IMPOSSIBLE PLACES

ALAN DEAN FOSTER

www.sfgateway.com

Enter the SF Gateway …

In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

Welcome to the SF Gateway.

Introduction

Every professional needs a workout. Basketball players shoot free throws and jump shots. Golfers retire to the driving range to practice their swing. Lawyers argue in front of mirrors; actors perform in summer stock; artists work with pencil and pastel in sketchbooks. Landscapers fill flowerpots; swimmers do lap after lap; gem cutters try different cuts with flawed stones.

Writers write short stories.

Except—sometimes the longest drive comes not on the course, but on the driving range. Occasionally the finest piece of art leaps out not from the finished oil on canvas, but from the sketchbook. Now and then, the most expansive, the most beautiful flower blossoms are not in the elaborate garden, but in the simple pot.

Writers write short stories.

There are all kinds of freedom attendant to composing shorts. Most obviously, a good deal less time is involved. For professionals, that’s more than a little important. Then too, the creative freedom that is inherent in and so important to the writing of fantasy and science fiction is magnified in reverse. The shorter the story, the greater the freedom. It’s easier for artists to let themselves go in an afternoon than over a period lasting four or five or six months, or a year or two. Doesn’t matter if you’re writing, or painting, or composing music. Time is precious to us all.

So we can let ourselves relax, and have fun in ways that we can’t with a novel. We can play, and spout, and polemicize, and gibber, and even make funny faces if we want to. Because no editor is going to ask for thousands of words of revision, and if the tale doesn’t sell, no one in the family is likely to starve as a consequence of it. In the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s it was different. But today the novel reigns supreme. Tomorrow it may be the on-line interactive story, or the video game.

No matter, though; there will always be a place for story. Especially for the fast-paced tale, the quick yet brilliant idea, the build-up to a belly laugh. The literary bonbon that is also a bon mot. That’s why I wrote the stories contained in this collection, which only go to prove a favorite aphorism.

Eat dessert first.

Alan Dean Foster

Prescott, Arizona

LAY YOUR HEAD ON MY PILOSE

The deep Amazon is a wondrous and fearful place. I’m not talking about Iquitos or Manaus—big cities that tourists fly into and out of in less than a week. I’m talking about the rain forest primeval, where every step looks the same as the next, where giant lianas and buttress roots and fallen trees rise out of the leaf litter to trip you up at every step and where the sweat pours off your body in tiny rivers even if you stand still and don’t move a muscle.

Those whose visits to such places are restricted to watching National Geographic or the Discovery Channel might be forgiven for thinking that in such jungles it’s the big predators who rule; the jaguars and harpy eagles and anacondas. Don’t you believe it. It’s the insects who are the kings of the green domain. The insects, the arthropods, and the even smaller parasites.

It’s the small creatures with the many legs and the sucking mouthparts who rule the rain forest, and it’s they of whom visitors should most properly be terrified …

From the moment his tired survey of the town was interrupted by the glory of her passage, Carlos knew he had to have her. Not with haste and indifference, as was usual with his women, but for all time. For thirty years he had resisted any thought of a permanent liaison with a member of the opposite sex. His relationships hitherto had consisted of intense moments of courtship and consummation that flared hot as burning magnesium before expiring in the chill wash of boredom.

No longer. He had seen the mooring to which he intended to anchor his vessel. He could only hope that she was mortal.

There were those in Puerto Maldonado who knew her. Her name was Nina. She was six feet tall, a sultry genetic frisson of Spanish and Indian. The storekeeper said she was by nature quiet and reserved, but Carlos knew better. Nothing that looked like that, no woman with a face of supernal beauty and a body that cruised the cracked sidewalks like quicksilver, was by nature “quiet and reserved.” Repressed, perhaps.

Their love would be monumental; a wild, hysterical paean to the hot selva. He would devote himself to her and she to him. Bards would speak of their love for generations. That she was presently unaware of his existence was a trifle easily remedied. She would not be able to resist him, nor would she want to. What woman could?

There was only one possible problem. Awkward, but not insoluble.

His name was Max, and he was her husband.

Carlos loved South America. One could sample all the delights a country had to offer and move on, working one’s way around the continent at leisure, always keeping a comfortable step ahead of the local police. So long as depredations were kept modest, the attentions of Interpol could be avoided. They were the only ones who concerned Carlos. The local cops he treated with disdain, knowing he could always cross the next border if he was unlucky enough to draw their attention. This happened but rarely, as he was careful enough to keep his illegalities modest. Carlos firmly believed that the world only owed him a living, not a fortune.

