“I’m not so sure it’s foolishness,” Tiger Martin said slowly. “Jack, maybe he’s got something. A couple of things would fit that don’t make sense at all.”
“All sorts of things would fit,” Dal said. “The viruses we know have to have a host—some other life-form to live in. Usually they are parasites, damaging or destroying their hosts and giving nothing in return, but some set up real partnership housekeeping with their hosts so that both are better off.”
“You mean a symbiotic relationship,” Jack said.
“Of course,” Dal said. “Now suppose these virus-creatures were intelligent, and came from some other place looking for a new host they could live with. They wouldn’t look for an intelligent creature, they would look for some unintelligent creature with a good strong body that would be capable of doing all sorts of things if it only had an intelligence to guide it. Suppose these virus-creatures found a simple-minded, unintelligent race on this planet and tried to set up a symbiotic relationship with it. The virus-creatures would need a host to provide a home and a food supply. Maybe they in turn could supply the intelligence to raise the host to a civilized level of life and performance. Wouldn’t that be a fair basis for a sound partnership?”
Jack scratched his head doubtfully. “And you’re saying that these virus-creatures came here after the exploratory ship had come and gone?”
“They must have! Maybe they only came a few years ago, maybe only months ago. But when they tried to invade the unintelligent creatures the exploratory ship found here, they discovered that the new host’s body couldn’t tolerate them. His body reacted as if they were parasitic invaders, and built up antibodies against them. And those body defenses were more than the virus could cope with.”
Dal pointed to the piles of notes on the desk. “Don’t you see how it adds up? Right from the beginning we’ve been assuming that these monkey-like creatures here on this planet were the dominant, intelligent life-forms. Anatomically they were ordinary cellular creatures like you and me, and when we examined them we expected to find the same sort of biochemical reactions we’d find with any such creatures. And all our results came out wrong, because we were dealing with a combination of two creatures—the host and a virus. Maybe the creatures on 31 Brucker VII were naturally blank-faced idiots before the virus came, or maybe the virus was forced to damage some vital part just in order to fight back—but it was the virus that was being killed by its own host, not the other way around.”
Jack studied the idea, no longer scornful. “So you think the virus-creatures called for help, hoping we could find some way to free them from the hosts that were killing them. And when Fuzzy developed a powerful antibody against them, and we started using the stuff—” Jack broke off, shaking his head in horror. “Dal, if you’re right, we were literally slaughtering our own patients when we gave those injections down there!”
“Exactly,” Dal said. “Is it any wonder they’re so scared of us now? It must have looked like a deliberate attempt to wipe them out, and now they’re afraid that we’ll go get help and really move in against them.”
Tiger nodded. “Which was precisely what we were planning, if you stop to think about it. Maybe that was why they were so reluctant to tell us anything about themselves. Maybe they’ve already been mistaken for parasitic invaders before, wherever in the universe they came from.”
“But if this is true, then we’re really in a jam,” Jack said. “What can we possibly do for them? We can’t even repair the damage that we’ve already done. What sort of treatment can we use?”
Dal shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to that one, but I do know we’ve got to find out if we’re right. An intelligent virus-creature has as much right to life as any other intelligent life-form. If we’ve guessed right, then there’s a lot that our intelligent friends down there haven’t told us. Maybe there’ll be some clue there. We’ve just got to face them with it, and see what they say.”
Jack looked at the viewscreen, at the angry mob milling around on the ground, held back from the ship by the energy screen. “You mean just go out there and say, ‘Look fellows, it was all a mistake, we didn’t really mean to do it?’” He shook his head. “Maybe you want to tell them. Not me!”
“Dal’s right, though,” Tiger said. “We’ve got to contact them somehow. They aren’t even responding to radio communication, and they’ve scrambled our outside radio and fouled our drive mechanism somehow. We’ve got to settle this while we still have an energy screen.”
There was a long silence as the three doctors looked at each other. Then Dal stood up and walked over to the swinging platform. He lifted Fuzzy down onto his shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said to Jack and Tiger. “I’ll go out.”
“They’ll tear you to ribbons!” Tiger protested.
Dal shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “I don’t think they’ll touch me. They’ll greet me with open arms when I go down there, and they’ll be eager to talk to me.”
“Are you crazy?” Jack cried, leaping to his feet. “We can’t let you go out there.”
“Don’t worry,” Dal said. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ll be able to handle the situation, believe me.”
He hesitated a moment, and gave Fuzzy a last nervous pat, settling him more firmly on his shoulder. Then he started down the corridor for the entrance lock.
*
He had promised himself long before ... many years before ... that he would never do what he planned to do now, but now he knew that there was no alternative. The only other choice was to wait helplessly until the power failed and the protective screen vanished and the creatures on the ground outside tore the ship to pieces.
As he stood in the airlock waiting for the pressure to shift to outside normal, he lifted Fuzzy down into the crook of his arm and rubbed the little creature between the shoe-button eyes. “You’ve got to back me up now,” he whispered softly. “It’s been a long time, I know that, but I need help now. It’s going to be up to you.”
Dal knew the subtle strength of his people’s peculiar talent. From the moment he had stepped down to the ground the second time with Tiger and Jack, even with Fuzzy waiting back on the ship, he had felt the powerful wave of horror and fear and anger rising up from the Bruckians, and he had glimpsed the awful idiot vacancy of the minds of the creatures in the enclosure, in whom the intelligent virus was already dead. This had required no effort; it just came naturally into his mind, and he had known instantly that something terrible had gone wrong.
In the years on Hospital Earth, he had carefully forced himself never to think in terms of his special talent. He had diligently screened off the impressions and emotions that struck at him constantly from his classmates and from others that he came in contact with. Above all, he had fought down the temptation to turn his power the other way, to use it to his own advantage.
But now, as the lock opened and he started down the ladder, he closed his mind to everything else. Hugging Fuzzy close to his side, he turned his mind into a single tight channel. He drove the thought out at the Bruckians with all the power he could muster: I come in peace. I mean you no harm. I have good news, joyful news. You must be happy to see me, eager to welcome me....
He could feel the wave of anger and fear strike him like a physical blow as soon as he appeared in the entrance lock. The cries rose up in
