"Well, Oliveira found that if the ectogens were subjected to a really rigid quarantine, they never developed hair at all, at least not in more than the normal quantities. By really rigid quarantine, I mean that the air they breathed was heated to 800 degrees C, and then liquefied, and run through a battery of cyclones, and washed with a dozen disinfectants. Their food was treated in a comparable manner. I don't quite see how the poor little fellows survived such unholy sanitation, but they did, and didn't grow hair— until they were brought in contact with other human beings, or were injected with sera from the blood of hairy babies.
"Oliveira figured out that the cause of the hyperpilosity was what he'd suspected all along: another of these damned self-perpetuating protein molecules. As you know, you can't see a protein molecule, and you can't do much with it chemically because, if you do, it forthwith ceases to be a protein molecule. We have their structure worked out pretty well now, but it's been a slow process with lots of inferences from inadequate data; sometimes the inferences were right and sometimes they weren't.
"But to do much in the way of detailed analysis of the things you need a respectable quantity of them, and these that we were after didn't exist in even a disrespectable amount. Then Oliveira worked out his method of counting them. The reputation he made from that method is about the only permanent thing he got out of all this work.
"When we applied the method, we found something decidedly screwy—an ectogen's virus count after catching hyperpil was the same as it had been before. That didn't seem right: we knew that he had been injected with hyperpil molecules, and had come out with a fine mattress as a result.
"Then one morning I found Oliveira at his desk looking like a medieval monk who had just seen a vision after a forty-days' fast. (Incidentally, you try fasting that long and you'll see visions too, losts of 'em.) He said, 'Pat, don't buy a yacht with your share of that meelion. They cost too much to upkeep.'
"Huh?' was the brightest remark I could think of.
" 'Look here,' he said, going up to the blackboard. It was covered with chalk diagrams of protein molecules. 'We have three proteins, alpha, beta, and gamma. No alphas have exeested for thousands of years. Now, you will note that the only deefference between the alpha and the beta is that these nitrogens—' he pointed '—are hooked onto thees chain instead of that one. You will also observe, from the energy relations wreeten down here, that, if one beta is eentroduced eento a set of aiphas, all the alphas will presently turn into betas.
"Now, we know now that all sorts of protein molecules are being assembled inside us all the time; most of them are unstable and break up again, or are inert and harmless, or lack the power of selfreproduction—anyway, nothing happens because of them. But, because they are so beeg and complicated, the possible forms they take are very many, and it is possible that once in a lopg time some new kind of protein appears with self-reproducing qualities; in other words, a virus. Probably that's how the various disease viruses got started, all because something choggled an ordinary protein molecule that was chust being feenished and got the nitrogens hooked on the wrong chains.
" 'My idea is thees: The alpha protein, which I have reconstructed from what we know about its descendants beta and gamma, once exeested as a harmless and inert protein molecule in the human body. Then one day somebody heecupped as one of them was being formed, and presto! have a beta. But the beta is not harmless: It reproduces itself fast, and it inheebits the growth of hair on most of our bodies. So presently all our species, wheech at the time was pretty apish, catch this virus, and lose their hair. Moreover, it is one of the viruses that is transmeeted to the embryo, so the new babies don't have hair, either.
" 'Well, our ancestors sheever a while, and then learn to cover themselves with animal skeens to keep warm, and also to keep fire. And so, the march of ceevilizations it is commence! Chust theenk—except for that one original beta protein molecule, we should probably today all be merely a kind of goreela or cheempanzee—anyway, an ordinary anthropoid ape.
" 'Now, I feegure that what has happened is that another change in the form of the molecule has taken place, changing it from beta to gamma—and gamma is a harmless and inert leetle fellow, like alpha. So we are back where we started.
"Our problem, yours and mine, is to find how to turn the gammas with wheech we are all swarming back into betas. In other words, now that we have become all of a sudden cured of the disease that was endemic in the whole race for thousands of years, we want our disease back again. And I theenk I see how it can be done.'
"I couldn't get much more out of him; he went to work harder than ever. After several weeks he announced that he was ready to experiment on himself; his method consisted of a combination of a number of drugs—one of them was the standard cure for glanders in horses, as I recall—and a high-frequency electromagnetic fever.
"I wasn't very keen about it, because I'd gotten to like the fellow, and that awful dose he was going to give himself looked enough to kill a regiment. But he went right ahead.
"Well, it nearly did kill him. But after three days he was more or less back to normal, and was whooping at the discovery that the hair on his limbs and body was rapidly falling out. In a couple of weeks he had no more hair than you'd expect a Mexican professor of virology to have.
"But then our real surprise came, and it wasn't a pleasant one!
"We expected to be more or less swamped by publicity, and had made our preparations accordingly. I remember staring into Ohveira's face for a full minute and then reassuring him that he had trimmed his mustache to exact symmetry, and getting him to straighten my new necktie.
"Our epoch-making announcement dug up two personal calls from bored reporters, a couple of phone interviews from science editors, and not one photographer! We did make the science section of the New York Times, but with only about twelve lines of type—the paper merely stated that Professor Oliveira and his assistant—not named—had found the cause and cure of hyperpilosity; not a word about the possible effects of the discovery.
"Our contracts with the Medical Center prohibited us from exploiting our discovery commercially, but we expected that plenty of other people would be quick to do so as soon as the method was made public. But it didn't happen. In fact, we might have discovered a correlation between temperature and the pitch of the bullfrog's croak for all the splash we made.
"A week later Oliveira and I talked to the department head, Wheelock, about the discovery. Ohiveira wanted him to use his influence to get a dehairing clinic set up. But couldn't see it.
"We've had a couple of inquiries,' he admitted, 'but nothing to get excited about. Remember the rush there was when Zimmerman's cancer treatment came out? Well, there's been nothing like that. In fact, I—ah—doubt whether I personally should care to undergo your treatment, surefire though it may be, Doctor Ohiveira. I'm not in the least disparaging the remarkable piece of work you've done. But—ah"—here he ran his fingers through the hair on his chest, which was over six inches long, thick, and a beautiful silky white—"you know, I've gotten rather fond of the old pelt, and I'd feel slightly indecent back in my bare skin. Also, it's a lot more economical than a suit of clothes. And—ah—if I may say so with due modesty—I don't think it's bad-looking. My family has always ridden me about my sloppy clothes, but now the laugh's on them; not one of them can show a coat of fur like mine!"