Уильям Моррисон - Country Doctor

The Captain's voice sounded pained. "Don't let your sense of humor carry you away, Doctor. This is important. Maybe you don't realize exactly how important, but—"

He interrupted. "Hold it, Captain, here's something interesting. A big reddish bump, about three feet across, in the gray-green wall."

"What is it?"

"Might be a tumor. I'll slice some tissue from the wall itself. That's sample number two. Tissue from the tumor, sample number three."

The wall quivered almost imperceptibly as he sliced into it. The fresh-cut surface was purple, but it slowly turned red again as the internal atmosphere of the beast got at it.

"Here's another tumor, like the first, this time on the other side of the wall. And here are a couple more. I'm leaving them alone. The walls are getting narrower. There's still plenty of room to walk, but—wait a minute, I take that back. There's some kind of valve ahead of me. It's opening and closing spasmodically."

"Can you get through?"

"I'd hate to take a chance. And even if I did make it while it was open, it could crush the oxygen lines when it closed."

"Then that's the end of the road?"

"I don't know. Let me think."

He stared at the great valve. It moved rapidly, opening and closing in a two-second rhythm. Probably a valve separating one part of the digestive system from another, he thought, like the human pylorus. The green-streaked gray flesh seemed totally unlike human muscle, but all the same it appeared to serve a similar function. Maybe the right kind of drug would cause muscular relaxation.

He pulled a large hypodermic syringe from one of the sealed pockets of his diver's uniform. He plunged the needle quickly into the edge of the valve as it paused for a fraction of a second before closing, shot a pint of drug solution into the flesh, and ripped the needle out again. The valve closed once more, but more slowly. It opened, closed again, opened once more—and stayed open.

How long before it recovered, and shut off his retreat? He didn't know. But if he wanted to find out what was on the other side, he'd have to work fast. He plunged forward, almost slipping in his eagerness, and leaped through the motionless valve.

Then he called up to tell the Captain what he had done.

The Captain's voice was anxious. "I don't know whether you ought to risk it, Doctor."

"I'm down here to learn things. I haven't learned much yet. By the way, the walls are widening out again. And there's another pool of liquid ahead. Blue liquid, this time."

"Are you taking a sample?"

"I'm a sampler from way back, Captain."

He waded into the blue pond, filled his sample bottle, and put it into one of his pockets. Suddenly, in front of him something broke the surface of the pond, then dived down again.

He came to a full stop. "Hold it, Captain. There seems to be fauna."

"What? Something alive?"

"Very much alive."

"Be careful, Doctor. I think there's a gun in one of the pockets of that uniform. Use it if necessary."

"A gun? Don't be cruel, Captain. How'd you like to have somebody shooting off guns inside you?"

"Be careful, man!"

"I'll use my hypodermic as a weapon."

But the creature, whatever it was, did not approach him again, and he waded further into the blue pool. When his eyes were below the surface of the liquid, he saw the thing moving again.

"Looks like an overgrown tadpole, about two feet long." "Is it coming close?"

"No, it's darting away from me. And there's another one. I think the light bothers it."

"Any signs that the thing is dangerous?"

"I can't tell. It may be a parasite of the big creature, or it may be something that lives in symbiosis with it."

"Stay away from it, Doctor. No use risking your life for nothing."

A trembling voice said, "Larry! Are you all right?"

"Maida! What are you doing here?"

"I woke up when you left. And then I had trouble going to sleep again."

"But why did you come to the space port?"

"Ships began to flash by overhead, and I began to wonder what had happened. So I called up—and they told me."

"Ships overhead?"

The Captain's voice cut in again. "The news services, Doctor. This case has aroused great interest. I didn't want to tell you before, but don't be surprised if you come up to find yourself famous."

"Never mind the news services. Have you heard from Earth yet?"

"No messages from Earth. We did hear from the curator of the Marsopolis Zoo."

"What did he say?"

"He never even heard of a space-cow, and he has no suggestions to make."

"That's fine. By the way, Captain, are there any photographers around from those news services?"

"Half a dozen. Still, motion picture, television—"

"How about sending them down inside to take a few pictures?"

There was a moment of silence. Then the Captain's voice again: "I don't think they can go down for a while yet. Maybe later."

"Why can't they go down now? I'd like to have some company. If the beast's mouth is open—" A disquieting thought struck him. "Say, it is open, isn't it?"

The Captain's voice sounded tense. "Now, don't get upset, Doctor, we're doing all we can!"

"You mean it's closed?"

"Yes, it's closed. I didn't want to tell you this, but the mouth closed unexpectedly, and then, when we did have the idea of sending a photographer down inside, we couldn't get it open again. Apparently the creature has adapted to the effects of the electric shock."

"There must be some way of getting it open again."

"Of course there's a way, There's always a way. Don't worry, Doctor, we're working on it. We'll find it."

"But the oxygen—"

"The lines are strong, and the mouth isn't closed tight enough to pinch them off. You can breathe all right, can't you?"

"Now that I think of it, I can. Thanks for telling me."

"You see, Doctor, it isn't so bad."

"It's perfectly lovely. But what happens if my uniform or the oxygen lines start to dissolve?"

"We'll pull you out. We'll do something to open the mouth. Just don't get caught behind that valve, Doctor."

"Thanks for the advice. I don't know what I'd do without it, Captain."

He felt a sudden surge of anger. If there was one thing he hated, it was good advice, given smugly when the giver could stand off to one side, without sharing the danger of the person he was helping. Don't let this happen, don't get caught here, take care of yourself. But you were down here to do a job, and so far you hadn't done it. You hadn't learned a thing about what made this monstrous creature tick.

And the chances were that you wouldn't learn, either. The way to examine a beast was from the outside, not from within. You watched it eat, you studied the transfer of the food from one part of the body to another, you checked on the circulation of the body fluids, using radioactive tracers if no other methods offered, you dissected specimens of typical individuals. The Captain should have had a few scientists aboard, and they should have done a few of these things instead of just sitting there staring at the beast. But that would have made things too easy. No, they had to wait for you to come aboard, and then send you deliberately sliding down into the guts of an animal you didn't know anything about, in the hope of having a miracle happen to you. Maybe they thought a loop of intestine or some gland of internal secretion would come over to you and say, "I'm not working right. Fix me, and everything will be fine."

Another of the tadpole-like creatures was swimming over toward him, approaching slowly, the forepart twitching like the nose of a curious dog. Then, like the others, the creature turned and darted away. "Maybe that's the cause," he thought. "Maybe that's the parasite that's causing the trouble."