analyzing
the mess."

Then he went on again. "To get back to Mekstrom's Disease and what we
know about it. We know that the crawl goes at about a sixty-fourth of an
inch per hour. If, for instance, you turned up here with a trace on your
right middle finger, the entire first joint would be Mekstrom's Flesh in
approximately three days. Within two weeks your entire middle finger
would be solid. Without anesthesia we could take a saw and cut off a bit
for our research."

"No feeling?"

"None whatever. The joints knit together, the arteries become as hard as
steel tubing and the heart cannot function properly--not that the heart
cares about minor conditions such as the arteries in the extremities,
but as the Mekstrom infection crawls up the arm toward the shoulder the
larger arteries become solid and then the heart cannot drive the blood
through them in its accustomed fashion. It gets like an advanced case of
arteriosclerosis. Eventually the infection reaches and immobilizes the
shoulder; this takes about ninety days. By this time, the other
extremities have also become infected and the crawl is coming up all
four limbs."

He looked at me very solemnly at that. "The rest is not pretty. Death
comes shortly after that. I can almost say that he is blessed who
catches Mekstrom's in the left hand for them the infection reaches the
heart before it reaches other parts. Those whose initial infection is in
the toes are particularly cursed, because the infection reaches the
lower parts of the body. I believe you can imagine the result,
elimination is prevented because of the stoppage of peristalsis. Death
comes of autointoxication, which is slow and painful."

I shuddered at the idea. The thought of death has always bothered me.
The idea of looking at a hand and knowing that I was going to die by the
calendar seemed particularly horrible.

Taking the bit between my teeth, I said, "Scholar Phelps, I've been
wondering whether you and your Center have ever considered treating
Mekstrom's by helping it?"

"Helping it?" he asked.

"Sure. Consider what a man might be if he were Mekstrom's all the way
through."

He nodded. "You would have a physical superman," he said. "Steel-strong
muscles driving steel-hard flesh covered by a near impenetrable skin.
Perhaps such a man would be free of all minor pains and ills. Imagine a
normal bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. Mekstrom
Flesh tends to be acid-resistant as