Clay's Ark by Octavia E. Butler Page B

not argue with her. He would escape and go to a hospital; that was all. "I'd like you to undress," he said. He had
    just collected a little of her sweat and taken-almost painlessly- a minute specimen of her Hesh. The analyzer found
    something incomprehensible in both-probably the same something it had found in her blood and urine.
    "Unidentifiable microbes," the small screen said. It was able to show him tiny, spiderlike organisms in her flesh, some
    of them caught in the act of reproducing along with her cells-as part of her cells. They were not viruses. According to
    the computer, they were more complete, independent organisms. Yet they had made themselves at home in human cells
    in a way that should not have been possible-like plasmids invading and making themselves at home in bacteria. But
    these were hardly plasmids-solitary rings of DNA. These were more complex organisms that had sought out higher
    game than bacteria and managed to combine with it without killing it. They had changed it, however, altered it slightly,
    subtly, cell by cell. In the most basic possible way, they had tampered with Meda's genetic blueprint. They had left her
    no longer human.
    "The ones that live in the brain don't have little legs-cilia, I mean," Meda said over his shoulder.
    "What?"
     
     
     
     
    "Eli told me they get into the brain cells, too. It sounds frightening, but there isn't anything we can do about it. I guess
    they'd have to reach the brain to change us so."
    She did not know how changed she was. Could there be any hope of reversing such elemental changes? There must be,
    for his daughters' sake.
    "Eli and I used to talk about it a lot," she said. "He wanted me to know everything he knew-in case anything happened
    to him. He said his wife and the other doctor did autopsies on the crew members who died before them. They found
    little round organisms in the brains of every one of them."
    "Rabies again," Blake muttered. But no. Rabies was only a virus, preventable and curable.
    "Eli's wife tried to make antibodies," Meda said. "It didn't work. I don't remember what else she tried. I didn't
    understand, anyway. But nothing worked except reinfection. They found out about that by accident. And it works better
    person-to-person than person-to-syringe. Maybe that's just psychological, but we don't care. We'll use anything that
    works. That's why I'm here with you."
    "You're here to try to make a good carrier of me," he said.
    She shrugged. "You'll be that or die. I'd rather live myself."
    There was another answer. There had to be. He could not find it with only his bag, but others, researchers with lab
    computers, would sooner or later come up with answers. First, though, they had to be made aware of the questions.
    He turned to look at Meda and saw that she had stripped. Surprisingly, she looked less scrawny without her clothing.
    More like the human female she was not. What could her children be like?
    She smiled. "All my clothes are too big," she said. "I put them on and I look like a collection of sticks, I know. Maybe
    now I'll buy a few new things next time I'm in town."
    He ignored the obvious implication, but could not ignore the way she kept reading him. He became irrationally afraid
    that she was reading his mind, that he would never be able to keep an escape plan from her. He tried to shake off the
    feeling as he proceeded with the examination. She-said nothing more. He got the impression she was sparing him,
    humoring him.
    He asked to examine others in the community when he finished with her, but she was not ready to share him with
    anyone else.
    "Start checking them tomorrow if they'll let you," she said. "You'll smell different then. Less seductive."
    "Seductive?"

"I mean you'll smell more like one of us. Nobody will take any special pleasure in touching you then." She had dressed
    again in her loose, ugly clothing. "It's sexual," she said. "Or rather, it feels sexual. Touching you is almost as good as
    screwing. It