The Thing (20 page)

The men arrived. Garry pulled out his omnipresent Magnum and pointed it squarely at the radio operator.

"Sanders! Put that down. Right . . . now."

Sanders looked up at him, his eyes wide. He was trembling violently. A shell fell from his fingers, bounced on the floor and rolled over to Garry's feet.

"No. I won't."

"I'll put this right through your head." The station manager spoke slowly so that the radio operator would be sure to understand. The tip of the Magnum never wavered.

No one doubted Garry's sincerity.

Sanders' gaze traveled past the station manager to the men grouped behind him in the corridor.

"You guys going to let him give orders? I mean, he could be one of those things. What about the refrigerator lock?" He looked fearfully back at Garry. "How about it, man? How do you explain that away?"

A few heads turned Garry's way, the shotgun momentarily forgotten. None of them were oblivious to the fact that Sanders just might be right.

"Put the gun away," the station manager said again. His tone was soothing. "Just put the gun away, then we'll talk about the refrigerator. But we can't talk as friends if we're all pointing guns at each other, can we? Please put it away, Sanders. I know how you're feeling. We're all confused. But we're also all in this together."

Not all of us, Macready corrected him silently. One of us is feeling very different.

Sanders considered Garry's plea, the motionless Magnum pointed at his head, and the men waiting behind the station manager. He had to do something.

Abruptly he threw the remaining shells he held at the broken gun case. The men flinched instinctively, but none of the shells went off. Then the radio operator turned and leaned the gun carefully against the wall. He stood there a moment longer, his facial muscles working, and finally burst into tears. Nauls skated over and tried to comfort him.

As the others watched Garry slowly lowered the pistol, put it back in its holster. He inhaled deeply and turned to confront them. His tone was intense.

"I don't know about Copper. But I didn't go near that refrigerator. As you all damn well know, I don't use anything stronger than aspirin."

"But the doc said he'd seen you in the infirmary several times before," Childs reminded him.

Garry turned slightly belligerent as he replied to the big mechanic. "Sure I've been in there. I've also been out in the maintenance shed, even though I'm not a mechanic. I've been in the telecommunications room, though I don't work alongside Sanders. I've been in every corridor and room on this base. So have most of you.

"So what? That doesn't prove a damn thing." No one saw fit to contradict him. "But I guess you'll all rest easier if someone else is in charge for a while." He pulled the gun from the holster and sized up the circle of anxious faces surrounding him. He finally settled on one.

"Can't see anyone objecting to you, Norris."

"Sorry, chief. I respectfully decline." He grinned ruefully and patted his chest. "Don't think I'd be up to it. Haven't been feeling too good lately. You guys know about my heart condition. I think you ought to appoint someone able to take a lot of strain, should the need arise."

Childs reached for the gun. "I'll take it . . ."

Macready beat him to it. "No offense, Childs, but Norris's point about stability is well taken. Maybe it should be someone a bit more even-tempered."

Childs glared at him, but didn't argue.

Macready inspected his companions. "Any objections?"

Fuchs didn't meet his eyes. Macready prodded him. "Well, you got something to say, say it. This ain't the time to spare anybody's feelings."

Fuchs spoke hesitantly. "First Childs reached for the gun, then you, Mac. Both of you have been out, away from camp. And you had contact with this thing. So did Bennings. Only, Bennings didn't come back." He looked up, stared at the pilot; "How do we know the thing didn't get to both of you?"

"You don't. Nobody knows much of anything right now. Nobody will, until we can find a way to test for this things's presence . . . somehow." He held the gun loosely.

"I'm not gonna insist, though. Anybody got any better suggestions? I'm open."

Uncertain eyes roved through the group, each of them suspicious of his neighbor. Everyone came under scrutiny. There was no such thing as a close friend anymore.

"I guess . . . you're as safe as anyone," Fuchs finally admitted. He ventured a conciliatory smile. "I'm sorry, Mac. I had to say it."

"No hard feelings. I know how you feel."

"Okay, what now?" Norris asked him.

Macready considered. "For one thing we stick together. Let's get back to the rec room and try and talk it out. Everybody. And let's try and keep our emotions under control. Because when we don't—" he glanced meaningfully at the still sobbing Sanders—"that's when we play right into this thing's hands."

Rampant fear of one's friends and neighbors did not make for a very genial atmosphere as they filed back into the recreation room and gathered around the center table. But at least no one was pointing a shotgun or Magnum at someone else.

"From what we know," Macready was declaiming, "this thing likes to go one-on-one. Remember what Blair said about it taking an hour to complete a proper takeover? It likes to get you alone so it can work on you in private."

"Remember what happened to Bennings," Childs reminded the pilot. "He was changing while we watched, and it took minutes, not an hour."

"Yeah, but it was a hurried job and the thing never did break free of him," Macready countered. "It can make a mess in a few minutes, but to do it right takes longer." Childs considered that, nodded slowly in agreement.

"So we stick together," Macready continued, "as much as possible until we're sure it's safe. Nobody goes anywhere to do anything up to and including daily station maintenance unless he's accompanied by someone else. We do everything in twos and threes whenever possible. If we
do
have to split up, it should be for only a short time and the guys involved should at least stay within sight and earshot of each other."

Childs pointed to a corner where Garry, Clark, and the doctor had been isolated. "I'll go along with that, Mac. But what do we do about those three?"

"We got morphine, don't we?" Macready glanced over at Fuchs.

"Again, that's not my department, but I think we do, yes."

"Okay. We keep them loaded. Stash them here in the rec room with the lights on round the clock and watch 'em close."

