An Alien Affair

  I frowned so sourly at this hint that he left.

  Oh, I didn't like the looks of things at all. I know when people are hiding things from me. But I was helpless. I could only move my eyes and my neck and talk through the bandages on my face.

  I was more certain than ever that Prahd had done me in.

  The only question was, exactly how?

  Chapter 5

  Throughout that whole morning, I lay suspended in that (bleeped) tub and stewed and fumed.

  I could see a Turkish tree through the window and the nameplate—Zanco Cell Catalyst Growth Machine, Model 16 Magnaspeed—on the tub rim above my face. The tree did not have the power to occupy the mind very long. The nameplate, in Voltarian script, was far more thought stimulating. WHAT was it growing? Bird feet?

  I couldn't see my body. And after the two-thousandth reading, the nameplate was no more informative than it had been the first time.

  One's imagination can become overactive.

  Firmly, I steeled myself to shut off speculation on future form and the effect it inevitably would have upon my personality and character.

  I wondered if I would be fed. I wasn't hungry but maybe starving me to death was part of their dastardly plot.

  The shadows on the tree said it must be about noon.

  The door opened.

  Nurse Bildirjin! She was dressed in a starched white nurse's uniform and cap. She was not carrying a tray.

  She had a notebook and chart in her hands. She went around reading all the meters or whatever there was to record on the outside of the tub. She sent a glance or two at my face. She looked awfully sly!

  I decided to speak, regardless of consequences. Maybe I could get some information out of her.

  "Where's my food?" I said.

  "Oh, you don't have to eat. You're connected to the fluids and containers in the tub."

  "Give me a mirror," I said.

  "I'm sorry. It's not allowed. Patients can get upset."

  "What did you two do to me?" I grated.

  She faked a look of utter surprise.

  I knew she wouldn't answer. I changed the subject. "I'm going crazy just floating here."

  "Oh," she said, "I thought you had arrived there a long time ago, Sultan Bey." She gave a nasty, sniggering laugh at her own joke.

  I didn't laugh.

  "But," she said, "I wouldn't want any complaints being circulated about our care of patients."

  She left. She came back in about three minutes. She was carrying a radio on a strap. She hung it somewhere on the wall above and behind my head. She put some earphones on her ears. As she tuned in, leaking from under the pads I could hear the Istanbul hot pop station.

  She put the earphones over my ears. She turned it up very loud. She left.

  I don't care for commercials about bubble gum and camel feed. But everybody in Turkey these days seemed to be listening to hot pop.

  I couldn't take the earphones off or change the station.

  As the hours wore on, I found that the Goat Guys must be especially popular for they played their records frequently. And at least once in every hour, they played their latest hit. With flutes and drums and snarls and roars, it went:

  You are my monster,

  I am your camel.

  You make me crazy,

  The way you play.

  I only wonder,

  Why my dear mother,

  Bought strychnine

  And asked you here today.

  At first, I was sort of detached about it. Then I began to realize that they must be playing it for me as a sort of request. It fitted my case pretty exactly when you got right down to it. I even invented a sort of personality test to go with it. Each time the news came on, I would fill in the interval of Arabs not getting along with Arabs with searching probes into my reactions to the word strychnine.

  Since the cells and body are the only things which determine personality, and if I could detect any change of reaction in myself to the word strychnine, it followed that from this I would be able to work out exactly what they had done to me physically. It didn't work.

  Fortunately, the station was off the air for several hours each night and I could get some sleep.

  About three times a day someone would come in and read the meters. But as I had earphones on, they presumed I couldn't hear anything they said and so didn't bother to answer anything I said.

  For the next eight days, the only real change I could detect was a snowstorm that whitened up the tree for a day. The boughs then gradually, bit by bit, from wind, lost the whiting.

  I began to believe that for the rest of eternity I would just float here without sensation, detached from every world except that of hot pop and camel feed, while somewhere in another world, Arabs fought Arabs and mothers bought strychnine.

