and a traitor to mankind again?"</p>
<p>It shook him, as it was probably intended to do. How
had she known about the extra battery? He'd always
assumed that Ben had returned to give it to him. But
in that case, Chris couldn't know of it. Then he hardened
himself again. In the old days, she'd always had
one trump card he couldn't beat and hadn't expected.
But too much was involved for games now.</p>
<p>"Any police around, Molly?" he asked.</p>
<p>Molly came back a minute later to report that everything
looked clear and to show him where the equipment
had been set up in Chris' office. It was all there,
including the electron mike—a beautiful little portable
model. There was even a small incubator with its own
heat source into which he immediately transferred the
little bottles he'd been keeping warm against his skin.
Most of the equipment had never been unpacked, which
made loading it onto his tractor ridiculously easy.</p>
<p>"Better come with me now, Molly," he suggested at
last. Then he turned to Chris, who was watching him
with almost no expression. "You can wriggle your chair
to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the phone<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></SPAN></span>
off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless
you really did leave me that battery."</p>
<p>"You won't get away with it," she told him again,
calmly this time.</p>
<p>"No," he admitted. "Probably not. But maybe the
human race will, if I have time to find an answer to the
plague you won't see under your nose. But you won't
get away with it, either. In the long run, your kind
never do."</p>
<p>Molly was sniffling as they drove away. It had probably
been the best life she'd known, Doc supposed.
Chris could be kind to menials. But now Molly's work
was done, and she'd have to disappear into the villages.
He let her off at the first village and drove on alone.
He was itching to get to the microscope now, hardly
able to wait through the long journey back to Jake.
His impatience grew with each mile.</p>
<p>Finally he gave up. He swung the tractor into a small
gulley between sand dunes, left the motor idling and
pulled down the shades the villagers used for blackout
traveling. There was power enough for the mike here,
and the cab was big enough for what he had to do.</p>
<p>He mounted the mike on the tractor seat and began
laying out the collection of smears and cultures he had
brought. It had been years since he'd made a film for
the electron mike, but he found it all came back to him
as he worked.</p>
<p>His hands were sweating with tension as he inserted
the first film into the chamber. He had the magnetic
"lenses" set for twenty thousand power, but a quick
glance showed it was too weak. He raised the power
to fifty thousand.</p>
<p>The filaments were there, clear and distinct.</p>
<p>He turned on the little tape recorder that had been<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></SPAN></span>
part of Chris' equipment and set the microphone where
he could dictate into it without stopping to make
clumsy notes. He readjusted the focus carefully, carrying
on a running commentary.</p>
<p>Then he gasped. Each of the little filaments carried
three tiny darker sections; each was a cell, complete in itself,
with the typical Martian triple nucleus.</p>
<p>He put a film with a tiny section of the nerve tissue
from a corpse into the chamber next, and again a quick
glance at the screen was enough. The filaments were
there, thickly crowded among nerve cells. They <i>did</i>
travel along the nerves to reach the base of the brain
before the larger lump could form.</p>
<p>A specimen from one of the black specks was even
more interesting. The filaments were there, but some
were changed or changing into tiny, round cells, also
with the triple dark spots of nuclei. Those must be the
final form that was released to infect others. Probably
at first these multiplied directly in epithelial tissue, so
that there was a rapid contagion of infection. Eventually,
they must form the filaments that invaded the
nerves and caused the brief bodily reaction that was
Selznik's migraine. Then the body adapted to them and
they began to incubate slowly, developing into the
large cells he had first seen. When "ripe", the big cells
broke apart into millions of the tiny round ones that
went back to the nerve endings, causing the black spots
and killing the host.</p>
<p>He knew his enemy now, at least.</p>
<p>He reached for the controls, increasing the magnification.
He would lose resolution, but he might find
something more at the extreme limits of the mike.</p>
<p>Something wet and cold gushed into his face. He
jerked back, trying to wipe it off, but it was already<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></SPAN></span>
evaporating, and there was a thick, acrid odor in the
cab. He grabbed for his aspirator, then tried to reach
the airlock. But paralysis was already spreading through
him, and he toppled to the floor before he could escape.</p>
<p>When he came to, it was morning outside, and Chris
was waiting inside the cab with two big Lobby policemen.
A hypo in her hand must have been what revived
him.</p>
<p>She touched the electron microscope with something
like affection. "The Lobby technicians did a good job
on this, don't you think, Dan? I warned you, but you
wouldn't listen. And now we've even got your own
taped words to prove you were doing forbidden research.
Fool!"</p>
<p>She shook her head pityingly as the tractor began
moving with two others toward Southport.</p>
<p>"You and your phony diseases. A little skin disorder,
Selznik's migraine, and a few cases of psychosis to make
a new disease. Do you think Medical Lobby can't check
on such simple things? Or didn't you expect us to hear
of your open talk of revolt and realize you were planning
to create some new germ to wipe out the Earth
forces. Maybe those runners of yours were real, mass
murderer!"</p>
<p>She drew out another hypo and shoved the needle
into his arm. Necrosynth—enough to keep him unconscious
for twenty-four hours. He started to curse her,
but the drug acted before he could complete the
thought.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></SPAN></span></p>
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