He did not argue with her. He would escape and go to a hospital; that was all. "I'd like you to undress," he said. He had just collected a little of her sweat and taken-almost painlessly- a minute specimen of her Hesh. The analyzer found something incomprehensible in both-probably the same something it had found in her blood and urine.
"Unidentifiable microbes," the small screen said. It was able to show him tiny, spiderlike organisms in her flesh, some of them caught in the act of reproducing along with her cells-as part of her cells. They were not viruses. According to the computer, they were more complete, independent organisms. Yet they had made themselves at home in human cells in a way that should not have been possible-like plasmids invading and making themselves at home in bacteria. But these were hardly plasmids-solitary rings of DNA. These were more complex organisms that had sought out higher game than bacteria and managed to combine with it without killing it. They had changed it, however, altered it slightly, subtly, cell by cell. In the most basic possible way, they had tampered with Meda's genetic blueprint. They had left her no longer human.
"The ones that live in the brain don't have little legs-cilia, I mean," Meda said over his shoulder. "What?"
"Eli told me they get into the brain cells, too. It sounds frightening, but there isn't anything we can do about it. I guess they'd have to reach the brain to change us so."
She did not know how changed she was. Could there be any hope of reversing such elemental changes? There must be, for his daughters' sake.
"Eli and I used to talk about it a lot," she said. "He wanted me to know everything he knew-in case anything happened to him. He said his wife and the other doctor did autopsies on the crew members who died before them. They found
little round organisms in the brains of every one of them."
"Rabies again," Blake muttered. But no. Rabies was only a virus, preventable and curable.
"Eli's wife tried to make antibodies," Meda said. "It didn't work. I don't remember what else she tried. I didn't understand, anyway. But nothing worked except reinfection. They found out about that by accident. And it works better person-to-person than person-to-syringe. Maybe that's just psychological, but we don't care. We'll use anything that works. That's why I'm here with you."
"You're here to try to make a good carrier of me," he said. She shrugged. "You'll be that or die. I'd rather live myself."
There was another answer. There had to be. He could not find it with only his bag, but others, researchers with lab computers, would sooner or later come up with answers. First, though, they had to be made aware of the questions.
He turned to look at Meda and saw that she had stripped. Surprisingly, she looked less scrawny without her clothing. More like the human female she was not. What could her children be like?
She smiled. "All my clothes are too big," she said. "I put them on and I look like a collection of sticks, I know. Maybe
now I'll buy a few new things next time I'm in town."
He ignored the obvious implication, but could not ignore the way she kept reading him. He became irrationally afraid that she was reading his mind, that he would never be able to keep an escape plan from her. He tried to shake off the feeling as he proceeded with the examination. She-said nothing more. He got the impression she was sparing him,
humoring him.
He asked to examine others in the community when he finished with her, but she was not ready to share him with anyone else.
"Start checking them tomorrow if they'll let you," she said. "You'll smell different then. Less seductive." "Seductive?"
"I mean you'll smell more like one of us. Nobody will take any special pleasure in touching you then." She had dressed again in her loose, ugly clothing. "It's sexual," she said. "Or rather, it feels sexual. Touching you is almost as good as
screwing. It would be good even if I didn't like you. If not for people like you- people we have to catch and keep, I
could never control myself enough to go into town. With no outlet it gets . . . painful and crazy, sort of frenzied when there are a lot of unconverted people around. I have dreams about suddenly finding myself moving through a crowd- maybe on a big city street. Moving through a crowd where I have no choice but to keep touching people. I don't even know whether to call it a nightmare or not. I'm on automatic. It's just happening."
"You'd like it to happen," he said, watching her.
"Pigshit!" she said, abruptly angry. "If I wanted it to happen, it would happen. I'd get in my car and I'd drive. I could infect people in towns from here to New York. And I'd do exactly that if I ever had to leave this place. There would be no one to help me, stop me." She hesitated, then sat down on the bed beside him. He managed not to recoil when she took his hand. He was getting information from her. Let her touch him as long as she kept talking.
"You've got to understand," she said. "It's really hard on us the way we limit our growth. We can only do it because we're so isolated. But if you escaped-with or without your kids-we'd have to escape too before you could send people here to corral us. I don't know where we'd go, but chances are, we'd have to split up. Now you imagine, for instance, Ingraham out there on his own. He was high-strung before, and damned undisciplined. He doesn't shake because there's more wrong with him than with the rest of us. He shakes because he's holding himself back almost all the time. He respects Eli and he loves Lupe. She's going to have his kid. But you force him out of here, and all by himself, he'll start an epidemic you won't believe."
"And you're saying that will be my fault," Blake said angrily. She was boxing him in. Everything she said was intended to close another exit.
"We'll do anything to avoid being locked up," she said. "I'll do anything to keep my sons from being taken from me." "Nobody would take your-"
"Shut your mouth! They'd take them. They'd treat them like things. If they killed them-accidentally or deliberately, it would just be one of their problems solved."
"Meda, listen-"
"So if you're afraid of an epidemic, Doctor, don't even think about leaving us. Even if you spread the word, you can't possibly stop us." She switched tracks abruptly. "I'm starving. Do you want anything to eat?"
He was disoriented for a moment. "Food?" "We eat a lot. You'll see."
"What if you didn't?" he asked, immediately alert. "I mean, I couldn't have put away the meal I saw you eat only a few hours ago. What if you just ate normally?"
"We do eat normally-for us." "You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I know. You're still seeking weakness. Well, you've found one. W^e eat a lot. Now what are you going to do?
Destroy our food supply?" She produced a key from somewhere, seemingly by magic. Her hands actually were quicker than his eyes. "Don't even think about doing anything to the food," she said. "Someday I'll tell you how people like you smell to my kids." She let herself out and slammed the door behind her.
She returned sometime later, bringing him a ham sandwich and a fruit salad. "I'd like to see my daughters," he told her.
"I'll see," she said. "Maybe I can bring you one of them for a few minutes."
Her cooperativeness pleased but did not surprise him. She had children of her own and she could see that his concern was genuine; there was no reason for her to find that concern suspect.
He was lying down, tired and frightened, hanging on to the bare bones of an escape plan when Eli brought Keira in. Keira seemed calm. Eli left her without saying a word. He locked her in and probably stood outside listening.