The Incredible Melting Man (2 page)

Nelson’s eyes clouded with pity and concern as he thought about his friend. “I’d put his chances of coming out of the coma at zero, especially when the other two died. Then suddenly, this.” He gestured despairingly at the lifeless bundle over by the wall.

But still he rejected any notion of Steve’s culpability.

“Something happened up there,” he insisted. “It not only caused a decomposition of the cellular structure, but it also induced a completely alien and regressive behaviour pattern. He’s developing all the characteristics of a wild animal. Biting, scratching—” He hesitated, fighting a spasm of nausea that threatened to overcome him. “And cannibalism.”

“Except that wild animals usually stop at cannibalism,” corrected Loring gently. “Unless there’s a very good reason for it.”

“And that’s what we’ve got to find out, at once,” cried Nelson, rousing himself out of his state of numbed shock.

“I want a thorough examination of her body. I want to know what all that mucus is and where it’s come from. It must contain traces of the infectious organism somewhere. I want us to find it. We’ve got to know what got hold of them up there.”

He cast a determined glance through the window. “Meanwhile, I’ll get in touch with the search party. If only we can talk to him and find out what went on, we’re in with a chance of saving him.”

“And the others,” added Loring.

Nelson nodded grimly. “And the others, if those lunatics in charge at Houston get their way.”

TWO

T
HE MORNING
sunlight danced on the surface of the river, fractured light quivering in a thousand silver fragments. The blue sky was caught there too in the glassy grain of the unfolding water, gently moving, oblivious of the impending fury of the waterfall further downstream.

The surface light changed to life above the water where shimmering clouds of mayflies rose and fell in imitation of the river. Higher still and the invisible trill of lark song poured from the bright sky, mingling with all the other sounds that bathed the scene and stretched as far as the horizon where the sunlight glinted on the metal roof of the research centre.

Trees lined the bank at one side of the river, casting a shadow over the water. Here sat a fisherman, sheltered from the sun and best able to see the rocky bottom of the river where his prey lurked.

He was engrossed in preparing his line. He carefully held a small hook in the fingers of one hand, and with the other meticulously drew out the soft pink body of a worm, impaled it gently on the hook just above the worm’s pale saddle and pulled the squirming body over the barb until it was firmly hooked. A tiny drop of blood glistened on his thumb.

Then he lifted the prepared rod, watched the worm flex on the hook a moment, and cast into the passing waters. He checked the advance of the line with his reel, bringing it to a halt with a final click. With his eyes half closed he settled back to watch the float bobbing lightly in the shadows.

He hadn’t long to wait. With a sudden tug the float disappeared and the fisherman jerked his rod. He felt the line grow taut as the fish struggled to swim free. But he checked the reel and it began to click as he stealthily drew in the line.

The fish suddenly breasted the surface, kicked over in a flash of silver as the sunlight caught its underside, and locked itself tighter on the wicked barb. The fisherman continued to reel in the line in the same unhurried way until the fish was visible close to the bank. He deftly swept his landing net underneath its body and raised it gently into the daylight.

He parted the wet string of the net where the fish struggled vainly. The gumless mouth was open, panting in the alien air, round eyes flat and empty. He gently prised the mouth further open to locate the hook, trying to push it back through the soft white flesh of the gasping mouth, back the way it had come. But the barb had taken and he had to push hard, so that he could hear the sound of the tissue tearing. His hand grew hot and moist against the cold slime of the fish’s body. He hated this part of it. He closed his eyes and tugged and the hook came out, some of the inside of the fish’s mouth still attached.

He placed the panting fish into his keep net where it lay on its side, moving only with the motion of the river. A trickle of blood leaked from its mouth into the water. He stooped to wash the sticky scales off his hands and the blood inside him rushed to his head so that he didn’t hear the sound of a stick crack in the undergrowth behind him.

After he’d washed his hands he didn’t bait the hook again immediately but rummaged in his basket. He was hungry. He’d been up since dawn and was feeling faint for want of something to eat. He found a brown paper bag and drew out a sandwich. He inspected the contents, gave a hum of approval and sunk his teeth into the soft white bread and began to chew. There was the stir of leaves from the undergrowth behind him.

He glanced round, still chewing. Some animal? A rat maybe, or even a bird. He was a keen animal-lover, so he sat quietly, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was.

He reached noiselessly for another sandwich. He’d taken only one bite when the bushes stirred again, more loudly. From them came the sound of heavy breathing.

The fisherman jumped to his feet. “Who’s there?” he called.

No answer. He frowned, not satisfied. Placing the sandwich carefully down on the brown paper bag, he walked towards the undergrowth on the edge of the group of trees. The sound of breathing grew, gasping, quick and eager.

The man stopped and picked up a stick. “Who is it?” he cried, a tremor of fear entering his voice.

“Come on, quit playing games!”

There was a sudden noise behind him. He swung round raising the stick, only to see a snake slithering away from him through the grass. He saw the scales glint, hard and burnished green in the bright sunlight.

He smiled with relief, tossed the stick away and was about to step back towards the river bank when a large mucusy hand grabbed his face.

