Thompson's Cat, Robert Moore Williams [books to read fiction TXT] 📗

the room, rip the last remnant of clothing from his body. Revealed under the lights, his skin was turning a vivid green.

Fortune was trying to approach him. Kurkil was warning the man off.

"Stay away, stay away. Don't touch me. You'll get it."

In the split second that was needed for Thompson to take in the situation, the green color flowing over Kurkil's body deepened in intensity.

As the color deepened, the screams bubbling on his lips began to die away. He fell slowly, like a man who is coming unhinged one joint at a time.

He was dead before he hit the floor. Dead so completely that not even a convulsive tremor passed through his body.

A frozen silence held the lounge. For this was a dream, a nightmare, wild, distorted imagery.

Fortune's hand waved vaguely in the direction of Sol Cluster. "It looks as if we're not as bug and stress proof as they said we were."

"What happened?"

"He was sitting there in the chair and I thought he was asleep. Then he was screaming and tearing his clothes off." Ross spread his hands. "I tried to help—"

"I know," Thompson said. He was trying to decide what to do. This ship possessed no facilities for handling the dead. Such a contingency had been thought too remote for consideration. Well, there was the ejection port. "Get sheets," Thompson said. With Fortune and Ross helping, he set about doing what had to be done.

Later, in the lounge, they met to decide what had to be done. Neff, leaving the drivers on automatic control, came up from the engine room. Grant came forward from the control room. If any danger presented itself, warning bells would call them back to their posts.

They were a silent and an uneasy group. Only Buster remained unaffected.

"There seems no doubt that we brought the infection back on board ship with us," Thompson said.

He had stated the obvious. It got the answer it deserved. Silence.

"We also must consider the possibility that another of us, possibly all of us, are infected."

No man stirred, no man spoke. Apparently they hoped they had not heard correctly the words that had been spoken. In Thompson's lap Buster grumbled as if he had understood and did not like what had been said.

"What are we going to do?"

"How can we find out what's causing this disease?"

Two voices came. Then came Fortune's voice. "And even if we find out, what can we do about it? They couldn't do anything about it."

"The fact that the race back there couldn't stop the disease, doesn't mean we can't stop it. We're a different race with a different metabolism and a different body structure—"

"Kurkil had the same metabolism and the same body structure," Ross said.

"We will do what we can," Thompson spoke flatly. In spite of the fact that these men were supposed to be nerve proof, there was panic in the air. He could sense it, knew that it had to be stopped before it got started. Inwardly he cursed the fact that there was no doctor aboard, but he knew only too well the line of reasoning that had led to the omission of a physician.

"We have a medical library," Ross said, tentatively.

"Yes," Fortune spoke. "And it tells you exactly how to treat every conceivable form of accident but it doesn't say a single damned word about infections, and if it did we don't have any medicine to treat them.

Again silence fell. In Thompson's lap, Buster squirmed, dropped to the floor. Tail extended, body low, he moved across the plastic floor as if he were stalking something that lay beyond the open door. "We'll fumigate anyhow," Thompson said. "We'll scour the ship."

There was some relief in action. The clothing that had been worn by the landing party went out through the ejection lock. Inside the ship, the floors, walls, and ceilings were scoured by sweating men who worked feverishly. Fumigants were spread in every room.

With the spreading of the fumigants, spirits began to rise, but even then the signs of stress were still all too obvious. No one knew the incubation period of the virus. Hours only had been needed to bring Kurkil to his death. But days might pass before the virus developed in its next victim.

Months or even years might pass before they were absolutely sure they were free from any chance of infection.

By the time the ship reached Sol Cluster, and the automatic controls stopped its hyper-flight, they might all be dead.

If that happened, the ship's controls would automatically stop its flight. It would be picked up by the far-ranging screens of the space patrol, a ship would be sent out to board it and bring it in.

At the thought of what would happen then, Thompson went hastily forward to the control room. Grant, thin-lipped and nervous, was on duty there. Thompson hastily began plotting a new course. Grant watched over his shoulder.

"Make this change," Thompson said.

"But, Captain—" Grant protested. The man's face had gone utterly white as he realized the implications of this new course. "No. We can't do that. It'll mean—"

"I know what it will mean. And I'm in my right mind, I hope. This course is a precaution, just in case nobody is left alive by the time we reach Sol Cluster."

"But—"

"Make the change," Thompson ordered bluntly.

Reluctantly Grant fed the new course into the computers. A throb went through the vessel as the ship shifted in response.

"We'll come out of hyper-flight in less than three hours," Grant spoke. "Heaven help us if this course is not changed before that time."

"If this course is not changed before that time, Heaven alone can help us. From now on, you're not to leave this control room for an instant."

"Yes, sir."

With Buster following behind him, Thompson left the control room.

"Yoooow!" The scream coming from the lounge this time was in a different key and had a different sound. But the meaning was the same as it had been when Kurkil had screamed. Thompson went forward on the run.

The victim was Ross. Like Kurkil, he was tearing his clothes off. Like Kurkil, he was turning green. When he went down, he did not rise again.

As he stood staring down at Ross, Thompson had the vague impression of whirring wings passing near him. Whispering wings, as if a soul were taking flight.