As for the people he hurt: the shopkeepers he stole from and the women and girls whose emotions he toyed with, well, sheep existed to be fleeced. He saw himself as an instructor, touring the continent, imparting valuable lessons at minimal cost. The merchants would eventually make up their modest losses; the women he left sadder but wiser would find lovers foolish enough to commit their lives to them. But none would forget him.

He’d had a few narrow escapes, but he was careful and calculating and had spent hardly any time in jail.

Now for the first time he was lost, because he had seen Nina.

Nina. Too small a name for so much woman. She deserved a title, a crown: poetical discourse. La Vista de la Señora hermosa de la montana y la mar y la selva quemara. The vision of the beautiful lady of the mountains and the sea and the burning jungle. My lady, he corrected himself. Too beautiful by far for a fat, hirsute old geezer like Max who probably couldn’t even get it up on a regular basis. He was overweight, and despite the fact that he was smooth on top, the hairiest man Carlos had ever seen. Lying with him must be like making love to an ape. How could she stand such a thing? She was desperately in need of a rescue, whether she knew it or not, and he was the man to execute it.

They ran a small lodge, a way station really, up the Alta Madre de Dios, catering to the occasional parties of tourists and scientists and photographers who came to gaze with snooty self-importance at the jungle. Gringos and Europeans, mostly. Carlos could but shake his head at their antics. Only fools would pay for the dubious privilege of standing in the midday heat while looking for bugs and lizards and the creatures that stumbled through the trees. Such things were to be avoided. Or killed, or skinned, or sold.

They also grew food to sell to the expeditions. And a little tea, more by way of experiment than profit. But it could not be denied that the foreigners came and went and left behind dollars and deutsche marks and pounds. Real money, not the debased currencies of America Sur. Max saved, and made small improvements to the lodge, and saved still more.

Nina would have been enough. That there might also be money to be had up the Alta Madre de Dios helped to push Carlos over the edge.

Like a good general scouting the plain of battle he began tentatively, hesitantly. He adopted one of his many postures; that of the simple, servile, God-fearing hard worker, needful only of a dry place to sleep and an honest job to put his hands to. Suspicious but overworked Max; always sweating and puffing and mopping at his balding head, analyzed this uninvited supplicant before bestowing upon him a reluctant benediction in the form of a month’s trial. It was always hard to find good workers for the station because it lay several days’ travel by boat from town, and strong young men quickly grew tired of the isolation. Not only did this stranger both speak and write, he knew some English as well. That was most useful for dealing with visitors.

Max watched him carefully, as Carlos suspected he would. So he threw himself into his work, objecting to nothing, not even the cleaning and treating of the cesspool or the scraping of the bottom of the three boats that the lodge used for transportation, accepting all assignments with alacrity and a grateful smile. The only others who worked for Max were Indians from the small village across the river. Carlos ignored them and they him, each perfectly content with their lot.

For weeks he was careful to avoid even looking in Nina’s direction, lest Max might catch him. He was friendly, and helpful, and drew praise from the foreigners who came to stay their night or two at the lodge. Max was pleased. His contentment made room for gradual relaxation and, eventually, for a certain amount of trust. Three months after Carlos had been hired, Max tested him by giving him the task of depositing money in the bank at Puerto Maldonado. Carlos guarded the cash as though it were his own.

A month later, Max appointed him foreman.

Even then he averted his eyes at Nina’s passing, especially when they were alone together. He knew she was curious about him, perhaps even intrigued, but he was careful. This was a great undertaking, and he was a patient man.

Once, he bumped up against her in the kitchen. Apologizing profusely, he retreated while averting his gaze, stumbling clumsily into hanging pots and the back counter. She smiled at his confusion. It was good that she could not see his eyes, because the contact had inflamed him beyond measure, and he knew that if he lifted his gaze to her face it would burn right through her.

Each week, each day, he let himself edge closer to her. A tiny slip here, a slight accidental touch there. He trembled when he suspected she might be responding.

There came a night filled with rain like nails and a suffocating blackness. The lodge was empty of tourists and scientists. Max’s progress back from town would be slowed. The Indians were all across the river, sheltering in their village.

It began with inconsequential conversation intended to pass the time and ended with them making love on the big bed in the back building, after they shook the loose hair off the sheets. It was more than he could have hoped for, all he had been dreaming of during the endless months of screaming anticipation. She exploded atop him, her screams rising even above the hammering rain, her long legs threatening to break his ribs.