  But, one morning, just as I had become accustomed to it, my life in the Zanco Model 16 Magnaspeed came to an abrupt and shocking end.

  Chapter 6

  It was about 11:00 A.M. by the cold sun in the window.

  Prahd walked in.

  He was followed by two orderlies and a cart of instruments, gas canisters and masks.

  The clatter smashed through "You Are My Monster." I looked at this invasion in sudden fear.

  Prahd took the earphones off me. "I've come to disconnect you," he said.

  He held up his right hand.

  An orderly put an anesthesia mask in it.

  "But..." I started to say.

  The mask was over my face and I was out!

  I came to after what seemed to be a space of two seconds.

  I was lying in a bed. I was in a different room. I had a sheet over me. Over and under the sheet there were straps. I could not move my arms or legs or lift my body.

  They had done something else to me! I was sure of it. But no, nothing much could happen in two seconds.

  I turned my head. A very thin, low sun was coming in the window. It must be afternoon. It hadn't been two seconds. It had been 11:00 A.M. It must now be 3:00 P.M. Plenty of time to do something else nasty!

  I found I could flex something at the end of my arms. I managed to get a hand in view. Oh, thank Gods! Not flippers. They were fingers! I could move and control them. They weren't fakes. They were mine.

  Somewhere toward the bottom of the bed I could feel the canvas ankle cuffs. I stirred that extremity. The sheet lifted slightly. By craning my neck I could see toes. I wiggled them. Oh, thank Gods they were not hoofs! They were my toes! I tried the other one. Toes on both feet! Oh, thank Gods! A clatter at the door.

  Nurse Bildirjin came in pushing a cart with food on it. She was all starched and crisp looking. All smiles. Was there something sly in that smile? "How about some breakfast?" she said.

  BREAKFAST! Oh, my Gods, they had been working on me another twenty hours! I looked anxiously at the food. Maybe they had given me the stomach of a goat. Was it hay on that cart? No, just a couple of boiled eggs and some kahve. However, it did not dispel my fears. I knew they had done something.

  She didn't let me use my hands, which was suspicious enough. She fed me with a spoon and gave me the kahve through a straw. And all the time she was humming a little tune. I recognized it: "You Are My Monster"! Oh Gods, what had they done?

  I tried to read it on her face. She was a very pretty girl, though young. Raven-black hair, a tan complexion, even, white teeth, full lips, big black eyes capable of considerable expression. And very well developed in spite of her being only sixteen. But she was a woman and treachery could not be far off. Anybody can tell you that treachery and beauty go hand in hand. That's why you have to kill songbirds wherever found. But where women are concerned, it's the other way around. Where killing is concerned, they always choose me as the first target of choice. Piled onto earlier experience, Krak with her hypnohelmets, Miss Pinch with her red pepper and even dear Utanc with her credit cards proved that beyond any doubt whatever! I was learning to be wary. Nurse Bildirjin undoubtedly had something up her
sleeve!

  She straightened up her tray and gave it a push toward the door. She smiled at me very cheerfully: a very bad sign!

  Then she went to the foot of the bed.

  She lifted the sheet slightly and looked up under it. "That's what I wanted to see," she said.

  Oh, Gods! What had she looked at?

  They HAD done something!

  It was too much for my already unbalanced wits. I screamed, "PRAHD! PRAHD! PRAHD!"

  Nurse Bildirjin was smiling all over herself. "If you mean Doktor Muhammed," she said, citing his Earth name, "I'll get him for you. Oh, this is great."

  In under a minute young doctor Prahd (alias Doktor Muhammed Ataturk) came in, followed by Nurse Bildirjin.

  He walked over and exposed my chest. There were a couple cup bandages there. He pulled them off and took some chest hair with them.

  "You had me under another twenty hours!" I raved at him. "What have you done now that you haven't already done?!"

