Paul followed ten yards behind, "If you take me through any dermie traps, I'll kill you."
"There aren't any traps," the youth mumbled.
Paul snorted unbelief, but did not repeat the warning. "What made you think I was another dermie?" he snapped.
"Because there's no nonhypers in Galveston, This is a hyper colony. A nonhyper used to drift in occasionally, but the priests had the bridge dynamited. The nonhypers upset the colony. As long as there aren't any around to smell, nobody caused any trouble. During the day, there's a guard out on the causeway, and if any hypers come looking for a place to stay, the guard ferries them across. If nonhypers come, he tells them about the colony, and they go away,"
Paul groaned. He had stumbled into a rat's nest. Was there no refuge from the gray curse? Now he would have to move on. It seemed a hopeless quest. Maybe the old man he met on his way to Houston had arrived at the only possible for peace: submission to the plague. But the thought sickened him somehow. He would have to find some barren island, find a healthy mate, and go to live a savage existence apart from all traces of civilization.
"Didn't the guard stop you at the bridge?" the boy asked. "He never came back today. He must be still out there."
Paul grunted "no" in a tone that warned against idle conversation. He guessed what had happened. The dermie guard had probably spotted some healthy wanderers; and instead of warning them away, he rowed across the drawbridge and set out to chase them. His body probably lay along the highway somewhere, if the hypothetical wanderers were armed.
When they reached 23rd Street, a few blocks from the heart of the city, Paul hissed at the boy to stop. He heard someone laugh. Footsteps were wandering along the sidewalk, overhung by trees. He whispered to the boy to take refuge behing a hedge. They crouched in the shadows several yards apart while the voices drew nearer.
"Brother James had a nice tenor," someone said softly. "But he sings his Latin with a western drawl. It sounds… well… peculiar, to say the least. Brother John is a stickler for pronunciation. He won't let Fra James solo. Says it gives a burlesque effect to the choir. Says it makes the sisters giggle."
The other man chuckled quietly and started to reply. But his voice broke off suddenly. The footsteps stopped a dozen feet from Paul's hiding place. Paul, peering through the hedge, saw a pair of brown-robed monks standing on the sidewalk. "They were looking around suspiciously.
"Brother Thomas, do you smell-"
"Aye, I smell it."
Paul changed his position slightly, so as to keep the gun pointed toward the pair of plague-stricken monastics. They stood in embarrassed silence, peering into the darkness and shuffling their feet uneasily. One of them suddenly pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger. His companion followed suit.
"Blessed be God," quavered one.
"Blessed be His Holy Name," answered the other.
"Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man."
"Blessed be…"
Gathering their robes high about their shins, the two monks turned and scurried away, muttering the Litany of the Divine Praises as they went. Paul stood up and stared after them in amazement. The sight of dermies running from a potential victim was almost beyond belief. He questioned his young guide. Still holding the handkerchief against his bleeding face, the boy hung his head.
"Bishop made a ruling against touching nonhypers," he explained miserably. "Says it's a sin, unless the nonhyper submits of his own free will. Says even then it's wrong, except in the ordinary ways that people come in contact with each other. Calls it fleshly desire, and all that."
"Then why did you try to do it?"
"I ain't so religious."
"Well, sonny, you better get religious until we come to the hospital. Now, let's go,"
They marched on down Broadway encountering no other pedestrians. Twenty minutes later, they were standing in the shadows before a hulking brick building, some of whose windows were yellow with lamplight. Moonlight bathed the statue of a woman standing on a ledge over the entrance, indicating to Paul that this was the hospital,
"'All right, boy. You go in and: send oat a derrnie doctor. Tell him somebody wants to see him, but if you say I'm not a dermie, I'll come in and kill you. Now move. And don't come back. Stay to get your face fixed,"
The youth stumbled toward the entrance. Paul sat in the shadow of a tree, where he could see twenty yards in ail directions and guard himself against approach. Soon a blackclad priest came out of the emergency entrance, stopped on the sidewalk, and glanced around.
"Over here!" Paul hissed from across the street.
The priest advanced uncertainly. In the center of the road he stopped again, and held his nose. "Y-you're a nonhyper," he said, almost accusingly.
"That's right, and I've got a gun, so don't try anything."
"What's wrong? Are you sick? The lad said-"
"There's a dermie girl down the island. She's been shot. Tendon behind her heel is cut clean through. You're going to help her,"
"Of course, but…," The priest paused. "You? A nonhyper? Helping a so-called dermie?" His voice went high with amazement.
"So I'm a sucker!" Paul barked. "Now get what you need, and come on."
"The Lord bless you," the priest mumbled in embarrassment as he hurried away,
"Don't sic any of your maniacs on me?" Paul called after him. "I'm armed."
"I'll have to bring a surgeon," the cleric said over his shoulder.
Five minutes later, Paul heard the muffled grunt of a starter. Then an engine coughed to life. Startled, he scurried away from the tree and sought safety in a clump of shrubs. An ambulance backed out of the driveway and into the street. It parked at the curb by the tree, engine running, A pallid face glanced out curiously toward the shadows. "Where are you?" it called, but it was not the priest's voice.
Paul stood up and advanced a few steps.
"We'll have to wait on Father Mendelhaus," the driver called. "He'll be a few minutes."
"You a dermie?"
"Of course. But don't worry. I've plugged my nose and I'm wearing rubber gloves. I can't smell you. The sight of a non-hyper arouses some craving, of course. But it can be overcome with a little willpower. I won't infect you, although I don't understand why you nonhypers fight so hard. You're bound to catch it sooner or later. And the world can't get back to normal until everybody has it."
Paul avoided the startling thought. "You the surgeon?"
"Uh, yes. Father Williamson's the name. I'm not really a specialist, but I did some surgery in Korea. How's the girl's condition? Suffering shock?"
"I wouldn't know."
They fell silent until Father Mendelhaus returned. He came across the street carrying a bag in one hand and a brown bottle in the other. He held the bottle by the neck with a pair of tongs and Paul could see the exterior of the bottle steaming slightly as the priest passed through the beam of the ambulance's headlights. He placed the flask on the curb without touching it, then spoke to the man in the shadows.
"Would you step behind the hedge and disrobe, young man? Then rub yourself thoroughly with this oil,"
"I doubt it," Paul snapped. "What is it?"
"Don't worry, it's been in'the sterilizer. That's what took me so long. It may be a little hot for you, however. It's only an antiseptic and deodorant. It'll kill your odor, and it'll also give you some protection against picking up stray microorganisms."
After a few moments of anxious hesitation, Paul decided to trust the priest. He carried the hot flask into the brush, undressed, and bathed himself with the warm aromatic oil. Then he slipped back into his clothes and reapproached the ambulance.
"Ride in back," Mendelhaus told him. "And you won't be infected. No one's been in there for several weeks, and as you probably know, the microorganisms die after a few hours' exposure. They have to be transmitted from skin to skin, or else an object has to be handled very soon after a hyper has touched it."