From the engine room Neff appeared. "I heard somebody scream over the intercom. Oh, I see." His face worked, his jaws moved as if he was trying to speak. But no sound came.

Fortune emerged from his quarters to look down at Ross. "Our fumigating didn't work, huh?"

"Maybe he caught the bug on the planet," Thompson said. He tried to put conviction into his voice. The effort failed. "Get sheets," he said.

There was no prayer. There was no burial ceremony. The body went through the ejection port and disappeared in the vast depths of space.

Thompson returned to his cabin, slumped down at his desk, Fortune and Neff following.

Buster meowed. "Okay, pal." The cat jumped into Thompson's lap.

"I guess there's not much point in trying to kid ourselves any longer," Fortune said. His voice was dull and flat, without tone and without spirit. A muscle in Neff's cheek was twitching.

"I don't understand you," Thompson said.

"Hell, you understand me well enough. The facts are obvious. We've either all got the virus, or it's here in the ship, and we will get it. All we're doing is waiting to see who goes next. What I want to know is—Who'll shove the last man through the ejection port?"

"I don't know," Thompson answered.

"Isn't there anything else we can do?" The tic in Neff's cheek was becoming more pronounced.

"If there is, I don't know—What the hell, Buster?" The cat which had been lying in his lap, suddenly leaped to the floor. Tail extended, crouched, eyes alert, the cat seemed to be trying to follow the flight of something through the air above him.

Very vaguely, very dimly, Thompson caught the rustle of wings.

The actions of the cat, and the sound, sent a wave of utter cold washing over his body.

Before he could move, the cat leaped upward, caught something in snapping jaws.

In the same split second Thompson moved. Before Buster had had time to swallow, Thompson had caught him behind the jaws, forcing them shut. On his desk was a bell jar. He lifted it, thrust the cat's head under it, forced his thumb and forefinger against the jaws of the cat.

The outraged Buster disgorged something. Thompson jerked the cat's head from under the jar, slammed down the rim. The angry cat snarled at him. Neff and Fortune were staring at him from eyes that indicated they thought he had lost his senses. Thompson paid them no attention. He was too busy watching something inside the bell jar even to notice that they existed.

He could not see the creature under the jar.

He knew it could fly but he did not know its shape or size. He could hear it hitting the falls of the jar. And each time it hit the wall, a tiny greenish smudge appeared at the point of impact.

"What—what the hell have you got there?" Neff whispered.

"I don't know for sure. But I think I've got the carrier of the virus."

"What?"

"Watch."

"I can't see anything."

"Nor can I yet, but I can hear it and I can see the places where it hits the wall of the jar. There's something under the jar. Something that Buster has been seeing all along."

"What?"

Thompson pointed at the jar. "One or several of those things came into the ship when the lock was open. We couldn't see them, didn't know they existed. But Buster saw them. He caught one of them in this cabin soon after we took off. I thought he was playing a game to amuse himself, or—" He broke off. From the back of his mind came a fragment of history, now in the forgotten Dark Ages of Earth, whole populations had been ravaged and destroyed by a fever that was carried by some kind of an insect. Did they have some kind of an insect under his jar?

Holding his breath, Thompson watched.

The pounding against the walls of the jar was growing weaker. Then it stopped. On the desk top, a smudge appeared. Wings quavered there, wings that shifted through a range of rainbow colors as they became visible.

As the flutter of the wings stopped the whole creature became visible. Made up of some kind of exceedingly thin tissue that was hardly visible, it was about as big as a humming bird.

Silence held the room. Thompson was aware of his eyes coming to focus on the long pointed bill of the creature.

"Alive it was not visible at all," Fortune whispered. "Dead, you can see it." His voice lifted, picked up overtones of terror. "Say an hour or so ago Ross was complaining that something had bit him."

Like the last remnant of a picture puzzle fitting together, something clicked in Thompson's mind. "And Kurkil. While we were out of the ship something bit him."

Silence again. His eyes went from Neff to Fortune. "Did—"

They shook their heads.

"Then that ties up the package," Thompson whispered. "This creature carried the virus, or poison, or whatever it was. Without being bitten, the virus cannot spread. We've found the cause. We've got it licked."

He was aware of sweat appearing on his face, the sweat of pure relief. He sank back into his chair. Buster, recovering from his indignity at the outrage he had suffered, jumped to the top of the desk, settled down with his nose against the glass, watching the dead creature inside the bell jar.

"He caught one of those things right in this cabin," Thompson whispered. A shudder passed over him and was gone. He had been so close to death, and had not known it. Buster had saved him.

Instead of seeking protection from him, the cat, in a sense, had been protecting him. His gaze centered fondly on the cat.

"What if there are more of those things in the ship?" Fortune spoke.

"We can solve that one," Thompson spoke. "Space suits. And, now that we know what we're looking for, we can clean out the ship. If we don't, Buster will do it for us."

"Space suits!" As if he had heard no more than those two words, Fortune ran from the room. He returned with three suits. They hastily donned them.

"No damned bug can bite through one of these things," Neff said exultantly. "Say, what about Grant? Hadn't we better take him a suit too?"

"I should say so. Fortune...." But Fortune was already leaving the room on his errand. Thompson snapped open the intercom system. "Grant?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"We've found the cause and we've got the disease licked."

Grant's voice a shout