When it was over, they talked.

She had been born of noble blood and poverty. Max was older than she would have chosen, but she had enjoyed little say in the matter. As a husband he was kind but boring, pleasant but inattentive.

He would not take her with him to town because someone had to remain behind to oversee the lodge or the Indians would steal everything. Nor did he trust anyone to do business for him in Maldonado. He had discovered her in Lima, had made arrangements with her parents, and had brought her back with him. Ever since, she had been slowly going mad in the jungle, here at the foothills of the Andes. She had no future and no hope.

Carlos knew better.

He did not hesitate, and the enormity of his intent at first frightened her despite her anguish. Gradually he won her over.

They would have to be careful. No one, not even the Indians, could be allowed to suspect. They would have to wait for the right day, the right moment. Afterward, they would be free. They would sell the lodge, take the savings, and he would show her places she had hardly dreamed of. Rio, Buenos Aires, Caracas—the great and bright cities of the southern continent.

They had to content themselves with sly teasing and furtive meetings upon Max’s return. They touched and caressed and made love behind his back. Trusting, he did not see, nor did he hear the laughter. Not only was he a cuckold, he was deaf and blind. Carlos’s resolve stiffened. The man was pathetic. He would be better off out of his misery.

“I think he suspects,” Nina confided to him one afternoon out among the tea leaves. They were supposed to be inspecting the bushes, and Carlos had insisted on inspecting something else instead. Nina had agreed readily to the change of itinerary, laughing and giggling. Only afterward did she express concern.

“You are crazy, love. He sees nothing.”

She shook her head dubiously. “He says nothing. That does not mean he does not see. I can tell.”

“Has he said anything?”

“No,” she admitted. “But he is different.”

“He hasn’t said anything to me.”

“He wouldn’t. That is not his way. But I can feel a difference.”

He touched her, and she closed her eyes and inhaled sensuously. “When you do that I cannot concentrate. I am worried, my darling.”

“I will help you forget your worries.”

It was growing harder to restrain himself, to act sensibly and carefully as he always had. But he managed. Somehow he managed. Then, when accumulated frustration threatened to explode inside him, Providence intervened.

It was to be a routine trip downriver. The rain had been continuous for days, as it usually was at that time of year. Though there were few travelers to accommodate, the lodge still needed certain supplies. Max had tried to choose a day when the weather looked as though it might break temporarily to begin the journey to Maldonado, but the rain was insistent.

The two Indians who usually accompanied them were off hunting, and no one knew when they might return. In a fit of irritability, Max announced that he and Carlos would go alone, the Indians be damned. Carlos could barely contain himself.

It would be so easy. He’d been so worried, so concerned, and it was going to be so easy. He waited until they were well downriver from the lodge and village, far from any possible human sight or understanding. Then he turned slowly from his seat in the front of the long dugout.

Through the steady downpour he saw Max. The older man’s hand rested on the tiller of the outboard, its waspish drone the only sound that rose above the steady splatter of rain on dugout and river. His gaze dropped to the tiny pistol Carlos held in his fingers, the pistol Carlos had bought long ago in Quito and had kept hidden in his pack ever since.

Max was strangely calm. “I didn’t know you had a gun. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Carlos was angry that he was trembling slightly. “You don’t know anything, old man. Not that it matters.”

“No. I guess it doesn’t. I don’t suppose it would change your mind if I just told you to take Nina and go?”

Carlos hesitated. He did not want to talk, but he couldn’t help himself. “You know?”

“I didn’t for certain. Not until this moment. Now I do. Take her and go.”

Carlos steadied his hands. “The money.”

Max’s eyebrows lifted slightly beneath the gray rain slicker. Then he slumped. “You know everything, don’t you? Tell me: did she resist for very long?”

Carlos’s lips split in a feral smile. “Not even a little.” He enjoyed the expression this produced on the dead man’s face.

“I see,” Max said tightly. “I’ve suspected the two of you for some time. Stupid of me to hope it was otherwise.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I mean it. You can take her, and the money.”

“I do not trust you.”

For the first time Max looked him straight in the eyes. “You’re not the type to trust anyone, are you, Carlos?”

The gunman shook his head slowly. “I’ve lived too long.”

“Yes, you have.” Whereupon Max lunged at him, letting the tiller swing free.

