size, especially if you’re fool enough to limit your arsenal to a conventional sword and won’t be seen carrying an automatic weapon even as insurance. Well, under those circumstances, if you lock yourself down to smallness so that you can’t get out and nobody can
take
you out for a full fifteen minutes, you’re just asking for trouble. And trouble is exactly what our boy is having!”
“He is? I mean is it bad?”
T he other girl gestured at the microscope. “Have a look. I’ve adjusted my retina to the magnification, but you people aren’t up to that yet, I believe. You need mechanical aids for every little thing. Go ahead, have a look. That’s
Dientamoeba fragilis
he’s fighting now. Small, but fast. And very, very vicious.”
Mary Ann hurried to the spherical microscope and stared intently through the eyepieces.
There, in the very center of the field, was Gygyo. A transparent bubble helmet covered his head and he was wearing some sort of thick but flexible one-piece garment over the rest of his body. About a dozen amebae, the apparent size of dogs, swarmed about, reaching for him with blunt, glassy pseudopods. He hacked away at them with a great two-handed sword in tremendous sweeps that cut in two the most venturesome and persistent of the creatures. But Mary Ann could see from his frantic breathing that he was getting tired. Every once in a while, he glanced rapidly over his left shoulder as if keeping watch on something in the distance.
“Where does he get air from?” she asked.
“The suit always contains enough oxygen for the duration of the lock,” Flureet’s voice explained behind her, sounding somewhat surprised at the question. “He has about five minutes to go, and I think he’ll make it. He’ll probably be shaken up enough, though, to—Did you see
that?
”
Mary Ann gasped. An elongated, spindle-shaped creature which ended in a thrashing whiplike streak had just darted across the field, well over Gygyo’s head. It was half again his size. He had gone into a crouch as it passed and the amebae surrounding him had also leaped away. They were back at the attack in a moment, however, once the danger had passed. Very wearily now, he continued to chop at them.
“What
was
it?”
“A trypanosome. It went by too fast for me to identify it, but it looked like either
Trypanosoma gambiense
or
rhodesiense
—the African sleeping sickness protozoans. No, it was a bit too big to be either of them, now that I remember. It could have been—Oh, the fool!”
Mary Ann turned to her, genuinely frightened. “What did he do?”
“He neglected to get a pure culture, that’s what. Taking on several different kinds of intestinal amebae is wild enough, but if there are trypanosomes in there with him, then there might be anything! And him down to 35 microns!”
R emembering the worried glances that Gygyo had thrown over his shoulder, Mary Ann swung back to the microscope. The man was still fighting desperately, but the strokes of the sword came much more slowly. Suddenly another ameba, different from those attacking Gygyo, swam into the field. It was almost transparent and about half his size.
“That’s a new one,” she told Flureet. “Is it dangerous?”
‘No,
Iodamoeba butschlii
is just a sluggish, friendly lump. But what in the world is Gygyo afraid of to his left? He keeps turning his head as if—
Oh
.”
The last exclamation came out almost as a simple comment, so completely was it weighted with despair. An oval monster—its length three times and its width fully twice Gygyo’s height—shot into the field from the left boundary as if making a stage entrance in reply to her question. The tiny hairlike appendages with which it was covered seemed to give it fantastic speed.
Gygyo’s sword slashed at it, but it swerved aside and out of the field. It was back in a moment, coming down like a dive bomber. Gygyo and his other attackers leaped away, but one of the amebae was a little too
take
you out for a full fifteen minutes, you’re just asking for trouble. And trouble is exactly what our boy is having!”
“He is? I mean is it bad?”
T he other girl gestured at the microscope. “Have a look. I’ve adjusted my retina to the magnification, but you people aren’t up to that yet, I believe. You need mechanical aids for every little thing. Go ahead, have a look. That’s
Dientamoeba fragilis
he’s fighting now. Small, but fast. And very, very vicious.”
Mary Ann hurried to the spherical microscope and stared intently through the eyepieces.
There, in the very center of the field, was Gygyo. A transparent bubble helmet covered his head and he was wearing some sort of thick but flexible one-piece garment over the rest of his body. About a dozen amebae, the apparent size of dogs, swarmed about, reaching for him with blunt, glassy pseudopods. He hacked away at them with a great two-handed sword in tremendous sweeps that cut in two the most venturesome and persistent of the creatures. But Mary Ann could see from his frantic breathing that he was getting tired. Every once in a while, he glanced rapidly over his left shoulder as if keeping watch on something in the distance.
“Where does he get air from?” she asked.
“The suit always contains enough oxygen for the duration of the lock,” Flureet’s voice explained behind her, sounding somewhat surprised at the question. “He has about five minutes to go, and I think he’ll make it. He’ll probably be shaken up enough, though, to—Did you see
that?
”
Mary Ann gasped. An elongated, spindle-shaped creature which ended in a thrashing whiplike streak had just darted across the field, well over Gygyo’s head. It was half again his size. He had gone into a crouch as it passed and the amebae surrounding him had also leaped away. They were back at the attack in a moment, however, once the danger had passed. Very wearily now, he continued to chop at them.
“What
was
it?”
“A trypanosome. It went by too fast for me to identify it, but it looked like either
Trypanosoma gambiense
or
rhodesiense
—the African sleeping sickness protozoans. No, it was a bit too big to be either of them, now that I remember. It could have been—Oh, the fool!”
Mary Ann turned to her, genuinely frightened. “What did he do?”
“He neglected to get a pure culture, that’s what. Taking on several different kinds of intestinal amebae is wild enough, but if there are trypanosomes in there with him, then there might be anything! And him down to 35 microns!”
R emembering the worried glances that Gygyo had thrown over his shoulder, Mary Ann swung back to the microscope. The man was still fighting desperately, but the strokes of the sword came much more slowly. Suddenly another ameba, different from those attacking Gygyo, swam into the field. It was almost transparent and about half his size.
“That’s a new one,” she told Flureet. “Is it dangerous?”
‘No,
Iodamoeba butschlii
is just a sluggish, friendly lump. But what in the world is Gygyo afraid of to his left? He keeps turning his head as if—
Oh
.”
The last exclamation came out almost as a simple comment, so completely was it weighted with despair. An oval monster—its length three times and its width fully twice Gygyo’s height—shot into the field from the left boundary as if making a stage entrance in reply to her question. The tiny hairlike appendages with which it was covered seemed to give it fantastic speed.
Gygyo’s sword slashed at it, but it swerved aside and out of the field. It was back in a moment, coming down like a dive bomber. Gygyo and his other attackers leaped away, but one of the amebae was a little too
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