Dreamcatcher(125)

'I've got it,' Henry said. He put a hand on the tee-shirt knotted around his leg. 'Byrus. What they call Ripley. Some of you may have it . . . I think you do, Charles - ' He pointed at the fifth man, burly in his parka and balding.

'No!' Charles cried, but the others were already scrambling away from him, the one with the Cambodian cigar (his name was Darren Chiles and he was from Newton, Massachusetts) being careful to hold onto his smoke.

'Yeah, you do,' Henry said. 'Major league. So do you, Mona. Mona? No, Marsha. It's Marsha.'

'I don't!' she said. She got up, pressing her back against the shed wall and looking at Henry with large, terrified eyes. Doe's eyes. Soon all the does up here would be dead, and Marsha would be dead, as well. Henry hoped she could not see that thought in his mind. 'I'm clean, mister, we're all clean in here except you!'

She looked at her husband, who was not big, but bigger than Henry. They all were, actually. Not taller, maybe, but bigger.

'Throw him out, Dare.'

'There are two types of Ripley,' Henry said, stating as fact what he only believed but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. 'Call them Ripley Prime and Ripley Secondary. I'm pretty sure that if you didn't get a hot dose  -  in something you ate or inhaled or something that went live into an open wound  -  you can get better. You can beat it.'

Now they were all looking at him with those big doe eyes, and Henry felt a moment of surpassing despair. Why couldn't he just have had a nice quiet suicide?

'I've got Ripley Prime,' he said. He unknotted the tee-shirt. None of them would do more than glance at the rip in Henry's snow-powdered jeans, but Henry took a good big look for all of them. The wound made by the turnsignal stalk had now filled up with byrus. Some of the strands were three inches long, their tips wavering like kelp in a tidal current. He could feel the roots of the stuff working in steadily, deeper and deeper, itching and foaming and fizzing. Trying to think. That was the worst of it  -  it was trying to think.

Now they were moving toward the shed door, and Henry expected them to bolt as soon as they caught a clear whiff of the cold air. Instead they paused.

'Mister, can you help us?' Marsha asked in a trembling child's voice. Darren, her husband, put his arm around her.

'I don't know,' Henry said. 'Probably not . . . but maybe. Go on, now. I'll be out of here in half an hour, maybe less, but probably it's best if you stay in the barn with the others.'

'Why?' asked Darren Chiles from Newton.

And Henry, who had only a ghost of an idea  -  nothing resembling a plan  -  said, 'I don't know. I just think it is.' They went out, leaving Henry in possession of the shed.

6

Beneath the window facing the perimeter fence was an ancient bale of hay. Darren Chiles had been sitting on it when Henry came in (as the one with the dope, Chiles had rated the most comfortable seat), and now Henry took his place. He sat with his hands on his knees, feeling immediately sleepy in spite of the voices tumbling around in his head and the deep, spreading itch in his left leg (it was starting in his mouth, as well, where he had lost one of his teeth).

He heard Underhill coining before Underhill actually spoke from outside the window; heard the approach of his mind.

'I'm in the lee of the wind and mostly in the shadow of the building,' Underhill said. 'I'm having a smoke. If someone comes along, you're not in there.'

'Okay.'

'Lie to me, I'll walk away and you'll never in your short life speak to me again, out loud or . . . otherwise.'

'Okay.'

'How did you get rid of the people in there?'

'Why?' Henry would have said he was too tired to be angry, but that seemed not to be the case. 'Was it some kind of goddam test?'

'Don't be a jerk.'

'I told them I've got Ripley Prime, which is the truth. They scatted in a hurry.' Henry paused. 'You've got it too, don't you?'

'What makes you think so?' Henry could detect no strain in Underhill's voice, and as a psychiatrist, he was familiar with the signs. Whatever else Underhill might be, Henry had an idea that he was a man with a tremendously cool head, and that was a step in the right direction. Also, he thought, it can't hurt if he understands he really has nothing to lose.

'It's around your fingernails, isn't it? And a little in one ear.'

'You'd wow em in Vegas, buddy.' Henry saw Underhill's hand go up, with a cigarette between the gloved fingers. He guessed the wind would end up smoking most of that one.

You get Primary direct from the source. I'm pretty sure Secondary comes from touching something that's growing it  -  tree, moss, deer, dog, another person. You catch that kind like you catch poison ivy. This isn't anything your own medical technicians don't know. For all I can tell, I got the information from them. My head's like a goddam satellite dish with everything beaming in on Free Preview and nothing blocked out. I can't tell where half of' this stuff's coming from and it doesn't matter. Now here's some stuff your med-techs don't know. The grays call the red growth byrus, a word that means 'the stuff of life'. Under some circumstances, the Prime version of it can grow the implants.'

'The shit-weasels, you mean.'