She wandered into the bedroom and came back with a large waffle-creased metal egg which she held out to him, as if it were a toy to cajole an ailing child.
“My cousin just landed in San Francisco,” she told him. “Look at the souvenir he smuggled in for me." He got up carefully and took it from her.
“Must be your dumb cousin, the one from downstate."
“Why?"
“Because, unless I'm very much mistaken, this is a live hand grenade. Look, you'd just have to pull this pin—"
“Give it to me!"
But he fended her off, grinning, holding the grenade in the air.
“Don't be frightened,” he told her, “this is nothing. It's just a flash in the pan, a match head. Haven't you heard of the atom bomb? That's all that counts from now on."
He enjoyed her fear so much that he kept up his teasing for some time, but after a while he yielded and laid the grenade gingerly away in the back of the closet.
Afterwards he found he could talk to her more easily than ever before. He told her about the Atomic Age, how they'd be driving around in an airplane with a fuel-tank no bigger than a peanut, how they'd whisk to Europe and back on a glass of water. He even told her a little about his crazy fears. Finally he got philosophical.
“See, we always thought everything was so solid. Money, automobiles, mines, dirt. We thought they were so solid that we could handle them, hold on to them, do things with them. And now we find they're just a lot of little bits of deadly electricity, whirling around at God knows what speed, by some miracle frozen for a moment. But any time now—” He looked across at her and then reached for her. “Except you,” he said. “There aren't any atoms in you."
“Look,” he said, “there's enough energy inside you to blow up the world—well, maybe not inside you, but inside any other person. This whole city would go pouf!"
“Stop it."
“The only problem is, how to touch it off. Do you know how cancer works?"
“Oh shut up."
“The cells run wild. They grow any way they want to. Now suppose your thoughts should run wild, eh? Suppose they'd decide to go to work on your body, on the atoms of your body."
“For God's sake."
“They'd start on your nervous system first, of course, because that's where they are. They'd begin to split the atoms of your nervous system, make them, you know, radioactive. Then—"
“Frank!"
He glanced out of the window, noticed the light was still in Dr. Jacobson's office. He was feeling extraordinarily good, as if there were nothing he could not do. He felt an exciting rush of energy through him. He turned and reached for Myna.
Myna screamed.
He grabbed at her.
“What's the matter?"
She pulled away and screamed again.
He followed her. She huddled against the far wall, still screaming.
Then he saw it.
Of course, it was too dark in the room to see anything plainly. Flesh was just a dim white smudge. But this thing beside Myna glowed greenishly. A blob of green about as high off the floor as his head. A green stalk coming down from it part way. Fainter greenish filaments going off from it, especially from near the top and bottom of the stalk.
It was his reflection in the mirror.
Then the pains began to come, horrible pains sweeping up and down his nerves, building a fire in his skull.
He ran out of the bedroom. Myna followed him, saw him come out of the closet, bending, holding something to his stomach. About seconds after he'd gotten through the hall door, the blast came.
Dr. Jacobson ran out of his office. The corridor was filled with acrid fumes. He saw a woman in a dressing gown trying to haul a naked man whose abdomen and legs were tattered and dripping red. Together they carried him into the office and laid him down.
Dr. Jacobson recognized his patient.
“He went crazy,” the woman yelped at him. “He thought he was going to explode like an atom, and something horrible happened to him, and he killed himself."
Dr. Jacobson, seeing the other was beyond help, started to calm her.
Then he heard it.
His thick glasses, half dislodged during his exertions, fell off. His red-rimmed naked eyes looked purblind, terrified.
He could tell that she heard it too, although she didn't know its meaning. A sound like the rattle of a pygmy machine gun.
The Geiger-Muller counter was ticking like a clock gone mad.
IN THE X~RAY
“Do the dead come back?” Dr. Ballard repeated the question puzzeledly. “What's that got to do with your ankle?"
“I didn't say that,” Nancy Sawyer answered sharply. “I said: ‘I tried an ice pack.’ You must have misheard me."
“But...” Dr. Ballard began. Then, “Of course I must have,” he said quickly. “Go on, Miss Sawyer."
The girl hesitated. Her glance strayed to the large, gleaming window and the graying sky beyond. She was a young woman with prominent eyes, a narrow chin, strong white teeth, reddish hair, and a beautiful, doe-like figure which included legs long and slim—except for the ankle of the one outstretched stockingless on the chair before her. That was encircled by a hard, white, somewhat irregular swelling.
Dr. Ballard was a man of middle age and size, with strong, soft-skinned hands. He looked intelligent and as successful as his sleekly-furnished office.
“Well, there isn't much more to it,” the girl said finally. “I tried the ice pack but the swelling wouldn't go down. So Marge made me call you."
“I see. Tell me, Miss Sawyer, hadn't your ankle bothered you before last night?"
“No. I just woke up from a nightmare, frightened because something had grabbed my foot, and I reached down and touched my ankle—and there it was."
“Your ankle didn't feel or look any different the day before?"
“No."
“Yet when you woke up the swelling was there?"
“Just as it is now."
“Do you think you might have twisted your foot while you were asleep?"
“No."
“And you don't feel any pain in it now?"
“No, except a feeling of something hard clasped snugly around it and every once in a while squeezing a bit tighter."
“Ever do any sleepwalking?"
“No."
“Any allergies?"
“No."
“Can you think of anything else—anything at all—that might have a bearing on this trouble?"
Again Nancy looked out the window. “I have a twin sister,” she said after a moment, in a different voice. “Or rather, I had. She died more than a year ago.” She looked back quickly at Dr. Ballard. “But I don't know why I should mention that,” she said hurriedly. “It couldn't possibly have any bearing on this. She died of apoplexy."
There was a pause.
“I suppose the X-ray will show what's the matter?” she continued.
The doctor nodded. “We'll have it soon. Miss Snyder's getting it now."
Nancy started to get up, asked, “Is it all right for me to move around?” Dr. Ballard nodded. She went over to the window, limping just a little, and looked down.
“You have a nice view, you can see half the city,” she said. “We have the river at our apartment. I think we're higher, though."
“This is the twentieth floor,” Dr. Ballard said.
“We're twenty-three,” she told him. “I like high buildings. It's a little like being in an airplane. With the river right under our window I can imagine I'm flying over water."
There was a soft knock at the door. Nancy looked around inquiringly. “The X-ray?” He shook his head. He went to the door and opened it.
“It's your friend Miss Hudson."
“Hi, Marge,” Nancy called. “Come on in."