Уильям Моррисон - Country Doctor

He turned back, filled his hypodermic syringe with the greenish liquid, and ran forward again. The light was almost gone by now, and the hissing from the oxygen line was growing ominously, but he climbed forward as far as he could before plunging the hypodermic in and injecting its contents.

The creature heaved. He dropped hypodermic, light, and clamps, and let the huge shuddering take him where it would. First it lifted him high. Then it let him fall suddenly—not backwards, but in the same place. Two of the tadpole beasts were thrown against him. Then he was lifted way up again, and this time forward. A huge cavern opened before him. Light bathed the gray surface and he was vomited out.

The light begun to flicker, and he had time for one last thought. Oxygen lack, he told himself. My suit's ripped, the lines have finally torn.

And then blackness.

When he came to, Maida was at his side. He could see that she had been crying. The Captain stood a little fur­ther off, his face drawn, but relieved.

"Larry, dear, are you all right? We thought you'd never get out."

"I'm fine." He sat up and saw his two children, standing anxious and awestricken on the other side of the bed. Their silence showed how strongly they had been affected. "I hope you kids didn't worry too much about me."

"Of course I didn't worry," said Jerry bravely. "I knew you were smart, Dad. I knew you'd think of a way to get out."

"While we're on the subject," interposed the Captain, "What was the way out?"

"I'll tell you later. How's the patient?"

"Doing fine. Seems to have recovered completely."

"How many of the tadpoles came out with me?"

"About six. We're keeping them in the same low-oxygen atmosphere as the creature itself. We're going to study them. We figure that if they're parasites—"

"They're not parasites. I finally came to a conclusion about them. They're the young."

"What?"

"The young. If you take good care of them, they'll eventually grow to be as big as the mother-monster you've got in the ship."

"Good God, where will we keep them?"

"That's your worry. Maybe you'd better expand that zoo you're preparing. What you'll do for money to feed them, though, I don't know."

"But what—"

"The trouble with that monster—its `illness'—was merely that it was gravid."

"Gravid?"

"That means pregnant," exclaimed Jerry.

"I know what it means." The Captain flushed. "Look, do we have to have these kids in here while we discuss this?"

"Why not? They're a doctor's children. They know what it's all about. They've seen calves and other animals being born."

"Lots of times," said Martia.

"Confined as it was on the ship, your beast couldn't get the exercise it needed. And the young couldn't get themselves born."

"But that was the digestive tract you went down—"

"What of it? Are all animals born the same way? Ask the average kid where a baby grows, and he'll tell you that it's in the stomach."

"Some kids are dopes," said Jerry.

"They wouldn't be in this case. What better place to get a chance at the food the mother eats, in all stages from raw to completely digested? All that beast needed to give birth was a little exercise. You gave it some from the outside, but not enough. I finished the job by injecting some of its own digestive fluid into the flesh. That caused a pretty little reaction."

The Captain scratched his head. "Doctor, you did a good job. How would you like to take care of that beast permanently? I could recommend you—"

"To go down inside that monster again? No, thanks. From now on, I treat nothing but small monsters. Sheep, cows—and human beings."

There was a pounding of feet in the hallway. Then the door swung in, violently. Flashbulbs that gave invisible light began to pop with inaudible bursts of high-frequency sound. Cameras pointed menacingly at him and sent his image winging to Earth and far-off planets. Reporters be­gan to fire their questions.

"My God," he muttered wearily, "who let these ani­mals in here? They're worse than the ones I met inside the blue pool."

"Be nice to them, dear," chided Maida gently. "They're turning you into a great man."

Then Maida and Jerry and Martia grouped themselves around him, and the cameras caught them too. The proud look on their faces was something to see. And he realized that he was glad for their sake.

Opportunity had knocked, and when he had opened the door to it, it had proved to be an exacting guest. Still, he hadn't been a bad host—not a bad host at all, he thought. And slowly his features relaxed into a tired and immediately famous grin.