Then I almost collapsed. My specimen, the one I had grabbed with its host to take back alive, was gone. Slipped to the floor, probably, and oozed away during the ruckus. “Jarvis,” I said, “did you get anything up there?” He shook his head and said nothing. Neither did I. Neither did Davidson.
The girl’s back was covered with a red rash, like a million pinpricks, in the area where the thing had ridden her. I pulled her sweater down and settled her on the floor against the wall of the car. She was still unconscious and likely to stay that way. When we reached street level we left her in the car. Apparently nobody noticed, for there was no hue-and-cry as we went through the lobby to the street.
Our car was still standing there and a policeman had his foot on it while making out a ticket. He handed it to me as we got in. “You know you can’t park in this area, Mac,” he said reprovingly.
I said, “Sorry,” and signed his copy as it seemed the safest and quickest thing to do. Then I gunned the car away from the curb, got as clear as I could of traffic—and blasted her off, right from a city street. I wondered whether or not he added that to the ticket. When I had her up to altitude I remembered to switch the license plates and identification code. The Old Man thinks of everything.
But he did not think much of me when we got back. I tried to report on the way in but he cut me short and ordered us into the Section offices. Mary was there with him. That was all I needed to know; if despite my flop the Old Man had convinced the President she would have stayed.
He let me tell what had happened with only an occasional grunt. “How much did you see?” I asked when I had finished.
“Transmission cut off when you hit the toll barrier,” he informed me. “I can’t say that the President was impressed by what he saw.”
“I suppose not.”
“In fact he told me to fire you.”
I stiffened. I had been ready to offer my resignation, but this took me by surprise. “I am perfectly will—” I started out.
“Pipe down!” the Old Man snapped. “I told him that he could fire me, but that he could not fire my subordinates. You are a thumb-fingered dolt,” he went on more quietly, “but you can’t be spared, not now.”
“Thanks.”
Mary had been wandering restlessly around the room. I had tried to catch her eye, but she was not having any. Now she stopped back of Jarvis’s chair—and gave the Old Man the same sign she had given about Barnes.
I hit Jarvis in the side of the head with my heater and he sagged out of his chair.
“Stand back, Davidson!” the Old Man rapped. His own gun was out and pointed at Davidson’s chest. “Mary, how about him?”
“He’s all right.”
“And him.”
“Sam’s clean.”
The Old Man’s eyes moved from one of us to the other and I have never felt closer to death. “Both of you peel off your shirts,” he said sourly.
We did—and Mary was right on both counts. I had begun to wonder whether or not I would know it if I did have a parasite on me. “Now him,” the Old Man ordered. “Gloves, both of you.”
We stretched Jarvis out on his face and very carefully cut his clothing away. We had our live specimen.
VI
I felt myself ready to retch. The thought of that thing travelling right behind me in a closed car all the way from Iowa was almost more than my stomach could stand. I’m not squeamish—I hid once for four days in the sewers of Moscow—but you don’t know what the sight of one can do to you unless you yourself have seen one while knowing what it was.
I swallowed hard and said, “Let’s see what we can do to work it off. Maybe we can still save Jarvis.” I did not really think so; I had a deep-down hunch that anyone who had been ridden by one of those things was spoiled, permanently. I guess I had a superstitious notion that they “ate souls” whatever that means.