Palmer was suddenly alert. "Morphine?" He let his upper teeth hang over his lower lip and bugged his eyes. "You know, I was pretty close to that dog, too."

Macready and the rest ignored him.

"We should sleep in shifts," Norris suggested.

"Good idea," agreed the pilot. "Half of us awake at all times. It shouldn't be too hard. It's nighttime outside twenty-four hours a day now anyway. That should keep anybody from crawling into anybody else's bed. Or into anybody."

Thanks to Nauls's reassuring chatter, Sanders had quieted down considerably. "How we going to try and find out who's . . . you know. Who's who?"

"That's the big question." Macready looked over at Fuchs. "You're our remaining link with biology. Can you think of any other tests we could try? Maybe something this thing wouldn't have thought of first, like it did with the serum business?"

Fuchs mulled it over. "I'll give it a try. I could sure use Copper's help, though."

"You can eighty-six that thought right now, man," said Childs sharply. "At least until we figure out who got to that refrigerator." Copper threw his accuser a hurt look.

"Also," Macready went on, "when this thing turns into itself—into its natural form—it turns slowly at first. It takes a while for the metamer . . . matamor . . ."

"Metamorphosis," Fuchs said.

"Thanks. Yeah, when it goes through that process it takes it a while to finish." He looked over at Childs. "Remember when it was trying to become itself and take Bennings at the same time?"

Childs found the constant reminder of the fight in the canyon discomfiting. "Yeah, I remember. It was twisting and jumping all over the place."

"Trying to get back into its own shape," Macready said, nodding. "Which looked to be a damn sight bigger than any human. That ties in with what Blair had to say about the thing's cell structure being flexible, being able to stretch or compact. I've got a hunch from what Childs and I saw that this thing in its natural form is a helluva lot bigger than any dog or man.

"But it takes time to change, just like it does to take someone over. While it's still in the process of reverting, I think we can handle it. Like I said, Childs and I already did."

"Bennings didn't," murmured Norris.

"It surprised us," Macready argued. "We weren't familiar with the surroundings and we didn't expect any kind of radical transformations." He slapped the table. "This is
our
camp. It won't be so easy to surprise us here.

"But if it ever reached full maturity and full power . . . based on what I saw of that Norwegian outpost . . . metal ripped apart, beams busted in half . . . well, I just don't know.

"If Blair's right and it needs an hour to take something else over, it probably needs close to that to achieve maturity. So no matter what anybody's doing, we all return to this room for a check every twenty minutes. Anybody gone longer than that, we kill 'em."

"Kind of an extreme reaction, isn't it?" said Norris.

Macready stared back at him, hard. "There's no reason for anybody who keeps his head to miss that deadline." Even Sanders nodded in agreement, having recovered his equilibrium.

"Better nobody stay in the can too long," he managed to quip. "That'd be a hell of a place to die." There were a few weak laughs.

"Okay then." Macready turned to leave. "We've still got things to do. This outpost ain't going to run itself. No reason why we shouldn't get at it until Fuchs figures out another test . . ."

Palmer worked painfully at the engine of the short-haul helicopter. Occasionally he'd glance nervously over his shoulder for movement that went against the wind. Sanders and Macready were dim, distant shapes moving about the trash dump.

He turned back to his work, frowned at the engine and then the pile of parts nearby.

"Well, damn. Where's that magneto? Can't find a thing around here anymore."

Copper, Clark, and Garry sat moodily next to one another on the large rec room couch. Norris had the doctor's bag open on the card table and was awkwardly trying to prepare three injections. He was new at the business, hadn't done any first aid since the Army, and that was a long time ago.

Fuchs couldn't help. The assistant biologist was in the lab, trying to think of a new test they could try on each other. That took priority. Not that he would have been of much use. He was used to squirting things out of hypos into cultures and slides, not veins. Norris would have to manage by himself.

Copper shifted his backside on the cushions and smiled pleasantly. "I'll do it, if you like," he told the geophysicist. "You're liable to break the needle in my arm, or miss the vein."

Childs gestured toward him with the torch. "Never you mind, Doc. It'll be all right. He's doing a real fine job." He smiled encouragingly at Norris.

"I'm not sure . . ." the older man began hesitantly.

"Just do your best, man," the, mechanic advised him. "You'll manage." He smiled thinly at the three on the couch. Copper glared at him.

The wind whistled around Macready, trying to pry under the warm, insulated rim of his parka hood. The only light came from the flashlights he and Sanders carried. The faint glow of the compound's exterior lamps barely reached the trash dump. They could hear Palmer flailing energetically at the nearby helicopters.

He turned over a heap of damp cardboard, kicked it aside. "Look for shoes, too," he told his companion. "And burned cloth. Any clothing that's more than just worn out."

Having finally succeeded in performing the injections, with a minimum of discomfort to the recipients, Norris had moved into the telecommunications room. He knew more about electronics than medicine and was glad of the opportunity to work on something that wouldn't complain if he made a mistake.

He disconnected the still useless headset and rubbed at his chest. Occasionally Childs would give him a shout and he'd answer back.

He took the small plastic bottle from his shirt pocket and popped a couple of the tiny white pills. The pain in his chest went away. He went back to work on the radio.

Nauls was skating through the labyrinth of corridors, checking out the individual waste bins as well as shelves, lockers, and anyplace else something might have hidden damaging evidence. He checked regularly with Childs or Fuchs.

Macready passed him, coming in from outside. The cook gave him a bored glance.

"That thing's too smart to be throwing away any more of its clothes where we can find 'em, Macready."

"Just keep looking."

"Yeah. What fun."

"Want to trade places? I'll search in here for a while and you can go outside and freeze with the garbage."