Graves shut up and he and his assistant complied. Jarvis did not seem to mind; he seemed only partly aware of his surroundings. There was a nasty blue welt across his left cheekbone and temple, but that was not the cause; I did not hit him that hard. Graves must have drugged him.
"Turn him around," the Old Man ordered. Jarvis let himself be turned; there was the mark of the slug, a red rash on the shoulders and neck. "You can all see," the Old Man went on, "where the thing rode him." There had been some whispers and one embarrassed giggle when Jarvis had been stripped; now there was a dead hush.
"Now," said the Old Man, "we are going to get that slug! Furthermore, we are going to capture it alive. That warning is for you eager boys with itchy trigger fingers. You have all seen where a parasite rides on a man. I'm warning you; if the parasite gets burned, I'll burn the man who did it. If you have to shoot the host to catch it, shoot low. Come here!" He pointed his gun at me.
I started toward him; he halted me halfway between the crowd and himself. "Graves! Take Jarvis out of the way. Sit him down behind me. No, leave his robe off," Jarvis was led across the room, still docile, and Graves and his helper rejoined the group. The Old Man turned his attention back to me. "Take out your gun. Drop it on the floor."
The Old Man's gun was pointed at my belly button; I was very careful how I drew mine. I slid it some six feet away from me. "Take off your clothes-all of them."
I am no shrinking violet, but that is an awkward order to carry out. The Old Man's gun overcame my inhibitions.
It did not help any to have some of the younger girls giggling at me as I got down to the buff. One of them said, not too sotto voce, "Not bad!" and another replied, "Knobby, I'd say."
I blushed like a bride.
After he looked me over the Old Man told me to pick up my gun and stand beside him. "Back me up," he ordered, "and keep an eye on the door. You! Dotty Something-or-other-you're next."
Dotty was a girl from the clerical pool. She had no gun, of course, and she had evidently been in bed when the alarm sounded; she was dressed in a floor length negligee. She stepped forward, stopped, but did nothing more.
The Old Man waved his gun at her. "Come on-get 'em off! Don't take all night."
"You really mean it?" she said incredulously. "Move!"
She started-almost jumped. "Well!" she said, "no need to take a person's head off." She bit her lower lip and then slowly unfastened the clasp at her waist. "I ought to get a bonus for this," she said defiantly, then threw the robe from her all in one motion.
Whereupon she ruined her buildup by posing for an instant-not long, but you couldn't miss it. I concede that she had something to display, although I was in no mood to appreciate it.
"Over against the wall," the Old Man said savagely. "Renfrew!"
I don't know whether the Old Man alternated men and women on purpose or not, but it was a good idea, as it kept resistance to a minimum. Oh, shucks, I do know-the Old Man never did anything by accident. After my ordeal the men were businesslike though some were obviously embarrassed. As to the women, some giggled and some blushed, but none of them objected too much. I would have found it interesting if the circumstances had been different. As it was, we were all bound to learn things about each other that we had not known. For instance there was a girl whom we used to call "Chesty"-never mind. In twenty minutes or so there were more square yards of gooseflesh exposed than I had ever seen before and the pile of guns on the floor looked like an arsenal.
When Mary's turn came, she set a good example by taking off her clothes quickly and in a completely unprovocative manner-the Old Man should have called her first, instead of that Dotty baggage. Bare, Mary made nothing of it, and wore her skin with quiet dignity. But what I saw did nothing to cool down my feelings about her.
Mary had added considerably to the pile of hardware. I decided she just plain liked guns. Me, I've never found use for more than one.
Finally we were all mother naked and quite evidently free of parasites, except the Old Man himself and his secretary, Miss Haines. I think he was a bit in awe of Miss Haines; she was older than he and inclined to boss him. It dawned on me whom it had to be-if the Old Man were right. He could have been wrong; for all we knew the parasite might be on a ceiling girder, waiting to drop on someone's neck.
The Old Man looked distressed and poked about in the pile of clothing with his cane. He knew that there was nothing in it-or perhaps be was really making sure. Finally he looked up at his secretary. "Miss Haines-if you please. You are next."
I thought to myself. Brother, this time you are going to have to use force.
She did not move. She stood there, facing him down, a statue of offended virginity. I could see that he was about to take action, so I moved closer to him and said, out of the corner of my mouth, "Boss-how about yourself? Take 'em off."
He jerked his head around and looked startled. "I mean it," I said. "It's you or she. It might be either. Get out of those duds."
The Old Man can relax to the inevitable. He said, "Have her stripped. And I'm next." He began fumbling at his zippers, looking grim.
I told Mary to take a couple of the women and peel Miss Haines. When I turned back the Old Man had his trousers at half mast-and Miss Haines chose to make a break for it.
The Old Man was between me and her and I couldn't get in a clean shot-and every other agent in the place was disarmed! Again, I don't think it was accident; the Old Man did not trust them not to shoot when the parasite was discovered. He wanted that slug, alive.
She was out the door and running down the passage by the time I could get organized. I could have winged her in the passageway but I was inhibited by two things-first, I could not shift gears emotionally that fast. I mean to say she was to me still old Lady Haines, the spinster secretary to the boss, the one who bawled me out for poor grammar in my reports. In the second place, if she was carrying a parasite I did not want to risk burning it, not after what we had been told. I am not the world's best shot, anyhow.
She ducked into a room; I came up to it and again I hesitated-sheer habit; it was the ladies' room.
But only a moment. I slammed the door open and looked around, gun ready.
Something hit me back of my right ear. It seemed to me that I took a long leisurely time in getting to the floor.
I can give no clear account of the next few moments. In the first place I was out cold, for a time at least. I remember a struggle and some shouts: "Look out!" "Damn her-she's bitten me!" "Watch your hands! Watch your hands!" Then somebody said more quietly, "Bind her hands and feet, now-careful." Somebody said, "How about him?" and someone else answered, "Later. He's not really hurt."
I was still practically out as they left, but I began to feel a flood of life stirring back into me. I sat up, feeling extreme urgency about something. I got up, staggering a little, and went to the door. I hesitated there, looked out cautiously; nobody was in sight. I stepped out and trotted down the corridor, away from the direction of the conference hall.
I slowed down momentarily at the outer door, then realized with a shock that I was naked and tore on down the hallway toward the men's wing. There I grabbed the first clothes I could find and pulled them on. I found a pair of shoes much too small for me, but it did not seem to matter.
I ran back toward the exit, fumbled, and found the switch; the door opened.
I thought I had made a clean escape, but somebody shouted, "Sam!" just as I was going out. I did not wait, but plunged on out. At once I had my choice of six doors and then three more beyond the one I picked. The warren we called the "Offices", being arranged to permit any number of people to come and go without being noticed, was served by a spaghetti-like mess of tunnels. I came up finally inside a subway fruit and bookstall, nodded to the proprietor-who seemed unsurprised-and swung the counter gate up and mingled with the crowd. It was not a route I had used before.