"It seems to me that you could analyze the flesh--"
He smiled. "We have. The state of analytical chemistry is well advanced.
We could, I think, take a dry scraping out of the cauldron used by
MacBeth's witches, and determine whether Shakespeare had reported the
formula correctly. Now, young man, if you think that something is added
to the human flesh to make it Mekstrom's Flesh, you are wrong. Standard
analysis shows that the flesh is composed of exactly the same chemicals
that normal flesh contains, in the same proportion. Nothing is added,
as, for instance, in the case of calcification."
"Then what is the difference?"
"The difference lies in the structure. By X-ray crystallographic method,
we have determined that Mekstrom's Flesh is a micro-crystalline
formation, interlocked tightly." Scholar Phelps looked at me
thoughtfully. "Do you know much about crystallography?"
As a mechanical engineer I did, but as a writer of magazine articles I
felt I should profess some ignorance, so I merely said that I knew a
little about the subject.
"Well, Mr. Cornell, you may know that in the field of solid geometry
there are only five possible regular polyhedrons. Like the laws of
topology that state that no more than four colors need be used to print
a map on a flat surface, or that no more than seven colors are required
to print separate patches on a toroid, the laws of solid geometry prove
that no more than five regular polyhedrons are possible. Now in
crystallography there are only thirty-two possible classes of crystal
lattice construction. Of these only thirty have ever been discovered in
nature. Yet we know how the other two would appear if they did emerge in
natural formation."
I knew it all right but I made scribblings in my notebooks as if the
idea were of interest. Scholar Phelps waited patiently until I'd made
the notation.
"Now, Mr. Cornell, here comes the shock. Mekstrom's Flesh is one of the
other two classes."
This was news to me and I blinked.
Then his face faded into a solemn expression. "Unfortunately," he said
in a low voice, "knowing how a crystal should form does not help us much
in forming one to that class. We have no real control over the
arrangement of atoms in a crystal lattice. We can prevent the crystal
formation, we can control the size of the crystal as it forms. But we
cannot change the crystal into some other class."
"I suppose it's sort of like baking a cake. Once the ingredients are
mixed, the cake can be big or small or shaped to fit the pan, or you can
spoil it complete. But if you mix devil's food, it either comes out
devil's food or nothing."
"An amusing analogy and rather correct. However I prefer the one used
years ago by Dr. Willy Ley, who observed that analysis is fine, but you
can't learn how a locomotive is built by melting it down and analyzing
the mess."
Then he went on again. "To get back to Mekstrom's Disease and what we
know about it. We know that the crawl goes at about a sixty-fourth of an
inch per hour. If, for instance, you turned up here with a trace on your
right middle finger, the entire first joint would be Mekstrom's Flesh in
approximately three days. Within two weeks your entire middle finger
would be solid. Without anesthesia we could take a saw and cut off a bit
for our research."
"No feeling?"
"None whatever. The joints knit together, the arteries become as hard as
steel tubing and the heart cannot function properly--not that the heart
cares about minor conditions such as the arteries in the extremities,
but as the Mekstrom infection crawls up the arm toward the shoulder the
larger arteries become solid and then the heart cannot drive the blood
through them in its accustomed fashion. It gets like an advanced case of
arteriosclerosis. Eventually the infection reaches and immobilizes the
shoulder; this takes about ninety days. By this time, the other
extremities have also become infected and the crawl is coming up all
four limbs."
He looked at me very solemnly at that. "The rest is not pretty. Death
comes shortly after that. I can almost say that he is blessed who
catches Mekstrom's in the left hand for them the infection reaches the
heart before it reaches other parts. Those whose initial infection is in
the toes are particularly cursed, because the infection reaches the
lower parts of the body. I believe you can imagine the result,
elimination is prevented because of the stoppage of peristalsis. Death
comes of autointoxication, which is slow and painful."
I shuddered at the idea. The thought of death has always bothered me.
The idea of looking at a hand and knowing that I was going to die by the
calendar seemed particularly horrible.