The unguided prop swung wildly with the current, sending the dugout careening to port. It surprised Carlos and sent him flying sideways. He was half over the gunwale with Max almost atop him before he had a chance to react. The old man was much faster than Carlos had given him credit for, too quick, a devil. Carlos fired wildly, unable to aim, unable to point the little gun.

Max stopped, his powerful fat fingers inches from Carlos’s throat. He straightened slowly, the rain pouring off him in tiny cascades, and stared downriver, searching perhaps for the destination he would not reach. A red bubble appeared in the center of his forehead. It burst on his brow, spilling off his nose and lips, thickened and slowed by the dense hair that protruded from beneath the shirt collar where he was forced to stop his daily shaving, diluted by the ceaseless rain.

He toppled slowly over the side.

Breathing hard and fast, Carlos scrambled to a kneeling position and watched the body recede astern. Spitting out rain, he worked his way to the back of the boat and took control of the tiller. The dugout swung around, pounded back upstream. There was a boiling in the water that did not arise from a submerged stone. The blood had drawn piranhas, as Carlos had known it would.

He circled the spot until the river relaxed. There was nothing to be seen. It was quiet save for the yammer of the engine and the ceaseless rain. He tossed the little pistol into the deep water, then headed for shore. When he was within easy swimming distance he rocked the boat until it overturned, then let it go. From shore he watched it splinter against the first rocks. Exhilarated, he turned and started into the jungle, heading back the way he’d come.

Almost, he had been surprised. Almost. Now it was finished. Nina was his, and he Nina’s. Max was a harmless memory in the bellies of many fish. Carlos thought of the hot, smooth body awaiting him, and of the money, more than he’d ever dreamed of having. Both now his to play with. Together they would flee this horrible place, take a boat across the border into Bolivia, thence fly to Santiago. He harbored no regrets over what he had done. To gain Paradise a man must be willing to make concessions.

She was waiting for him, tense, sitting on the couch in the greeting room of the little lodge. Her eyes implored him as she rose.

He grinned, a drenched wolf entering its den. “It’s over. Done.”

She came to him, still unable to believe. “The truth now, beloved. There was no trouble?”

“The ape is dead. Nothing remains but bones, and the river will grind them between its rocks. By the time the Madre de Dios merges with the Inambari there will be nothing left of him. We will speak of it as we planned; that the boat hit a rock and went over. I swam to shore, I waited; he did not surface. There is nothing for anyone to question. Everything is ours!” He swept her into his arms and fastened his mouth to hers. She responded ferociously.

They were alone in the lodge, the buildings empty around them, thunder echoing their passion as she led him toward the back building. There she flung back the thin blanket and put a knee onto the bed, her eyes beckoning, her breasts visible behind the neck of her thin blouse. He leaned forward, only to pause with a grimace.

“Dirty, as always.” He bent and began brushing at the sheets. She nodded and did likewise. Only when the last of the brown, curly hairs had been swept to the floor did he join with her in the middle.

They spent all that night there and all the following morning. Then he crossed the river and paid one of the Indians to carry downstream the message announcing the unfortunate death of Max Ventura.

They ate, and made a pretext of tidying the lodge lest the swollen river carry any unannounced tourists to their doorstep. Then they showered, soaping each other, luxuriating in their freedom and the cleanliness of one another, and walked out through the rain toward the back building.

Once again Carlos was first to the bedside, and once again he was compelled to hesitate. “I thought we cleaned out the last of him yesterday.” He indicated the sheets.

Nina too saw the curving brown hairs, then shrugged and swept them onto the floor with a hand. “There was always hair everywhere from him. Not just in the bed. In my own hair, in the clothes, on the furniture, everywhere. It was disgusting.”

“I know. No more of that.” He brushed hard until he was sure his own side was spotless, then joined her.

No police came the next day, or the next. It would take three or four days by motorized dugout to reach Maldonado, a day again to come upstream to the lodge. Carlos wasn’t worried. The jungle was dangerous, the river unforgiving, and he, Carlos, had been made foreman of this place. Why would he kill his beloved employer? Indeed, hadn’t he risked his own life to try to save him, battling the dangerous current and threatening whirlpools before exhaustion had forced him to shore? It was a sad time. Nina cried manfully for the Indians who came to offer their sympathies, while Carlos hid his smile.

In the bed that night they found the hair again.

“I don’t understand.” She was uncertain as she regarded the sheets. “I swept and dusted the whole building. We brushed these out.”