  He pulled the sheet down further, found two more cups on my abdomen and pulled them off. "Tube holes. They've healed very nicely. After you come out of a Magnaspeed, the tube holes have to be closed and healed."

  The strap across my lower middle was in the way. He pulled the upper part of the sheet back across my chest. He went down to the foot of the bed and, just like Nurse Bildirjin, lifted the sheet slightly and looked. "Oh, yes," he said. "You've done very well."

  Oh, my Gods, what were they looking at? I knew Crobe. I went into terror. "What have I done very well?" I screamed.

  "Get the mirror," he said to Nurse Bildirjin.

  She had it right there. She held it by my knees and adjusted it. Young doctor Prahd lifted the sheet with the air of a theater manager introducing a new play.

  I looked in the mirror.

  I almost fainted.

  I looked again. I shrieked, "You've made me into a horse!"

  "No, no," he said, with professional calm. "That's simply normal. You are so used to one testicle not being there and the other drawn up into the body that a normal scrotum and actually having testicles may look strange to you."

  "But the LENGTH of IT!" I screamed.

  "Sultan Bey," said Prahd, "you don't seem to trust me. Your skin is all new, your old mis-set broken bones are mended, your vital organs are all fixed up. And although it was a great temptation, I didn't even change your face; I only removed some warts and scars. You will just look a bit brighter and fresher. You still aren't very good looking, so don't be alarmed."

  "No, no!" I shouted. "I mean those HUGE genitals!" I could still see them in the mirror. I was aghast!

  "Oh, my," tut-tutted Prahd. "Don't you ever take showers with other men? You must be awfully unobservant. For your home habitat, a tumescent size of ten inches is not overly large. Many on Earth have them that size—even bigger. I assure you that your previous one-inch tumescence was too small."

  "Oh, I know you cellologists!" I cried. "You couldn't resist doing something strange!"

  Prahd thought it over carefully. Then he pushed his straw-colored hair off his face. "No, not really. Of course, you may feel a little more vigorous. Your muscle tone will improve."

  "Oh, you can't fool me!" I cried. "You did something peculiar! I'm sure of it!"

  He thought once more. Then he seemed to remember something. He turned his bright green eyes on me depreciatingly. "Oh, yes. The catalyzer. It was a pretty complex scene getting all the nerve ends sorted out on the first testicle after it was grown from the gene pattern. And I did leave the other one in the growexpeditor a bit too long. But it won't produce in excess of more than half a pint of semen."

  "WHAT?" I screamed.

  "But," he said reasonably, "that's no more than a horse furnishes at one time."

  "I knew it!" I wailed. "You've turned me into a horse!"

  "No, no, no," he said soothingly. "It's completely human. You will produce completely human babies. Really, Sultan Bey, you should trust me. Horses are completely out of style. They have quite enough of them. You are now just a well-equipped male. Of course, you may have the urge to do it a little more often than you used to. And you can probably do it more than once in the same night. But truly, I think you'll find it quite all right."

  "Oh, my Gods!" I wept. "I am sure all this will change my whole personality."

  "What?" he said, his bright green eyes shooting wide in astonishment.

  "Yes," I sobbed. "Ask any Earth psychologist. All a personality is, is the product of cells. One has urges. They come from the reptile brain, the censor and the id. And all that is made up of cells. You have changed my cells and so you have utterly altered my whole character."

  "Ah," he said. "In your case especially, how I wish that that were true. Unfortunately, you are just mouthing the superstitions of an uninformed primitive cult: you find it on many backward planets. They try to make men believe that character is inherent and passed on by an evolutionary chain or some such nonsense. In some witch-doctor cults they even go so far as to say a man is totally the effect of his cellular inheritance and therefore can't be changed. It's a way of excusing their inability to mold character. When people try to hold them responsible for creating a criminal society that way, they just glibly say 'a man is just the product of his cells.' It obscures the fact that they are just too incompetent and too criminal themselves to mold character and teach right from wrong.

