Free The Thing by Alan Dean Foster Page B

reply Blair stepped around him and walked over to the badly disfigured corpse, which now lay on the center table. As Copper followed him, Fuchs took the opportunity to look into the microscope.
    Blair indicated one of the stiff, tendonlike growths that protruded from the central mass of dark, viscous material and partially dissolved flesh, then pointed back toward the microscope.
    "It's tissue from one of these sinewy rods."
    Copper accepted that. "What did you stain it with?"
    "Nothing." He looked over to his assistant.
    Fuchs glanced back at them, as thoroughly befuddled by what he saw through the eyepiece as his associates were. "What in the world kind of cell structure is this?"
    "Precisely my point," Blair said grimly.
    "You posed a question, not a point."
    "Can't they be the same?"
    Copper interrupted the two scientists. "I don't follow you, Blair. What are you trying to say?"
    "That I'm not sure it's any kind of cell structure. Biologically speaking."
    "If it's a tissue sample, there has to be cell structure," said Copper.
    "Does there?"
    "If there isn't, then the material is inorganic."
    "Is it?"
    "You can't have organic material devoid of cell structure," the doctor added exasperatedly.
    "Can't you?"
    Copper gave up. "Look, this really isn't my field, Blair. I'm a simple GP. I do my best to repair the known, not decipher the exotic. Let's wrap it up for the day. I'm tired of cutting."
    "So am I," added Fuchs wholeheartedly.
    Copper unbuttoned his coat, which was no longer clean and white but instead resembled a Jackson Pollock canvas. He tossed it into the laundry bin on his way out the door. Fuchs followed him, disposing of his gloves. His lab coat was still relatively elean.
    Blair held back, returning to his desk to take one last look through the microscope. The peculiar pattern under the eyepiece hadn't changed, hadn't in the absence of attention metamorphosed into something comfortingly familiar. Copper's confusion was understandable.
    The biologist was badly mixed up himself.
    The weather had warmed slightly and the blowing snow melted a little faster when it struck something warm. It battered the outpost and spanged off the corrugated metal walls of the shed.
    Inside the main compound, monitors kept the hallways and rooms pleasantly warm and moist. The humidifier was a necessity. It was a paradox that, despite the presence of frozen water everywhere, the air of Antarctica was bitingly dry. Chapped skin was a constant problem and Copper was always prescribing something for it.
    After every shower the men oiled themselves as thoroughly as they did their machines, because the cascading hot water washed away body oils that were only slowly replaced. Dandruff was an irritatingly persistent, if not serious problem.
    The wall clocks in the complex read four-thirty. Only night-lights illuminated the corridors and storage areas, the empty rec room, and the deserted kitchen. Snoring issued softly from behind closed doors. Sleep came easily in the white land.
    Only one section was still occupied. As dazed as he was determined, Macready sat in the little pub and continued staring at the television screen. He was on the last of the Norwegian videotapes.
    At the moment he was keeping one eye on the screen while inflating a roughly irregular flesh-toned balloon. This mysterious object soon took on the crude outline of a life-sized woman. Macready's wind was weak and he was having a hard time of it. His polyethylene paramour's proportions fluctuated with his unsteady breathing.
    Something on the tape caught his attention and he stopped suddenly. Holding the filler tube clamped shut with one hand he reached up and hit the reverse. Pictures streaked the wrong way like a bad movie until he touched "play" again. He squinted at the screen.
    There were the Norwegians again, working against a pale sky. No blowing snow obscured the picture. They were dressed for heavy outdoor work.
    As he watched they separated and spread out. The