Taking the bit between my teeth, I said, "Scholar Phelps, I've been
wondering whether you and your Center have ever considered treating
Mekstrom's by helping it?"
"Helping it?" he asked.
"Sure. Consider what a man might be if he were Mekstrom's all the way
through."
He nodded. "You would have a physical superman," he said. "Steel-strong
muscles driving steel-hard flesh covered by a near impenetrable skin.
Perhaps such a man would be free of all minor pains and ills. Imagine a
normal bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. Mekstrom
Flesh tends to be acid-resistant as well as tough physically. It is not
beyond the imagination to believe that your Mekstrom Superman might live
three times our frail four-score and ten. But--"
Here he paused.
"Not to pull down your house of cards, this idea is not a new one. Some
years ago we invited a brilliant young doctor here to study for his
scholarate. The unfortunate fellow arrived with the first traces of
Mekstrom's in his right middle toe. We placed about a hundred of our
most brilliant researchers under his guidance, and he decided to take
this particular angle of study. He failed; for all his efforts, he did
not stay his death by a single hour. From that time to the present we
have maintained one group on this part of the problem."
It occurred to me at that moment that if I turned up with a trace of
Mekstrom's I'd be seeking out the Highways in Hiding rather than the
Medical Center. That fast thought brought a second: Suppose that Dr.
Thorndyke learned that he had a trace, or rather, the Highways found it
out. What better way to augment their medical staff than to approach the
victim with a proposition: You help us, work with us, and we will save
your life.
That, of course, led to the next idea: That if the Highways in Hiding
had any honest motive, they'd not be hidden in the first place and
they'd have taken their cure to the Medical Center in the second. Well,
I had a bit of something listed against them, so I decided to let my
bombshell drop.
"Scholar Phelps," I said quietly, "one of the reasons I am here is that
I have fairly good evidence that the cure for Mekstrom's Disease does
exist, and that it produces people of ultrahard bodies and superhuman
strength."
He smiled at me with the same tolerant air that father uses on the
offspring who comes up with one of the standard juvenile plans for
perpetual motion.
"What do you consider good evidence?"
"Suppose I claimed to have seen it myself."
"Then I would say that you had misinterpreted your evidence," he replied
calmly. "The flying saucer enthusiasts still insist that the things they
see are piloted by little green men from Venus, even though we have been
there and found Venus to be absolutely uninhabited by anything higher
than slugs, grubs, and little globby animals like Tellurian leeches."
"But--"
"This, too, is an old story," he told me with a whimsical smile. "It
goes with the standard routine about a secret organization that is
intending to take over the Earth. The outline has been popular ever
since Charles Fort. Now--er--just tell me what you saw."
I concocted a tale that was about thirty-three percent true and the rest
partly distorted. It covered my hitting a girl in Ohio with my car, hard
enough to clobber her. But when I stopped to help her, she got up and
ran away unhurt. She hadn't left a trace of blood although the front
fender of the car was badly smashed.
He nodded solemnly. "Such things happen," he said. "The human body is
really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the
fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. I've read the
story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it
to the factory in person, according to the old joke. But now, Mr.
Cornell, have you ever considered the utter impossibility of running any
sort of secret organization in this world of today. Even before Rhine it
was difficult. You'll be adding to your tale next--some sort of secret
sign, maybe a form of fraternity grip, or perhaps even a world-wide
system of local clubs and hangouts, all aimed at some dire purpose."
I squirmed nervously for a bit. Scholar Phelps was too close to the
truth to make me like it, because he was scoffing. He went right on
making me nervous.
"Now before we get too deep, I only want to ask about the probable
motives of such an organization. You grant them superhuman strength,
perhaps extreme longevity. If they wanted to take over the Earth,
couldn't they do it by a show of force? Or are they mild-mannered
supermen, only quietly interested in overrunning the human race and
waiting out the inevitable decline of normal homo sapiens? You're not
endowing them with extraterrestrial origin, are you?"