  "Ah, no, Sultan Bey. If cells and glands were all there was to life, I'd be a God, wouldn't I? And I'm not. I'm just a poor cellologist, unpaid, but doing my job anyway, and without even a thank-you from my superior, but suspicion undeserved."

  He dropped the sheet. He looked at me. "It's a very sad thing that personality can't be changed just by shifting a few cells. Particularly in your case. But," and he smiled bravely, "one does what one can to relieve pain and make people happier. And I do hope that your increased activity potential doesn't have violent consequences for others or this planet." He brightened up. "Well! That one was successful. You can be up and around and leave whenever you like."

  He set the example and inarched out the door.

  Chapter 7

  Nurse Bildirjin began to sweep the floor and tidy up the room. She seemed in a happy frame of mind but apparently it was too quiet for her. She went over to the radio on the hook, pulled out the earphone jack and turned on the hot pop station.

  "Hey!" I said, being pretty tired by this time of "You Are My Monster," "He said I could leave! Unstrap this bed and let me out of here. Where are my clothes?"

  "Clothes?" she said. She rushed out and came back with a type of bag they use to hold discarded body parts: Non-Odor Transmitting was on it very plain in Voltarian. She shoved it at me.

  I couldn't take it. My arms were still strapped down. It looked awfully thin to have any clothes in it. "That isn't what I wore in here!"

  "Oh, we had to throw your suit and overcoat away. They were all full of sauce of some kind. We threw out your shoes, socks and hat, too. This is just your wallets and papers."

  I looked at her. Her black eyes might be pretty but she sure was stupid! I decided to be patient. I was immobilized. "Look, Nurse Bildirjin. I need clothes to leave the hospital. Through that window, I can see that it is very cold outside. There is a wind blowing. I cannot walk out there with no clothes on."

  She understood that.

  "So," I continued, "like the good, sweet, innocent girl that you are, please go out to the office and phone my friend, the taxi driver, and tell him to bring me some clothes."

  She got that. She left. In about ten minutes she came back. "I phoned him." She was carrying a disposable bathrobe-and-slipper set. Ah, she did have some sense after all.

  She put the bathrobe and slippers down all the way across the room. Then she stood there just looking at me.

  It was an uncomfortable silence. I didn't like the look in those black eyes. Even the best of women are the most treacherous beasts ever invented. Whatever she was plotting right now had
better be distracted.

  "You instigated that operation," I said.

  I expected a hearty denial. But she said, "Well, of course! Anyone who would TWICE interrupt a girl halfway through is undersexed. Such a person couldn't possibly appreciate the finer things of life. And at my first hint, Doktor Muhammed got straight to work. But I am not at all sure that we have put an end to it."

  Those black eyes were too bright! "I think," she said, "I should be reassured."

  A stir of alarm speeded up my heart. She looked just like women look when they are about to do something sly and cunning.

  "Well," she said, "there's only one way to tell."

  She raced over to the door and barred it. She came back and turned the radio up louder. She went to the windows and made sure nobody could see in.

  My alarm grew.

  She tested the straps and buckles on the bed. When

  I saw she was not releasing them, my temperature started to go up.

  She took off her right slipper. She kicked off her left slipper. She turned her back on me. She was doing something at her waist level.

  What was she up to?

  There was a shimmer. She bent over and rose again. She was holding her panty hose.

  She threw them away!

  She set her nurse's cap on the back of her head.

  I was glaring at her in alarm.

  "That won't do," she said. "Mustn't peek!"

  She promptly arranged the sheet so that I could see only through a slit. I could see a corner of the window and the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. I couldn't see Nurse Bildirjin!

  I felt the bed tip: the light fixture slanted.

  Oh, my Gods! What did she have in mind?

  The bed tipped again.

  Frantically, I tried to rise up and see what was happening. The straps prevented it.

  A cold draft told me the lower part of the sheet was being lifted.

  My eyes almost popped out of my head.

  I suddenly divined what she was up to!