“But you do feel something?”
“Christ! Yes!”
“Only you don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s where I’m headed.”
Shima looked so bewildered that Gretchen explained. “Your gut responds to situations, yes?”
He nodded.
“What I’m saying is, the situation may be new, unexpected, a surprise, but your gut can accept it and respond along familiar paths because it feels that the unexpected can be knowable.”
“Jeez, Gretch, this high altitude is making my ears ring. I think I understand. You’re saying that we respond to events provided we sense that they’re within the parameters of life as we know it or can know it.”
“Yes, and that’s the crux.”
“Proceed cautiously.”
“Where are we when we don’t know and understand our responses?”
Shima examined her face as he would an unexpected precipitate which had surprised him in a flask. “Then. The. Event. Is. Un-know-able,” he said slowly. Suddenly he took fire. “By God, Gretchen, you’ve got it. Psymetrics forever! We aren’t dealing with anything animal, vegetable or mineral… anything known or capable of being known… We’re involved with something completely alien; outside of any possible parameter.”
“Yes. That’s where I was headed.”
“And arrived in triumph.”
“Thank you. Time out for a question?”
“Ask it.”
“Something alien from outer space?”
“Nonsense! There’s nothing viable in the galaxy that’s on visiting terms with our solar system. All our probes have demonstrated that. No, we’re dealing with a native, viable, homegrown entity which is entirely alien… A sort of Golem.”
“You mean Rabbi Loew’s monster?”
“No. That’s the classic Jewish version of the artificial creature used as a servant.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I’m going back to the original legendary Golem. The original Golem, according to Talmud tradition, was Adam in the second hour of his creation, when he was alive, but a shapeless mass without a soul.”
“Shapeless and without a soul. Hmmm.” Gretchen considered, then nodded. “So we can’t know what this Golem is, what it wants, or why it wants.”
“We don’t even know how it wants and achieves. That would account for the impossible entrance and exit and everything in between. My God, we don’t even know whether it does want.”
“It must want something, Blaise. What about the cannibal bit and the other things Ind’dni hinted at?”
“You think our Golem may be responsible for them, too?”
“My within thinks so. Viscera speaking.”
“Then no argument.” Shima was tremendously excited. “This is fantastic, Gretch! Unique! We don’t know whether it has senses in our terms or appetites in our terms. Its senses may be functioning on Ångstrom wavelengths above or below the limits of our own spectrum.”
“I buy that, Blaise, but if it’s alive or quasi-alive, it must have appetites. That’s just another word for life.”
“D’you think it’s alive in our sense, Gretchen?”
“You tell me what life is, doctor, and I’ll answer your question.”
“I wish I knew. I wish somebody could define life. What a magnificent challenge this is! I—” Suddenly Shima deflated and let out a shuddering sigh. “But it’s made me forget the reality of our situation. To tell the truth, Gretch, deep down inside I’m scared, really scared. I feel like I’m in a nightmare and can’t wake up… That filthy Golem…”
“Easy man, I feel the same way. It’s an intellectual challenge, but an emotional nightmare.”
“Then how do we wake up? As you say, we don’t know where to put the equals sign in any equation because there’s no equation to balance. All unknowns.”
“Except the outrages,” Gretchen added.
“And the danger. That alien Golem ‘it’ may be anywhere doing Christ knows what, and—and this is what tears me—it might be coming through that safed door anytime… even now.”
Gretchen nodded quietly. “Yes. If it came once, it may return again… after you or me or both of us or Mr. Wish.”
“You mean that alien something may have been tailing Mr. Wish?”
“It’s possible. Anything’s possible. We don’t know. We’re Ground Zero in the nightmare.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Find the Golem, and zap.”
“D’you really think the danger is that close?”
Gretchen looked hard at Shima. “I do, Blaise. Every nerve in my bod is tingling; not only for us, but for others. Subadar Ind’dni kept harping on the danger. There’s something new and diabolical loose in the Guff.”
Shima shook his head. “It’s like a plague that’s got to be wiped out, but we don’t know what it is, why it is, where it is, what it wants.”
“The Black Death didn’t know or want anything; it just was.”
“Agreed, and that’s a hell of a good analogy, Gretch. Since we know nothing about this Golem we should handle it like an alien disease. That means locating a vector which will lead us back to the plague reservoir. Then we can zap.”
“Yes, that’s the hard-science way.”
“Let’s look at the possible vectors. It may be following me.”
“Or you as Mr. Wish.”
“It may be after you.”
“Or you and me together.”
“It may have some connection with the goons.”
“A possibility.” Gretchen thought for a moment. “Maybe the most likely.”
“It may be functioning at random.”
“In which case we’re helpless. No design or construct could lead to it.”
“Wrong, lady. Even randomness has a pattern where life is involved.”
“Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“Isn’t the thing we’re tackling a contradiction?”
“Damn it, you’re right, Blaise.”
“Strange problems require strange solutions. As you said, the most likely vector candidate is its possible past connection with the goons. That means we’ll need Subadar Ind’dni’s data on other outrages.”
“Which means going to him.” Gretchen scowled. “I don’t like it, Blaise. He’s shrewd, experienced, intuitive. He can be dangerous.”
“What you really mean is that you don’t want to run the risk of his connecting me with Mr. Wish. I thank you, lady, but I’ll have to take my chances. We join up with Ind’dni. Have we got a reason?”
“Easy. I’m volunteering cooperation because Guff-arrest is bad for my business. I want to help him crack the case as quickly as possible.”
“He’ll buy that.”
“Only if we’re completely honest with him, Blaise.”
“Including Mr. Wish?”
“No, we reserve that.”
“Then your weapon fable will have to stand.”
“Yes.”
“What else must we be honest about?”
“Everything he can check, and make no mistake, baby, he’ll check everything about us.”
“It’s risky.”
“Yes, but not for me; for Mr. Wish. Are you still game?”
“By God, I am, lady. Yes. Now how am I supposed to assist you? In psychodynamics?”
“Me? Ask you for help in my specialty? Unbelievable. No, as a chemist.”
“To do what?”
“Help me get an I.D. on the goons through a chemical analysis of the remains.”
Shima thought that over, then nodded. “Yes, it might work.”
“Ind’dni will be too courteous to tell you that you’re wasting your time. He has his own forensic experts on the precinct staff. But he won’t know that it’s a fake. Just another sincere civilian trying to get into the Sherlock Holmes act.”
Shima nodded again. “They do it all the time.”
“And while you’re staging your phony chemical analysis, I’ll be sifting for information by indirection… anything that’s likely to help us shape up an—”