Clearly she was in no mood for lovemaking. Not while memories of him still lingered in this place and in her thoughts. Angrily he wrenched the sheets from the bed, wadded them into a white ball, and tossed them across the room. Hairs spilled to the floor.

“Get fresh sheets. I’ll wash these myself. No.” Carlos smiled. “I’ll burn them. We should have done that days ago.”

She nodded, and her own smile returned. With the bed freshly remade they made love on the new sheets, but there was a curious reluctance about her he had not noticed before. He finished satisfied, saw she had not. Well, it would not be a problem tomorrow.

He burned the old sheets in the incinerator in the maintenance shed, the damp stink of the cremation hanging pall-like over the grounds for hours. By nightfall the rain had cleansed the air.

That night he made a point of carrying her to the bed. Though it was woman’s work he had cooked supper. His concern touched her. She relaxed enough to talk of all they were going to do as soon as it was decorous enough to sell the lodge and leave. By bedtime her languid self-assurance had returned.

He tossed her naked form onto the sheets, watched her bounce slightly, and was about to join her when she screamed and scrambled to the floor.

He lay on the bed, gazing at her in confusion. “My love, what’s wrong?”

She was staring, her black hair framing her face, and pointing at her side of the bed. Her face was curiously cold.

“L-look.”

He turned, puzzled, and saw the hair. Not just one or two that might have floated in from a corner of the room left undusted, but as much as ever, brown ringlets and curlicues of keratin lying stark against the white sheets.

“Damn!” Rising, he swept sheets and blanket off the bed, went to the cupboard and removed new ones, made the bed afresh. But it was no good. She could not relax, could not make love, and they spent an uneasy night. Once she woke him, moaning, and he listened in the dark until she finally quieted enough to sleep.

The next morning she was curiously listless, her gaze vacant, and his anger turned to alarm. Her forehead seemed hot to the touch. She tried to tell him not to call the doctor, saying that it would cost too much money, money better spent in Rio or Caracas, but he was truly worried now and refused to listen.

He paid the village chief an exorbitant sum to send two men downstream in the lodge’s best remaining boat, to go even at night and return with the doctor from Maldonado. He was in an agony waiting for their return.

Meanwhile Nina grew steadily worse, unable to walk, lying in bed and sweating profusely from more than the heat. She threw up what little food he tried to feed her. When he spoke to her she hardly reacted at all.

Not knowing what else to do, he applied cold wet compresses to her forehead and did his best to make her comfortable. By the fourth day he was feeling feverish himself, and by the sixth he was having difficulty keeping his balance. But he was damned if having won everything he would give up now. He had fought too hard, had committed what remained of his soul. Where was the goddamn doctor? He tried to cross the river but was unable to start the remaining outboard.

That afternoon a couple of Indians approached the bank on which the lodge was built, but when they saw him they turned and paddled furiously back the way they’d come. He yelled at them, screamed and threatened, but they paid both threats and imprecations no heed.

Her fever grew steadily worse (there was no longer any doubt it was a fever). He tried to feed her medicine from the lodge’s tiny pharmacy, but by this time she could keep nothing down. Her once supple, voluptuous form had grown emaciated with shocking speed, until he had to force himself to look at the skeletal frame beneath the sheet when he cleaned her from where she had dirtied herself.

Nor did he prove immune to whatever calamity it was that had struck so suddenly. He found himself losing his way within the lodge, having to fumble for the sink and for dishes and clean towels. By the eighth day he alternated between crawling and stumbling, stunned at his own weight loss and weakness.

He staggered toward the back building, spilling half the pitcher of cold water he was carrying to her. He dropped the clean washrag but was too dizzy and tired to go back for it. Shoving the door aside, he nearly fell twice as he stumbled over to the bed.

“Nina.” His voice was a dry croak, a rasping echo of what once had been. His swarthy machismo had evaporated along with his strength.

He tried to pour a glass of water, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t control it. The icy liquid shocked his hand and wrist. Frustration provided enough strength for him to heave the glass against the far wall, where it shattered melodiously. Exhausted by the effort he sank to his knees next to the bed, his forehead falling against his forearms as he sobbed helplessly. He lifted his eyes, hardly able to gaze upon her shrunken face anymore.

Emotions colder than the water rushed through his veins. For an instant he was fully alive, wholly aware. His vision was sharp, his perception precise.

There was hair in the bed. Always hair in the bed, no matter how much they’d swept, how hard they’d brushed and dusted, no matter how many times they changed the sheets. Brown, curly hair. His hair. It was there now.

