“So I’m a sucker!” Paul barked. “Now get what you need, and come on.”
“The Lord bless you,” the priest mumbled in embarrassment as he hurried away.
“Don’t sic any of your maniacs on me!” Paul called after him.
“I’m armed.”
“I’ll have to bring a surgeon,” the cleric said over his shoulder.
Five minutes later, Paul heard the muffled grunt of a starter.
Then an engine coughed to life.
Startled, he scurried away from the tree and sought safety in a clump of shrubs.
An ambulance backed out of the driveway and into the street.
It parked at the curb by the tree, engine running.
A pallid face glanced out curiously toward the shadows.
“Where are you?” it called, but it was not the priest’s voice.
Paul stood up and advanced a few steps.
“We’ll have to wait on Father Mendelhaus,” the driver called. “He’ll be a few minutes.”
“You a dermie?”
“Of course.
But don’t worry.
I’ve plugged my nose and I’m wearing rubber gloves.
I can’t smell you.
The sight of a nonhyper arouses some craving, of course. But it can be overcome with a little will power.
I won’t infect you, although I don’t understand why you nonhypers fight so hard.
You’re bound to catch it sooner or later.
And the world can’t get back to normal until everybody has it.”
Paul avoided the startling thought.
“You the surgeon?”
“Uh, yes.
Father Williamson’s the name.
I’m not really a specialist, but I did some surgery in Korea.
How’s the girl’s condition?
Suffering shock?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
They fell silent until Father Mendelhaus returned.
He came across the street carrying a bag in one hand and a brown bottle in the other.
He held the bottle by the neck with a pair of tongs and Paul could see the exterior of the bottle steaming slightly as the priest passed through the beam of the ambulance’s headlights. He placed the flask on the curb without touching it, then spoke to the man in the shadows.
“Would you step behind the hedge and disrobe, young man?
Then rub yourself thoroughly with this oil.”
“I doubt it,” Paul snapped. “What is it?”
“Don’t worry, it’s been in the sterilizer.
That’s what took me so long. It may be a little hot for you, however. It’s only an antiseptic and deodorant.
It’ll kill your odor, and it’ll also give you some protection against picking up stray microorganisms.”
After a few moments of anxious hesitation, Paul decided to trust the priest.
He carried the hot flask into the brush, undressed, and bathed himself with the warm aromatic oil.
Then he slipped back into his clothes and reapproached the ambulance.
“Ride in back,” Mendelhaus told him. “And you won’t be infected. No one’s been in there for several weeks, and as you probably know, the microorganisms die after a few hours exposure.
They have to be transmitted from skin to skin, or else an object has to be handled very soon after a hyper has touched it.”
Paul warily climbed inside.
Mendelhaus opened a slide and spoke through it from the front seat.
“You’ll have to show us the way.”
“Straight out Broadway.
Say, where did you get the gasoline for this wagon.”