He shouted out to breathe as his mouth and nose filled with slime. It reeked with a foul putrescence that burnt his lungs and filled him with nausea. As he struggled a wet arm locked round his neck and constricted his windpipe. The hand began pulling at his face, hard bone poking through the slime and scraping at his features, trying to tear them off. The blood splashed into his eyes, mixing with the stinging mucus and blinding his vision. As his head was torn backwards he glimpsed his attacker through the haze: a blurred and yeasty face with bolting eyes, red and oozing and filled with rage. Then the blackness came, and he was consumed in the roar of his own escaping blood and bursting sinews.

The thing watched the pool of blood spread slowly outwards. In its decomposing mind it saw the red surface of the approaching planet. The Prometheus descent module was feeling her way carefully through the thin atmosphere towards touchdown. They could already count the scores of small craters that pitted the red and ochre-coloured desert. Through the mauve haze of the distant horizon they saw the white carbon dioxide deposits of the polar region creeping round the curve of the planet like frozen fingers. The satellite Phobos slipped like a pale wraith, pocked and distorted, through the dark blue sky to meet them.

The black emptiness of space which had lasted so long was filled with the red emptiness of Mars. For weeks the stars had stared unblinkingly at the audacity of their progress, but here the eyes of the planet were closed. It slept in its shroud of red dust, entombed in silence, oblivious of its visitor. Almost.

Far below them something began to stir in the approaching desert. Where a range of jagged hills stood, the planetary surface was becoming rippled and grained. A red haze began to obscure the details, blurring the sharp contours of the craters and spreading across the landscape like a red stain. Gathering its loose edges it scurried towards them, a red shadow flitting across the brilliant sunlit surface of the planet. And like a shadow of themselves it came to rest on the spot where their module was descending.

Inexorably they fell to meet it. Moments before they landed, tendrils rose up to engulf them and their vision was blotted out in a swirling red night.

In blind panic the thing hurled the dripping object it was holding into the river and clawed at its own eyes, plucking at the red and swimming image that had lodged there. But the choking heat inside him rose like a tide of acid and the shrieking alien cells clamoured to be fed. They beat down the resistance of his broken will, and exulting in his dark shame stooped to feed off the still-warm carcass.

Out there in the cold desert something flexed and grew stronger, cementing its new links with the earth, links with the frozen flinch of death on the face that bounced and bobbed along the surface of the stream in a trail of blood.

THREE

T
ED
N
ELSON
pushed his stool away from the bench and drew his hands up behind his head.

“What do you make of this, Dick?” he demanded of his assistant.

Loring broke off from the slides he was preparing and peered into the microscope.

“Looks to be a simple cellular structure to me,” he replied. “In fact, very simple, only—” He broke off, a note of doubt entering his voice.

“Yes?” asked Nelson eagerly.

“Well, it’s the nucleus. It’s massive. Where did you find it?”

“Where didn’t I find it?” corrected the doctor. “It was all over her wounds. It came from the mucus that—” he hesitated to use his friend’s name, “—that he left behind.” He broke off, hurriedly glancing at his watch. “How long is it going to be before you have the slides of the autopsy ready?”

“They’re virtually finished,” replied Loring. “I’m on the last batch now.”

“Good. Pass me a few. Say blood lymph, and stomach wall. And send a batch right away for a scan on the electron microscope. Tell them to concentrate on any particularly large nuclei they may find.” He placed one of the newly prepared slides he’d just been given under the microscope.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he went on, “I think you’ll find that our little monster here is cropping up all over the place.” He spent only moments examining the specimen before he found what he wanted.

“There,” he announced. “Take a look at that.”

The plate contained a blood smear. Amongst the many red cells appeared the large colourless cells with the enlarged nuclei.

Loring whistled. “How the hell did they get there?” he exclaimed.

“Exactly,” mused Nelson. “What do they remind you of?” he asked.

Loring hesitated, feeling awkward at the simplicity of his answer. “Well,” he said at last. “They’re amoeba-like.”

The doctor nodded. “Very amoeba-like.” He looked grim. “I’ve examined every sample of Steve’s—of his tissue that came off on to the nurse, and they’re there, often in great numbers. The tissues aren’t degenerating in the sense that we know it, of decay. They’re degenerating into a simpler structure, a sort of cellular atavism. It’s like evolution in reverse, where the cells have lost their specialised structure and returned to a basic form. But—” Here he paused, struggling with the unprecedented facts. “But the enlargement of the nucleus suggests that the process isn’t finished, but that the cells have simplified in order to begin again, build a different structure. Why else do we have such a disproportionate mass of nuclear material?”

“But what the hell could be controlling such a change?” objected Loring. “We found no trace of virus activity on the others, nothing carcinomatous, not even any tissue damage to explain the radiation.”

He stopped, struck by a sudden thought. “He won’t live, will he? I mean he couldn’t live through the sort of cellular reorganisation you’re talking about, fantastic as it sounds. He’d just turn to jelly.”

Nelson felt sick at this unpleasant extrapolation of the fate of his friend. Loring had the pathologist’s habit of seeing people merely as a collection of physiological functions.

“Get those plates down to the electron microscope, will you?” he said wearily. “I’m going home for half an hour to brace myself for the arrival of General Perry. Give me a ring the moment you hear anything from the search party.”