“Well?” Eller said. “We’ll be lucky if we get out of this. Space radiations can do strange things to a man’s body. It was a bad day for us when we landed on that…”
“Eller,” Blake whispered. “What’ll we do? We can’t live this way, not like this! Look at us.”
“I know.” Eller set his lips. He was having trouble speaking now that he was almost toothless. He felt suddenly like a baby. Toothless, without hair, a body growing more helpless each moment. Where would it end?
“We can’t go back like this,” Blake said. “We can’t go back to Terra, not looking this way. Good heavens, Eller! We’re freaks. Mutants. They’ll… they’ll lock us up like animals in cages. People will…”
“Shut up.” Eller crossed to him. “We’re lucky to be alive at all. Sit down.” He drew a chair out. “I think we better get off our legs.”
They both sat down. Blake took a deep, shuddering breath. He rubbed his smooth forehead, again and again.
“It’s not us I’m worried about,” Eller said, after a time. “It’s Silvia. She’ll suffer the most from this. I’m trying to decide whether we should go down at all. But if we don’t, she may…”
There was a buzz. The vidscreen came to life, showing the white-walled laboratory, the retorts and rows of testing equipment, lined up neatly against the walls.
“Cris?” Silvia’s voice came, thin and edged with horror. She was not visible on the screen. Apparently she was standing off to one side.
“Yes.” Eller went to the screen. “How are you?”
“How am I?” A thrill of hysteria ran through the girl’s voice. “Cris, has it hit you, too? I’m afraid to look.” There was a pause. “It has, hasn’t it? I can see you… but don’t try to look at me. I don’t want you to see me again. It’s… it’s horrible. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Blake says he won’t go back to Terra this way.”
“No! We can’t go back! We can’t!”
There was silence. “We’ll decide later,” Eller said finally. “We don’t have to settle it now. These changes in our systems are due to radiation, so they may be only temporary. They may go away, in time. Or surgery may help. Anyhow, let’s not worry about it now.”
“Not worry? No, of course I won’t worry. How could I worry about a little thing like this! Cris, don’t you understand? We’re monsters, hairless monsters. No hair, no teeth, no nails. Our heads…”
“I understand.” Eller set his jaw. “You stay down in the lab. Blake and I will discuss it with you on the vidscreen. You won’t have to show yourself to us.”
Silvia took a deep breath. “Anything you say. You’re still captain.”
Eller turned away from the screen. “Well, Blake, do you feel well enough to talk?”
The great-domed figure in the corner nodded, the immense hairless skull moving slightly. Blake’s once great body had shrunk, caved in. The arms were pipe stems, the chest hollow and sickly. Restlessly, the soft fingers tapped against the table. Eller studied him.
“What is it?” Blake said.
“Nothing. I was just looking at you.”
“You’re not very pleasant looking, either.”
“I realize that.” Eller sat down across from him. His heart was pounding, his breath coming shallowly. “Poor Silv! It’s worse for her than it is for us.”
Blake nodded. “Poor Silv. Poor all of us. She’s right, Eller. We’re monsters.” His fragile lips curled. “They’ll destroy us back on Terra. Or lock us up. Maybe a quick death would be better. Monsters, freaks, hairless hydrocephalics.”
“Not hydrocephalics,” Eller said. “Your brain isn’t impaired. That’s one thing to be thankful for. We can still think. We still have our minds.”
“In any case we know why there isn’t life on the asteroid,” Blake said ironically. “We’re a success as a scouting party. We got the information. Radiation, lethal radiation, destructive to organic tissue. Produces mutation and alteration in cell growth as well as changes in the structure and function of the organs.”
Eller studied him thoughtfully. “That’s quite learned talk for you, Blake.”
“It’s an accurate description.” Blake looked up. “Let’s be realistic. We’re monstrous cancers blasted by hard radiation. Let’s face it. We’re not men, not human beings any longer. We’re…”
“We’re what?”
“I don’t know.” Blake lapsed into silence.
“It’s strange,” Eller said. He studied his fingers moodily. He experimented, moving his fingers about. Long, long and thin. He traced the surface of the table with them. The skin was sensitive. He could feel every indentation of the table, every line and mark.
“What are you doing?” Blake said.
“I’m curious.” Eller held his fingers close to his eyes, studying them. His eyesight was dimming. Everything was vague and blurred. Across from him Blake was staring down. Blake’s eyes had begun to recede, sinking slowly into the great hairless skull. It came to Eller all at once that they were losing their sight. They were going slowly blind. Panic seized him.
“Blake!” he said. “We’re going blind. There’s a progressive deterioration of our eyes, vision and muscles.”
“I know,” Blake said.
“But why? We’re actually losing the eyes themselves! They’re going away, drying up. Why?”
“Atrophied,” Blake murmured.
“Perhaps.” Eller brought out a log book from the table, and a writing beam. He traced a few notes on the foil. Sight diminishing, vision failing rapidly. But fingers much more sensitive. Skin response unusual. Compensation?
“What do you think of this?” he said. “We’re losing some functions, gaining others.”
“In our hands?” Blake studied his own hands. “The loss of the nails makes it possible to use the fingers in new ways.” He rubbed his fingers against the cloth of his uniform. “I can feel individual fibers which was impossible before.”
“Then the loss of nails was purposeful!”
“So?”
“We’ve been assuming this was all without purpose. Accidental burns, cell destruction, alteration. I wonder. “ Eller moved the writing beam slowly across the log sheet. Fingers: new organs of perception. Heightened touch, more tactile response. But vision dimming.
“Cris!” Silvia’s voice came, sharp and frightened.
“What is it?” He turned toward the vidscreen.
“I’m losing my sight. I can’t see.”
“It’s all right. Don’t worry.”
“I’m… I’m afraid.”
Eller went over to the vidscreen. “Silv, I think we’re losing some senses and gaining others. Examine your fingers. Do you notice anything? Touch something.”
There was an agonizing pause. “I seem to be able to feel things much differently. Not the same as before.”
“That’s why our nails are gone.”
“But what does it mean?”
Eller touched his bulging cranium, exploring the smooth skin thoughtfully. Suddenly he clenched his fists, gasping. “Silv! Can you still operate the X-ray equipment? Are you mobile enough to cross the lab?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Then I want an X-ray plate made. Make it right away. As soon as it’s ready i notify me.”
“An X-ray plate? Of what?”
“Of your own cranium. I want to see what changes our brains have undergone. Especially the cerebrum. I’m beginning to understand, I think.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when I see the plate.” A faint smile played across Eller’s thin lips. “If I’m right, then we’ve been completely mistaken about what’s happened to us!”
For a long time Eller stared at the X-ray plate framed in the vidscreen. Dimly he made out the lines of the skull, struggling to see with his fading eyesight. The plate trembled in Silvia’s hands.