Badge of Infamy by Lester del Rey (easy novels to read txt) 📕

training. He was a doctor, not a xenobiologist. Research training had

been taboo in school, except for a favored few.

The reports continued to come in, confirming the danger. They seemed to

have the worst plague on their hands in all human history; and nobody

who could do anything about it even knew of it.

"Molly reports that your letter got some results," Jake reported. "Chris

Ryan brought home one of the electron microscopes and a bunch of

equipment from the hospital pathology room. Think she'll get anywhere?"

Doc doubted it. Damn it, he hadn't meant for her to try it, though she

might have authority for routine experiments. But it was like her to

refuse to pass on the word without trying to prove her own suspicion of

him first.

He tried to comfort himself with the fact that some men were immune, or

seemed so; about three out of a hundred showed no signs. If that

immunity was hereditary, it might save the race. If not....

Jake came in at twilight with a grim face. "More news from Molly. The

Lobby is starting out to comb every village with a fault-finder,

starting here. And this hole will show up like a sore thumb. Better

start packing. We gotta be out of here in less than an hour!"

Three days later, Doc saw his first runner.

The tractor was churning through the sand just before sundown, heading

toward another one-night stand at a new village. Lou was driving, while

Doc and Jake brooded silently in the back, paying no attention to the

colors that were blazoned over the dunes. The cat-and-mouse game was

getting to Doc. There was no real assurance that the village they were

approaching might not be the target the Lobby had chosen for the next

investigation.

Lou braked the tractor to a sudden halt, and pointed.

A figure was running frantically over one of the low dunes with the

little red sun behind him. He seemed headed toward them, but as he drew

nearer they could see that he had no definite direction. He simply ran,

pumping his legs frantically as if all the devils of hell were after

him. His body swayed from side to side in exhaustion, but his arms and

legs pumped on.

"Stop him!" Jake ordered, and Lou swung the tractor. It halted squarely

in the runner's path, and the figure struck against it and toppled.

The legs went on pumping, digging into the dirt and gravel, but the man

was too far gone to rise. Jake and Lou shoved him through the doors into

the tractor and Doc yanked off his aspirator.

The man was giving vent to a kind of ululating cry, weakened now almost

to a whine that rose and fell with the motion of his legs. Sweat had

once streaked his haggard face, but it was dry and blanched to a pasty

gray.

Doc injected enough narcotic to quiet a maddened bull. It had no effect,

except to upset the rhythm of the arms and legs. It took five more

minutes for the man to die.

The specks were larger this time--the size of periods in twelve-point

type. The lump at the base of the skull was as big as a small hen's egg.

"From Edison, like the others so far. Jack Kooley," Jake answered Doc's

question. "Durwood spent a lot of time here on his first expedition, so

it's getting the worst of it."

Doc pulled the aspirator mask back over the man's face and they carried

him out and laid him on a low dune. They couldn't risk returning the

corpse to its people.

This was only the primary circle of infection, direct from Durwood. The

second circle could be ten times as large, as the infection spread from

one to a few to many. So far it was localized. But it wouldn't stay that

way.

Doc climbed slowly out of the tractor, lugging his small supplies of

equipment, while Jake made arrangements for them to spend the night in a

deserted house. But the figure of the runner and his own failures to

find more about the disease kept haunting Doc. He began setting up his

equipment grimly.

"Better get some sleep," Jake suggested. "You're a mite more tired than

you think. Anyhow, I thought you told me you couldn't do any more with

what you've got."

Feldman looked at the supplies he had spread out, and shook his head

wearily. He'd been over every chemical and combination a dozen times,

without results that showed in the limited magnification of the optical

mike.

He snapped the case shut and hit the rude table with the heel of his

hand. "There are other supplies. Jake, do you have any signal to get in

touch with Molly at the Ryan house?"

"Three raps on the rear left window. I'll get Lou."

"No!" Doc came to his feet, reaching for his jacket. "They're looking

for three men now. It's safer if I go alone--and I'm the only one who

knows what supplies are needed. With luck, I may even get the electron

mike. Got a gun I can borrow?"

Jake found one somewhere, an old revolver with a few loads. He began

protesting, but Doc overruled him sharply. Three men could no more fight

off the police than one, if they were spotted. He swung toward the

tractor.

"You'd better start spreading the word on everything we know. If people

realize they're already safe or doomed it'll be better than having them

going crazy to avoid contagion."

"Most of the villages know already," Jake told him. "And damn it, get

back here, Doc. If you can't make it, turn tail quick, and we'll think

of something else."

Southport seemed normal enough as Doc drove through its streets. The

stereo house was open, and the little shops were brightly lighted. He

stopped once to pull a copy of Southport's little newspaper from a

dispenser. All was quiet on its front page, too.

