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only one of many he observed that day. A young couple, married graduate
students from the look of them, were leaning up against a rock wall when a
dozen or more thin, glistening ropes emerged from the bare stone. One by
one they slithered into various parts of both unsuspecting, unreacting
young bodies, entering via ear and arm, buttock or ankle. As soon as the last
of them had taken up residence within the host pair, the man and woman
fell to arguing.
Softly at first, then with vehemence. Soon both were gesticulating angrily.
The woman slapped her partner, hard, catching him square across the face.
Responding, he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders and began to
shake her violently. Noticing that others were now turning in the direction of
the altercation, they stepped back from one another and strode off, still
arguing furiously, spewing insults and imprecations they were likely to regret
later-when it would be too late to take them back.
From their shoulders and ribs, thighs and feet, intangible tentacles coiled
outward. They were swelling, even as a horrified, stunned Cody watched,
engorging themselves with whatever it was they were taking from their
combative, belligerent, abstracted hosts. The louder and more public the
argument became, the greater the bloat of the invisible parasites.
What were they feeding on? Cody brooded. Not blood, not flesh. That much was
apparent. What then? Some sort of invisible fluid that humans were entirely
unaware of? Violent psychic emanations? A soupcon of the electrical
impulses that raced through specific portions of the brain when it was
adversely stimulated? What was the connection between the unfortunate girl
who had suddenly and violently heaved her guts and this abruptly
bellicose couple? Were chosen, unwary hosts only temporarily impaired
or did some kind of imperceptible permanent damage result? If he had any
hope of descrying the answers to such questions, in addition to a chemist
he would now need the help of a physiologist, a couple of doctors,
and maybe a psychic or two. For the moment, though, every gathering mystery
devolved solely upon him. He was the one, the only one among thousands,
perhaps millions, who could See.
Sitting on a lawn, indifferent to the tiny malicious cilia that were probing
his backside and legs, a gardener on break was eating an apple. Suddenly
he threw down the half-eaten fruit and climbed to his feet. Hands
jammed in pockets, he stomped off toward the main maintenance area,
his expression drawn, his lips working as he spoke only to himself. Like
glistening grains of rice, a handful of lawn cilia had penetrated his
clothing. What would be their effect on their new host? Cody mused. A snappish
attitude toward friends and co-workers, a long-term headache, or worse?
How deeply could the rarefied organisms affect people? Could they induce road
rage in susceptible drivers?
What about inspiring someone to commit robbery, or persist in child-beating,
or attempt suicide? Was there a par-ticular variety of the parasitoids
potent enough to persuade one human to murder another? Or conversely,
to offer up a victim? If a host died, did the parasite within derive pleasure,
or some perverse kind of nourishment from the experience? He could see, but he
was observ-
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ing the organisms from a state of near-total ignorance, and the
subjects of his scrutiny did not lend
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themselves to detailed examination under controlled laboratory con-ditions.
From the standpoint of a would-be researcher into the vicious, malevolent
phenomena, he was virtu-ally helpless.
If he could not manipulate his surroundings for pur-poses of study, could he
perhaps affect events? That, at least, was something he could test. He was
determined to do so, even if it exposed him to additional danger.
Standing idly by, watching quietly and doing nothing while knowing he was the
only sighted individual in the country of the blind, was driving him crazy. If
he could not dissect, could not measure, could not record, then maybe he could
at least interfere.
The opportunity to do so presented itself following his last
afternoon class, as he was on his way to the li-brary to check out a
tome needed for the paper he was ostensibly preparing to submit to Archaeology
News and Reviews. He did not have to meet Kelli for the drive home for another
couple of hours yet. She still had an undergraduate class and a follow-up
seminar to teach.
The man with the van was unloading cases of canned soda,
undoubtedly to stock one of the ubiquitous, coin-operated vending
machines that populated the campus. Wheeling his hand truck like a
skilled dancer leading his partner, he paused a moment outside a building to
wipe sweat from his brow. Standing behind the hand truck, handkerchief in
hand, he noticed the bed of blooming pansies nestled up against the
walkway, and bent to ex-amine them. Maybe he was drawn by their fragrance, or
maybe he just liked flowers. He could not see and had no way of knowing that
something brooding deep within the colorful blossoms was about to take a
malicious lik-ing to him.
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