Tomorrow Sucks Part 10

He actually put his head farther back, to expose his throat to the expected thrust.

He wanted her to strike him-angrily, brutally, pa.s.sionately. He had nothing more to say, and would not confirm or deny that he did still love her.

He admitted to himself now that his motives had been mixed, and that he really did not know whether it was loyalty to the Fraternity that had made him submit to this extraordinary experiment. It did not matter.

She cut his throat, and he watched her for a few long seconds while she stared at the blood gouting from the wound. When he saw her put stained fingers to her lips, knowing what she knew, he realized that after her own fas.h.i.+on, she still loved him.

Is biology destiny? A doctor ought to know... "S. N. Dyer" is the pseudonym of a practicing M.D. She is also known for her Hugo-winning tales of life as a resident in an inner city hospital.

Born Again.

S. N. DYER.

ABSTRACT. The historical condition vampirism is found to be caused by a microorganism which revamps the host's physiology and metabolism through negentropic processes. Evolution of the organism is conjectured and potential uses of the discovery suggested.

t.i.tLE. Haematophagic Adaptation is h.o.m.o Nosferatus, with Notes Upon the Geographical Distribution of Super-gene-moderated Mimicking Morphs in h.o.m.o Lycanthropus.

I'd forgotten the pitch black of a country road at night. Overhead, between the aisles of trees, you can see the stars; but otherwise it's the same as being blind.

Totally different from the hospital where I'd just completed my residency, an oasis of fluorescent light in an urban jungle. You couldn't walk down the best lit streets in safety there. It felt good to be home, even just for a short vacation.

I walked by the feel of the asphalt under my feet. At the bend there'd be an almost subliminal glimmer of starlight on the mailbox at the foot of the drive to my family's farm. The halo of an approaching car rounded the bend, illuminating the road. I discovered I was standing directly in the center, and moved to the side of the road.

Headlights washed over me. I shut my eyes to keep my nightsight.

The car hung a sharp left into the driveway of the old Riggen place, and stopped.

City-conditioned nerves made my heart pound faster.

The car door swung open, the overhead lighting up a seated man in his late twenties. He had dark hair and a bushy moustache.

"Are you lost?" he asked.

"No, I'm close enough to home to call the dog."

He chuckled, and his smile turned him handsome. "Don't be so paranoid.

Hmmm... you must be the Sangers' famous daughter who went to the Big City to become a doctor."

"Guilty as accused. And you must be the Mad Scientist renting the Riggen spread."

"No, I'm just a humble master's in microbiology. Kevin Marlowe. My boss Auger is the mad scientist."

"The Auger?"

He flashed another grin. "Ah. Why don't you come to tea tomorrow, Doctor, and see."

AUTHORS. Alastair Auger, Ph.D.Kevin Marlowe, M.A.

Mae Sanger, M.D.

Asterisk. Funded by a grant from the Inst.i.tute for the Study of Esoterica.

INTRODUCTION. Recent advances in medicine have necessitated differentiating between clinical death, or cessation of heartbeat, and biological, or brain death. The distinction has been further complicated by the increasing use of heroic life support methodology.

History reports rare cases in which clinical death was not followed by biological death, but was maintained in status. The affected undead individuals were called Nosferati, or vampires. The authors' investigation of this phenomenon has led to the discovery of a causative microorganism, Pseudobacteria augeria.

"Dr. Sanger, Dr. Auger."

"Charmed." The great Professor Alastair Auger smiled down at me. He was tall, gray-haired but with dark eyebrows, somewhat out of shape, a couple of decades older than Marlowe and I. He had the cupped words, riveting eyes, and radiating intellect of the perfect lecturer.

He continued, "At last we meet someone in this semi-civilized intellectual backwash who at least aspires to the level of pseudo-science."

"You must come by sometime and see my herb-and-rattle collection," I replied.

He raised an eyebrow. "I understand that you've heard of me."

"Sure. Everyone knows about Professor Auger, brilliant-"

He preened.

"But nuts."

Auger said, "You see, Kevin? She has retained the delightful candor of the local rednecks, untempered by her exposure to the hypocritical milieu of higher education.

She'll do fine."

My turn to raise an eyebrow.

The doorbell rang. Marlowe looked out the window and groaned. "h.e.l.l. It's Weems."

I followed his gaze. Leaning on the bell was a small ferret-faced man, with a gray suit and a loud tie.

Auger grimaced with pain and clutched his abdomen for a few seconds, then recovered. "I'll get rid of him. Take her on a tour of the lab."

METHODS AND MATERIALS. The Pseudobacteria augeria was stored inisotonic saline solution kept at 370C, at which temperature it is inactive. t.i.ters of inactive P. augeria were injected into host animals, which were then sacrificed.

