“Dr. Copper,” McReady repeated, “could be right. I know I’m human—but of course can’ t prove it. I’ll repeat the test for my own information. Any of you others who wish to may do the same.”
Two minutes later, McReady held a test-tube with white precipitin settling slowly from straw-colored serum. “It reacts to human blood too, so they aren’t the monsters.”
“I didn’t think they were.” Van Wall shrugged. “That wouldn’t suit the monster, either; we could have destroyed them if we knew. Why hasn’t the monster destroyed us, do you suppose? It seems to be loose.”
McReady snorted. Then laughed softly. “Elementary, my dear Watson. The monster wants to have life forms available. It cannot animate a dead body, apparently. It is just waiting, waiting until the best opportunities come. We who remain human—it is holding us in reserve.”
Kinner shuddered violently. “Hey. Hey Mac. Mac, would I know if I was a monster. Would I know if the monster had already got me? Oh, Jesus, I may be a monster already.”
“You’d know,” McReady answered.
“But we wouldn’t. “ Powell laughed shortly, half hysterically.
McReady looked at the vial of serum remaining. “There’s one thing this damned stuff is good for, at that,” he said thoughtfully. “Clark, will you and Van help me? The rest of the gang better stick together here. Keep an eye on each other,” he added bitterly. “See that you don’t get into mischief, shall we say?”
McReady started down the tunnel toward Dog Town, with Clark and Van Wall behind him.
“You need more serum? “ Clark asked.
McReady shook his head, “Tests. There’s four cows and a bull, and nearly seventy dogs down there, This stuff reacts only to human blood and—monsters.”
McReady came back to the Ad building and went silently to the washstand. Clark and Van Wall joined him a moment later. Clark’s lips had developed a tic, jerking into sudden, unexpected sneers.
“What did you do?” Connant exploded suddenly. “More immunizing?”
Clark snickered, and stopped with a hiccough. “Immunizing. Haw—immune all right.”
“That monster,” said Van Wall steadily, “is quite logical. Our immune dog was quite all right, and we drew a little more serum for the tests. But we won’t make any more.”
“Can’t—can’t you use one man’s blood on another dog—” Powell began.
“There aren’t,” said McReady softly, “any more dogs. Nor cattle, I might add.”
“No more—dogs?” Benning sat down slowly.
“They’re very nasty when they start changing,” Van Wall said precisely, “but slow. That electrocution-iron you made up, Barclay, is very fast. There is only one dog left, our immune. The monster left that for us so we could play with our little test. The rest—”
“The cattle—” gulped Kinner.
“Also. Reacted very nicely. They look funny as hell when they start melting. The beast hasn’t any quick escape when it’s tied in dog chains or halters, and it had to be to imitate.”
Kinner stood up slowly. His eyes darted around the room, and came to rest horribly quivering on a tin bucket in the galley. Slowly, step by step, he retreated toward the door, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish out of water.
“The milk—” he gasped, “I milked ’em an hour ago—” His voice broke into a scream as he dived through the door.
He was out on the ice cap without windproof or heavy clothing.
Van Wall looked after him for a moment thoughtfully. “He’s probably hopelessly mad,” he said at length, “but he might be a monster escaping. Barclay, Rawsen, Tider and Powell—you can get him. He hasn’t skis. Take a blowtorch—in case.”
The physical motion of the chase helped them; something that needed doing. Three of the other men were quietly being sick. Dutton was lying flat on his back, his face greenish, looking steadily at the bottom of the bunk above him.
“Mac, how long have the—cows been—”
McReady shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He went over to the milk bucket, and with his little tube of serum went to work on it. The milk clouded it, making certainty difficult. Finally he dropped the test-tube in the stand and shook his head. “It tests negatively, which means either they were cows then, or that being perfect imitations, they gave perfectly good milk.”
Copper stirred restlessly in his sleep and gave a gurgling cross between a snore and a laugh. Silent eyes fastened on him. “Would morphia—a monster—” somebody started to ask.
“God knows,” McReady shrugged. “It effects every earthly animal I know of.”
Connant suddenly raised his head. “Mac! The dogs must have swallowed pieces of the monster, and the pieces destroyed them! The dogs were where the monster resided. I was locked up. Doesn’t that prove—”
Van Wall shook his head. “Sorry. Proves nothing about what you are, only proves what you didn’t do.”
“It doesn’t do that,” McReady sighed. “We are helpless because we don’t know enough, and so jittery we don’t think straight. Locked up. God what a laugh! Ever watch a white corpuscle of the blood go through the wall of a blood vessel? No? It sticks out a pseudopod so fine it can leak between cell walls, forces that through to the other side, then just flows through the pseudopod. And there it is—on the far side of the wall.”
“Oh,” said Van Wall unhappily. “The cattle tried to melt down, didn’t they. They could have melted down—become just a thread of stuff and leaked under a door to recollect on the other side. Ropes—no—no—that wouldn’t do it—they couldn’t live in a sealed tank—”
“If, “ said McReady, “you shoot it through the heart, and it doesn’t die, it’s a monster. That’s the best test I can think of off hand.”
“No dogs,” said Garry quietly, “and no cattle. It has to imitate men now. And locking up doesn’t do any good. Your test might work, Mac, but I’m afraid it would be hard on the men.”
Dwight looked up from the galley stove as Van Wall, Barclay, McReady, and Powell came in, brushing the drift from their clothes. The other men jammed into the Ad Building continued studiously to do as they were doing playing chess, poker, reading.
Rawsen was fixing a sledge on the table, Vane and Norris had their heads together over magnetic data, while Harvey read in a low voice.
Dr. Copper snored softly on the bunk. Garry was working with Dutton over a sheaf of radio messages on the corner of Dutton’s bunk and a small fraction of the radio table. Connant was using most of the table for Cosmic Ray sheets.
Quite plainly through the corridor, despite two closed doors, they could hear Kinner’s voice. Dwight banged a kettle onto the galley stove and beckoned McReady silently. The meteorologist went over to him.
“I don’t mind the cooking so damn much,” Dwight said nervously, “but isn’t there some way to stop that bird? We all agreed that it would be safe to move him into Cosmos House.”
“Kinner? “ McReady nodded toward the door. “I’m afraid not. I can dope him, I suppose, but we don’t have an unlimited supply of morphia, and he’s not in danger of losing his mind. Just hysterical.”
“Well, we’re in danger of losing ours. You’ve been out for an hour and a half; that’s been going on steadily ever since, and it was going for two hours before. There’s a limit you know.”
Garry wandered over slowly, apologetically. For an instant, McReady caught the feral spark of fear—horror—in Dwight’s eyes, and knew at the same instant it was in his own eyes. Garry—Garry or Copper was certainly a monster.