some kind of throwback to our phantom aquatic ancestors. You’d better sit in tonight when I explain the facts of life to old Gideon; the reality is likely to be far more prosaic than that, alas.”
“Why alas?” she asked.
“Because what I’m looking for will only generate a paper. If the folklore quoted in your book were even half-true, it would be worth a Nobel Prize.”
* * * *
Gideon Sargent presented himself at the hotel right on time. He was dressed in what I presumed was his Sunday best, but the ensemble included a roll-neck sweater, which kept the sides of his neck concealed. There were half a dozen people in the bar, and Gideon drew a couple of curious glances from the out-of-towners, but he was only a little self-conscious. He was used to carrying his stigmata.
He drank neat bourbon, but he drank slowly, like a man who had no intention of getting loaded. I asked a few questions to find out exactly how much he did know about genes, and it turned out that he really was familiar with the basics. I felt confident that I could give him a reasonably full explanation of my project.
“We’ve already begun the business of mapping the human genome,” I told him. “The job will require the collective efforts of thousands of people in more than a hundred research centers, and even then it will take fifteen or twenty years, but we have the tools to do it. While we’re doing it, we hope to get closer to the answers to certain basic problems.
“One of these problems is that we don’t know how genes collaborate to produce a particular physical form. We know how they code for the protein building blocks, but we don’t know much about the biochemical blueprint that instructs a growing embryo how to develop into a man instead of a whale or an ostrich. Now, this may seem odd, but one of the best ways of figuring out how things work is to study examples which have gone wrong, to see what’s missing or distorted. By doing that, you can build up a picture of what’s necessary in order for the job to be done properly. For that reason, geneticists are very interested in human mutations—I’m particularly interested in those which cause physical malformation.
“Unfortunately, physical mutants usually fall into a few well-defined categories, mostly associated with radical and fairly obvious disruptions of whole chromosomes. There are very few viable human variations that operate on a larger scale than changing the color of the skin, or the epicanthic fold that makes Oriental eyes distinctive. That’s not entirely surprising, because those which have arisen in the past have mostly been eliminated from the gene-pool by natural selection, or diluted out of existence by hybridization. It’s one of the ironies of our trade that, while molecular genetics was becoming sophisticated enough to make them significant, the highly inbred communities of the world were disappearing. All we have in America is a handful of religious communities whose accumulations of recessive genes aren’t, for the most part, very interesting. As soon as I read Ann’s book I realized that Innsmouth must have been a real genetic treasure-trove back in the twenties. I hope that there still might be time to recover some vital information.”
Gideon didn’t reply immediately, and for a moment or two I thought he hadn’t understood. But then he said: “Not many people got the look any more. Some don’ show it ’til they’re older, but I don’ see much sign of it comin’ thru in anyone I see. Ain’t no Marshes or Waites any more, and the only Eliots”—he paused to look at Ann—“are distant cousins o’ the ones that settled here in the old days.”
“But there are a few others, besides yourself, who show some of the signs, aren’t there?” Ann put in.
“A few,” Gideon admitted.
“And they’d co-operate with Dr. Stevenson—if you asked them to.”
“Mebbe,” he said. He seemed moodily thoughtful, as though something in the conversation had disturbed him. “But it’s too late to do us any good, ain’t it, Doc?”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. He meant that whatever understanding I might glean from my researches would only be of theoretical value. I wouldn’t be able to help the Innsmouthers look normal.
It was, in any case, extremely unlikely that my work would lead to anything which could qualify as a “cure” for those afflicted with the Innsmouth stigmata, but there was really no longer any need for that. The Innsmouthers had taken care of the problem themselves. I remembered what I’d said about gross malformations being eliminated from the gene-pool by natural selection, and realized that I’d used the word “natural” in a rather euphemistic way—as many people do nowadays. The selective pressure would work both ways: the incomers who’d re-colonized Innsmouth after the war would have been just as reluctant to marry people who had the Innsmouth look as people who had the Innsmouth look would have been to pass it on to their children.
Gideon Sargent was certainly not the only looker who’d never married, and I was sure that he wouldn’t have, even if there’d been a girl who looked like he did.
“I’m sorry, Gideon,” I said. “It’s a cruel irony that your ancestors had to suffer the burden of ignorance and superstition because genetics didn’t exist, and that now genetics does exist, there’s not much left for you to gain from a specific analysis of your condition. But let’s not underestimate the value of understanding, Gabriel. It was because your forefathers lacked a true understanding that they felt compelled to invent the Esoteric Order of Dagon, to fill the vacuum of their ignorance and to maintain the pretence that there was something to be proud of in Innsmouth’s plight. And that’s why stories like the ones Zadok Allen used to tell gained such currency— because they provided a kind of excuse for it all. I’m truly sorry that I’m too late to serve your purposes, Gideon—I only hope that I’m not too late to serve mine. Will you help me?”
He looked at me with those big saucery eyes, so uncannily frightening in their innocence.
“Is there anythin’ y’can do, Doc?” he asked. “Not about the bones, nor the eyes—I know we’re stuck wi’ them. But the dreams, Doc—can y’do anythin’ about the dreams?”
I looked sideways at Ann, uncertainly. There had been something in her book about dreams, I recalled, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. It hadn’t seemed to be part of the problem, as seen from a biochemist’s point of view. Obviously Gideon saw things differently; to him they were the very heart of the problem, and it was because of them that he’d consented to hear me out.
“Everybody has dreams, Gideon,” said Ann. “They don’t mean anything.”
He turned round to stare at her, in that same appalling fashion. “Do you have dreams, Miss Ann?” he asked, with seemingly tender concern.
Ann didn’t answer, so I stepped into the breach again. “Tell me about the dreams, Gideon,” I said. “I don’t really know how they fit in.”
He looked back at me, obviously surprised that I didn’t know everything. After all, I was a doctor, wasn’t I? I was the gene-wizard who knew what people were made of.
“All of us who got the look are dreamers,” he said, in a painstakingly didactic fashion. “Taint the bones an’ the eyes as kills us in the end—’tis the dreams that call us out to the reef an’ bid us dive into the pit. Not many’s as strong as me, Doc—I know I got the look as bad as any, an’ had it all the time from bein’ a kid, but us Sargents was allus less superstitious than the likes o’ the Marshes, even if Obed’s kin did have all the money ’fore it passed to Ned Eliot. My granpa ran the first motor-bus out o’here, tryin’ to keep us connected