After a critical period, depending on the number of injected pseudobacteria and the generations (Graph 1) necessary to achieve the species specific ratio of pseudo-bacteria/kg body weight (Table A), the dead host animal was reanimated.

The mean latency was three days. The dotted line indicates the threshold number of primary infecting pseudobacteria necessary to replicate sufficient progeny in order to reanimate the body before irreversible decay occurs. In vivo, a number of vampiric attacks or "bites," ensuring a large founding colony, would increase chances of postmortem revivification.

"Vampires?" I repeated, petting a white rabbit. "Come on, we did that one in med school. Funniest gag since Arlo left a piece of his cadaver in a confessional."

I looked around the lab, believing my eyes as little as Marlowe's story. They'd turned an old farm house into a modern-day Castle Frankenstein. Cages of lab animals faced a small computer, nestled amongst the centrifuges, particle counters, electron microscope, and spectrometers. Automatic stirrers clacked away in the background.

Marlowe handed me a stethoscope. "First, a.s.sure yourself that it works."

I put it over my fifth rib and heard a rea.s.suring lub dub lub dub.

"I'm alive."

"Try the rabbit."

No heartbeat.

I stared at it, snuffling in my hands. Marlowe put out a saucer of what looked like blood. The fluffy little bunny tore free of my hold, dove at the bowl, and began lapping up the red liquid.

"Okay, I believe you. How? I mean, its brain is obviously getting oxygenated or it wouldn't be hopping around. But how does the blood circulate if the heart's not pumping?"

"We're not sure." He waved at a garbage can. There was a former rabbit inside.

"Were you dissecting it or dicing it?"

"Auger's a biochemist, and me... well, neither of us can even carve a roast."

"I see. You need someone who feels at home with a scalpel, right? Look, this is my first real vacation in seven years, and I have a job that starts Back East in a month..."

Weems and Auger entered the lab.

"I am certain, Mr. Weems, that even you will notice that we have not had recourse to the p.a.w.nshop," Auger said, gesturing expansively.

Weems pointed to a coffee mug sitting on the infrared spectrometer. "Is that anyway to treat the Foundation's equip*Who's she?"

"Our new a.s.sociate," Auger said.

Weems looked at me contemptuously.

"You wanna see my credentials?"

He sneered. "I think I see them."

I said, "You boys just got yourselves a surgeon."

The progressive effect of vampirism upon host physiology was studied in rats.

One group was injected with a threshold number of P. augeria, sacrificed, and placed in an incubation chamber held at 15C to hasten replication. Ninety-seven percent of the infected rats reanimated between 54 and 73 hours post-mortem.

Specimens were sacrificed at intervals of 0, 6, 12, 24, etc., hours post-revivification, and the gross anatomy, pathology, and serology studied.

Another group of control rats was injected with normal saline, sacrificed, and placed in the 15C incubation chamber. These under-went cla.s.sical necrotic decay, and were disposed of on the sixth day.

"Whew. Smells like a charnel house," Marlowe said. "How do you stand it?"

"It's obvious you never worked in an inner-city clinic, Kevin. Or lived on a farm."

I pointed to the rat I had pinned open on the table and was dissecting under red light.

"See that? They may not be using the heart as a pump, but it's still the crossroads of the circulatory system. That must be why the old stake-in-the-heart routine works."

"Only as a temporary measure," Marlowe said. "The microorganisms seem able to repair tissue. Remember, the cla.s.sical method of killing vampires is staking, followed closely by decapitation or burning."

"Mmm. Stake, season well with garlic, and place in a hot oven until thoroughly cooked. Look at those little buggies move."

"Please do not call my Pseudobacteria augeria 'buggies,' " Auger said, walking in on us. He was good at that.

"Oh, you'll want to see this, sir," Marlowe said, handing the taller man an electronmicrograph.

"Beautiful!"

I stood on tiptoe to see. The micrograph showed the bug, with its bacteria-like lack of a nucleus, its amoeba-like pseudopods and irregular cellular borders, and its just-plain-weird ribosome cl.u.s.ters and endoplasmic reticulum, plus some things not even Marlowe could identify. There was a smooth, anucleate disc attached to the outer membrane."Wow! That's got an erythrocyte hooked on!"

"I let them settle out instead of centrifuging," Marlowe said proudly. "The spinning must dislodge the red blood cells from the surface."

"Well, that explains how the blood is transported," I said. Auger lifted his eyebrow slightly, to signify intellectual condescension.

We heard a car drive up.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.n!" Auger said "It must be Weems again." He scowled and left the room.

"How about seeing the movie in town tonight, Mae?" Marlowe suggested.

"We've seen it, twice, unless you mean the new Disney over South-County."

"Lord, what a dull area. How do you stand it?"