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"Quiet! You bother me. And sit still. I can't stand to have
people running in and out of here. You're in; now stay in."
Paul fell silent. He was uncertain whether or not Seevers
was a dermie. The small man's lab jacket bunched up to hide
the back of his neck, and the sleeves covered his arms. His
hands were rubber-gloved, and a knot of white cord behind
his head told Paul that he was wearing a gauze mask. His
ears were bright pink, but their color was meaningless; it
took several months for the gray coloring to seep to all areas
of the skin. But Paul guessed he was a dermie and wearing
the gloves and mask to keep his equipment sterile.
He glanced idly around the large room. There were several
glass cages of rats against the wall. They seemed airtight,
with ducts for forced ventilation. About half the rats were
afflicted with neuroderm in its various stages, A few wore
shaved patches of skin where the disease had been freshly
and forcibly inflicted. Paul caught the fleeting impression
that several of the animals were staring at him fixedly. He
shuddered and looked away.
He glanced casually at the usual maze of laboratory glass-
ware, then turned his attention to a pair of hemispheres,
suspended like a trophy on the wall. He recognized them as
the twin halves of one of the meteorites, with the small jelly-
pocket in the center. Beyond it hung a large picture frame
containing several typewritten sheets. Another frame held
four pictures of bearded scientists from another century, ob-
viously clipped from magazine or textbook. There was noth-
ing spectacular about the lab. It smelted of clean dust and
sour things. Just a small respectable workshop,
Seevers' chair creaked suddenly. "It checks," he said to
himself. "It checks again. Forty per cent increase," He threw
down the stub pencil and whirled suddenly. Paul saw a pudgy
round face with glittering eyes. A dark splotch of neuroderm
had crept up from the chin to split his mouth and cover one
cheek and an eye, giving him the appearance of a black and
white bulldog with a mixed color muzzle.
"It checks," he barked at Paul, then smirked contentedly,
"What checks?"
The scientist rolled up a sleeve to display a patch of ad-
hesive tape on a portion of his arm which had been discolored
by the disease. "Here," he grunted. "Two weeks ago this area
was normal. I took a centimeter of skin from right next to
this one, and counted the nerve endings. Since that time, the
derm's crept down over the area. I took another square cen-
timeter today, and recounted. Forty per cent increase."
Paul frowned with disbelief. It was generally known that
neuroderm had a sensitizing effect, but new nerve
endings... No. He didn't believe it.
"Third time I've checked it," Seevers said happily. "One
place ran up to sixty-five per cent, Heh! Smart little bugs,
aren't they? Inventing new somesthetic receptors that way!"
Paul swallowed with difficulty. "What did you say?" he
gasped.
Seevers inspected him serenely, "So you're a nonhyper,
are you? Yes, indeed, I can smell that you are. Vile, really.
Can't understand why sensible hypers would want to paw
you. But then, I've insured myself against such foolishness."
He said it so casually that Paul blinked before he caught
the full impact of it. "Y-y-you've done what?"
"What I said. When I first caught it, I simply sat down
with a velvet-tipped stylus and located the spots on my hands
that gave rise to pleasurable sensations. Then I burned them
out with an electric needle. There aren't many of them,
really one or two points per square centimeter." He tugged
off his gloves and exhibited pick-marked palms to prove it.
"I didn't want to be bothered with such silly urges. Waste of
time, chasing nonhypers- for me it is. I never learned what
it's like, so I've never missed it." He turned his hands over
and stared at them. "Stubborn little critters keep growing
new ones. and I keep burning them out."
Paul leaped to his feet, "Are you trying to tell me that the
plague causes new nerve cells to grow?"
Seevers looked up coldly. "Ah, yes. You came here to be
illoooominated, as the padre put it. If you wish to be de-
idiotized, please stop shouting, Otherwise, I'll ask you to
leave."
Paul, who had felt like leaving a moment ago, now sub-
sided quickly. "I'm sorry," he snapped, then softened his tone
to repeat: "I'm sorry,"
Seevers took a deep breath, stretched his short meaty arms
in an unexpected yawn, then relaxed and grinned, "Sit down,
sit down, m'boy. Ill tell you what you want to know, if you
really want to know anything. Do you?"
"Of course!"
"You don't! You just want to know how you whatever
your name is will be affected by events. You don"t care about
understanding for its own sake. Few people do. That's why
we're in this mess. The padre now, he cares about under-
standing events but not for their own sake. He cares, bat
for his flock's sake for his God's sake which is, I must
admit, a better attitude than that of the common herd, whose
only interest is in their own safety. But if people would just
want to understand events for the understanding's sake, we
wouldn't be in such a pickle."
Paul watched the professor's bright eyes and took the lec-
ture quietly.
"And so, before I illuminate you, I want to make an im-
possible request."
"Yes, sir."
"I ask you to be completely objective," Seevers continued,
rubbing the bridge of his nose and covering his eyes with his
hand. "I want you to forget you ever heard of neuroderm
while you listen to me. Rid yourself of all preconceptions,
especially those connected with fear. Pretend these are purely
hypothetical events that I'm going to discuss." He took his
hands down from his eyes and grinned sheepishly. "It always
embarrasses me to ask for that kind of cooperation when I
know damn well I'll never get it."
"I'll try to be objective, sir."
"Bah!" Seevers slid down to sit on his spine, and hooked
the base of his skull over the back of the chair. He blinked
thoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment, then folded his
hands across his small paunch and closed his eyes.
When he spoke again, he was speaking to himself: "As-
sume a planet, somewhat earthlike, but not quite. It has
carboniferous life forms, but not human. Warm-blooded,
probably, and semi-intelligent. And the planet has something
else it has an overabundance of parasite forms. Actually,
the various types of parasites are the dominant species. The
warm-blooded animals are the parasites' vegetables, so to
speak. Now, during two billion years, say, of survival contests
between parasite species, some parasites are quite likely to
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