They took pictures. Many pictures. The Thing seemed stunned and dazed now, though they could not guess the self-evident reason. It had flashes of hysterical fury, but on the whole it was amazingly quiescent They photographed it from every angle, at a distance and close-up, showing every detail of its body and its similitude of a face with a mere breathing-orifice in place of a nose and its unspeakably revolting apparatus for feeding....
Jim booted it scornfully back into its cage.
"Plenty tame when it's helpless!" he said contemptuously. "How do the pictures look?"
Brandon was unrolling them from the camera. He'd used self-developing, self-reversing film because it would be easier to take extra shots than to make duplicate prints for their purposes. He nodded in satisfaction.
"I think they'll do!" he told him. "Nobody can look at these and think they're faked, or that the Thing that's pictured belongs on earth! Where d'you think they came from, Jim?"
"From hell," said Jim sourly. "And I want to send 'em back there."
He vengefully refastened the fastenings of the cage. He tightened the twisted wires with pliers. He felt contempt for the Thing now, which was not wise. He underestimated its intelligence and he wholly missed the actual situation in which the Thing had found itself. But he made thoroughly sure that it was as securely caged as before, and then took it out to the car-trunk again. He and Brandon lived in the vault, which was at least weather-tight.
"I'll write those letters," Jim said grimly when he came back, "whether they do any good or not."
With the tiny light at his disposal he began. There were a good number of them, and Brandon partly dictated one or two. When he was finished, he was simply doggedly resolved.
"Probably not a bit of good," he said coldly, "but I've got to try everything... The devil of it is, those Thing's will be worrying about being discovered, and that's bad! Hello! The transmitter's turned on. You probably threw the switch when you almost toppled it." Then he added bitterly, "Might as well smash it!"
But he didn't, though the impulse to do so was strong. And it was rather odd that he slept soundly that night. Not, of course, because he no longer had any hope. Not even because he knew how the Things could complete the conquest of all humanity if they only happened to think of something that had occurred to him.
In perspective, it seems odd that he could have gone calmly to sleep after realizing that the transmitter had been turned on while the photographs were being taken.
21
A very famous zoologist was hoeing deftly in his garden —he grew excellent dahlias—when his granddaughter brought him the morning mail. He beamed at her and sat down in a garden chair to look at it. A bill or two, which he regarded with disfavor. An invitation to lecture. A letter calling his attention to an article in a scientific journal, just published, and asking his opinion. A letter-He looked blankly at the photographs. They were three-dimensional, of course, and in color. The technical excellence of the film made up for some lack of experience in the photographer. They were pictures of a—a creature. It had a horde of small limbs for locomotion, and two small malevolent eyes, and a mere breathing-orifice instead of a nose. It's feeding apparatus— The zoologist said, "Preposterous!" He looked at a second photograph of the same object. It was in a different position. There were heavy veinings beneath a flabby, pinkish, hairless skin. The way in which it balanced itself on those seemingly innumerable feeble legs....
The zoologist said, "Ridiculous!"
He looked at the third picture and snorted. He did not bother to read the letter. He went back to his hoeing. But he frowned as he worked. Presently he went back to the discarded letter. He looked at the pictures again. He said vexedly, "Fiddlesticks!"
The devices by which the creature lived and moved— if it lived and moved—were not like those of any known animal. Animals did not have an odd number of legs. They did not have four joints in their limbs. They did not have mandibular fangs. Especially, they did not have such feeding apparatus.
The zoologist threw down the photographs a second time. He went back to his hoe, but he did not pick it up. He went yet again to the pictures. They were preposterous and ridiculous and a very suitable comment on them was, "Fiddlesticks!" But they had an irrational plausibility. He observed this improbable feature. By itself it was impossible because— But the thing that made it not impossible was there! Each arrangement was unorthodox in the animal world. But each was completely consistent with every other. The zoologist scowled. The thing was a wonderfully clever fake. Only a trained man could appreciate how wonderfully clever it was. But there must be something that would prove it a hoax...
He studied the pictures with concentrated attention. He grew irritated by his findings. The thing was unheard of, but it was incredibly rational. Nobody could have combined so many ingenious improbabilities so deftly. Nobody! It was not possible to create so soundly planned an impossibility!
At last he read the letter. He hesitated a long time. Then he went angrily to his visiphone and called Security.
The parasitologist looked at the pictures that had come in the morning mail. Clever.... There were no parasites like this, of course, but that feeding apparatus, when you looked at it carefully, was a remarkably original and well-developed idea. No creature had it, but some creature should ... The fangs, too. A blood-feeder, of course. Hm ... Those very curious jointed claws at the ends of the multiple legs ... Of course, for holding on to the animal the creature fed on! Actual parasites were small, so they needed no such devices, but if a parasite were as large as this fake....
It was amusing to look for flaws in the hoax. If a parasite were this large it would need ... Hm ... No. Not quite clever enough! Then he blinked. He'd been wrong. Quite clever enough. Cleverer than he'd thought. The difficulty was met by this....
The parasitologist examined the pictures with a mounting, absorbed interest. It was fascinating. Someone was trying to put across a clever hoax, but they must have slipped somewhere...
Presently he was saying excitedly to himself that only a genius could have designed this model. Everything fitted perfectly, though nothing was the way any known creature was equipped...
Later he was saying to himself that not even a genius could have designed this model. Nobody on earth could have done so perfect a job of imagining an animal which was not like any animal on earth in any single feature. Nobody could have interrelated so many novelties so perfectly.
When he called Security, after reading the letter, his voice shook with excitement.
A celebrated biologist called Security. He said acidly that he had been given to understand that a young man named James Hunt was about to surrender himself to Security, for cause. There was reason to believe that James Hunt had information of unparalleled importance to the science of biology. He had a specimen which must be examined by a capable man. He, the eminent biologist, very urgently requested to be allowed to interview James Hunt when he had surrendered himself and before he was shipped off to Life Custody.
The Security Coordinator of Eastern Sector 5 said pompously; "Yes. It's ridiculous, of course, but there are reports of extensive anemia in that area. If this Hunt person has actually discovered a parasite as he declares, and it is actually responsible for the anemia—why—measures must be taken at once. At once! Check these fingerprints and see if he is actually the person his letter claims. Have the photographs examined and request an estimate of the magnification...."