Read Online The Dancers of Noyo by Margaret St. Clair - Free Book Online Page B

answered. "And I really am a worker in the health department; I've been trying to find you for a long time."
     
                  "Well, you succeeded," Bennet replied calmly, though anger was growing in him. "I'm sorry, but I must ask you to be on your way. I have nothing for you."
     
                  "What if I should tell my superiors you've been faking the tests, that you're really a sick, a seriously sick, a dying man?"
     
                  "By the time you manage to convince them, I'll be dead," Bennet replied, more confidently than he felt.
     
                  O'Hare raised his eyebrows. "Will you? I have only to drop a hint, and they'll take you into custody. Nobody wants to take any chances on another outbreak of bone-melt. I don't see why you faked the tests. It must have been a lot of trouble. And surely your, umh , conscience must bother you slightly."
     
                  "No, not really. I mean, it wasn't much trouble and my conscience doesn't bother me particularly. And it's worth it anyhow, for the privilege of dying undisturbed."
     
                  "You value that so much?"
     
                  "Yes. I do."
     
                  "Then I'll make a bargain with you," O'Hare said briskly. "My silence, complete and absolute, in exchange for a few scrapings of the mucous membrane of your mouth."
     
                  "No," said Bennet instantly. "I refuse to be the author of a race of androids, no matter how tempting the bargain."
     
                  "You're really astonishing, Bennet," the other man said. "Doesn't it strike you as irrational to refuse me a few cells from your body, and yet to be willing to be a vector of bone-melt cancer to millions of men? In all the outbreaks, the mortality has been one hundred percent."
     
                  Bennet shrugged. "A death like mine is no penalty. I feel it is the crown of my life. Incidentally, I wonder you dared try to find me. As you're well aware, contact with me is dangerous."
     
                  It was O' Hare's turn to shrug. "A simple, effective prophylaxis for the disease has been worked out since you contracted it. Provided the nasal passages are washed out promptly with ephedrine solution, or even buffered saline, there's very little danger. It has to be done in time, of course. Didn't the health department tell you?"
     
                  "No. And now, O'Hare, I wish you'd get out. I don't understand why you've fixed on me. Surely you must have cell cultures available from some of the several million victims of bone-melt so far."
     
                  "Oh, I have. But you see, Bennet, you're unique. You're the only person, so far as we know, who's had bone-melt and then had an arrest of the disease. The others were dead within a week of the time the first overt symptoms appeared. It's taken you more than ten years. I want a histological sample from you."
     
                  "Sorry, you'll have to get along without me," Bennet said. He had been getting steadily angrier, much as he was trying to control himself. "Will you get out, or do I have to try to throw you out?"
     
                  "Oh, I'll get out, I'll get out," O'Hare said placatingly . "But I brought you a present, a bottle of a wine you used to like. Grands-Eschezeaux . It's hard to get these days."
     
                  "Very considerate of you," Bennet said, smiling a little. "Yes, I'm still fond of it. But I warn you, I'm not going to soften up any because of a bottle of good wine."
     
                  "I don't expect you to. But we used to be friends." O'Hare produced the bottle and a corkscrew. "Let's try it together, and then I'll go. I promise I won't tell the county health department you've hocused their tests. When the chips are down, I don't care much more about human welfare than you