As usual, though, the facts were buried inside. The editorial was

pouring too much oil on the waters in its lauding of the role of

Medical Lobby on Mars for no apparent reason. The death notices no

longer listed the cause of death. Medical knew something was up, at

least, and was worried.

He parked the tractor behind Chris' house and slipped to the proper

window. Everything was seemingly quiet there. At his knock, the shade

was drawn back, and he caught a brief glimpse of Molly looking out. A

moment later she opened the rear lock to let him into the kitchen.

"Shh. She's still up, I think. What can I do, Doc?"

He tried to smile at her. "Hide me until it's safe to get into her

laboratory. I've got to--"

The inner kitchen was kicked open and Chris stood beyond it, holding a

cocked gun in her hand.

"It took longer than I expected, Dan," she said quietly. "But after your

letter, I knew you'd swallow the bait. You bloody fool! Did you really

believe I'd start doing research here just because of your imaginings?"

He slumped slowly back against the sink. "So this is a fool's errand,

then? There never was any equipment here?"

"The equipment's here--in my office. I guessed your spies would report

it, so it had to be here. But it won't help you now, pariah Feldman!"

He came from his braced position against the sink like a spring

uncoiling. He expected her to shoot, but hoped the surprise would ruin

her aim. Then it was too late, and his boot hit the gun savagely,

knocking it from her hand. Life in the villages had hardened him

surprisingly. She was comparatively helpless in his hands. A few minutes

later, he had her bound securely with surgical tape Molly brought him.

She raged furiously in the chair where he'd dumped her, then gave up.

"They'll get you, Daniel Feldman!" Surprisingly, there was no rage in

her voice now. "You won't get away from us. The planet isn't big

enough."

"I got away from your trial," he reminded her. "And I got away and lived

when you left me without a chance on the ground of the spaceport."

She laughed harshly. "_You_ got away then? You fool, who do you think

gave you the extra battery so you could live long enough to be helped at

the spaceport? Who hired a fool like Matthews so you wouldn't get the

death sentence you deserved? Who let you get away as an herb doctor for

months before you set yourself up as God and a traitor to mankind

again?"

It shook him, as it was probably intended to do. How had she known about

the extra battery? He'd always assumed that Ben had returned to give it

to him. But in that case, Chris couldn't know of it. Then he hardened

himself again. In the old days, she'd always had one trump card he

couldn't beat and hadn't expected. But too much was involved for games

now.

"Any police around, Molly?" he asked.

Molly came back a minute later to report that everything looked clear

and to show him where the equipment had been set up in Chris' office. It

was all there, including the electron mike--a beautiful little portable

model. There was even a small incubator with its own heat source into

which he immediately transferred the little bottles he'd been keeping

warm against his skin. Most of the equipment had never been unpacked,

which made loading it onto his tractor ridiculously easy.

"Better come with me now, Molly," he suggested at last. Then he turned

to Chris, who was watching him with almost no expression. "You can

wriggle your chair to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the

phone off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless you

really did leave me that battery."

"You won't get away with it," she told him again, calmly this time.

"No," he admitted. "Probably not. But maybe the human race will, if I

have time to find an answer to the plague you won't see under your nose.

But you won't get away with it, either. In the long run, your kind never

do."

Molly was sniffling as they drove away. It had probably been the best

life she'd known, Doc supposed. Chris could be kind to menials. But now

Molly's work was done, and she'd have to disappear into the villages. He

let her off at the first village and drove on alone. He was itching to

get to the microscope now, hardly able to wait through the long journey

back to Jake. His impatience grew with each mile.

Finally he gave up. He swung the tractor into a small gulley between

sand dunes, left the motor idling and pulled down the shades the

villagers used for blackout traveling. There was power enough for the

mike here, and the cab was big enough for what he had to do.

He mounted the mike on the tractor seat and began laying out the

collection of smears and cultures he had brought. It had been years

since he'd made a film for the electron mike, but he found it all came

back to him as he worked.

His hands were sweating with tension as he inserted the first film into

the chamber. He had the magnetic "lenses" set for twenty thousand power,

but a quick glance showed it was too weak. He raised the power to fifty

thousand.

The filaments were there, clear and distinct.

He turned on the little tape recorder that had been part of Chris'

equipment and set the microphone where he could dictate into it without

stopping to make clumsy notes. He readjusted the focus carefully,

carrying on a running commentary.

Then he gasped. Each of the little filaments carried three tiny darker

sections; each was a cell, complete in itself, with the typical Martian

triple nucleus.

He put a film with a tiny section of the nerve tissue from a corpse into

the chamber next, and again a quick glance at the screen was enough. The

filaments were there, thickly crowded among nerve cells. They _did_

travel along the nerves to reach