One of the hairs was crawling out of her nose.

He knelt there, the bed supporting him, unable to move, unable to turn away from the horror. As his eyes grew wide a second hair followed the first, twisting and curling as if seeking the sunlight. He began to twitch, his skin crawling, the bile in his stomach thickening.

A hair appeared at the corner of her beautiful right eye, twisting and bending, working its way out. Two more slid out of her left ear and fell to the bed, lying motionless for a long moment before they too began to curl and crawl searchingly, imbued with a horrid life of their own.

With an inarticulate cry he stumbled away from the bed, away from the disintegrating form. More hairs joined the others, emerging from the openings of her body, from nostrils and ears, from between her once perfect lips, falling to the sheets, brown and curling and twisting. He reached up to rub at his disbelieving eyes, to grind away the nightmare with his own knuckles, and happened to glance at his hands. There were at least half a dozen hairs on the back of the right one, moist and throbbing.

Screaming, he stumbled backwards, frantically wiping his hands against his dirty pants. Staggering out of the room, he stumbled back toward the lodge. After weeks of unending rain the sun had finally emerged. Steam rose around him as accumulated moisture was sucked skyward. The mist impeded his vision.

Thin lines crisscrossed his line of sight. The lines were moving.

Crying, babbling, he flailed at his own eyes, delighting in the pain, digging at the hair, the omnipresent hair, the memories of him and what had been done. He felt the crawling now, no more than a slight tickle, but everywhere. On the surfaces of his eyes, in his ears, his nose, pain in his urethra and anus, tickling and scratching and burning, burning. He fell to his knees, then onto his side, curling into a fetal position as he dug and scratched and screamed at himself, at his wonderful body which was betraying him without reason, without explanation.

The doctor’s assistant gagged when he saw the body in the garden, and the Indians muttered to themselves and drew back. The doctor, who was an old man, thin and toughened from forty years of practicing medicine in that part of the jungle known as the Infierno Verde, forced himself to bend over and do his job. There wasn’t much left to examine.

The smell led them to the rear building. This time the Indians wouldn’t enter at all, and the doctor had to use all the strength in his elderly frame to drag his reluctant assistant with him. Up till now the young man had made good on his internship. Eventually he would return to a fine hospital in Lima where he would issue papers and prescribe pills at excessive fees for wealthy Limineros, while the doctor would remain in his sweltering office in Maldonado, treating insulting ungrateful tourists for diarrhea and locals for promised payment that the government sometimes sent and sometimes didn’t.

The corpse on the bed had been that of a woman. If possible (and until he had actually seen it the doctor would not have thought it was), it was in a state of even more advanced desiccation than the one on the grass outside. He examined it closely, careful not to touch any of the small, squirming shapes that were burrowing through what remained of what had once been a human form.

“Here, give me a hand.”

“What for?” The intern held a handkerchief over his face, protection against the odor.

“I want to look at the back.”

They used towels to protect their hands. Turning the body was a simple matter. Having been consumed from the inside out, it weighed next to nothing. The sight thus revealed forced even the old doctor to jump back involuntarily.

Beneath where the body had been lying, the entire bed was a seething mass of millions of tiny, twitching brown shapes.

“Nematodes,” the doctor announced with a grunt, though if he was worth anything at all, his youthful companion had already reached the same conclusion on his own. “Without question the worst Secernentea infestation I have ever seen.” He leaned fearlessly over the boiling mass. “Here, see? The mattress is stuffed with horsehair. That would provide sufficient protein for them to propagate within. These unfortunate people were infected through the bed.” He extended a hand. “My case.”

The intern barely had enough presence of mind remaining to hand over the doctor’s kit. The old man rummaged inside and removed a small stoppered tube and a tweezer. Carefully he extracted one of the millions of swarming worms from the mattress, slipped it into the glass container, where it coiled and twisted frantically, feeling for meat.

“This would appear to be a particularly virulent species. The selva is full of thousands of such loathsome parasites, many of them still unclassified. See how they seek the darkness inside the bed? I would venture to guess that this variety feeds nocturnally and is dormant during the day, which might explain how an infection could be overlooked until it was too late. Treatable at a hospital, I should think, but in the advanced stage such as we see here, immune to simple over-the-counter remedies.” His eyes narrowed sorrowfully as he regarded the sack of skin and bones crumpled on the bed.

“Once infected, they were doomed. You would have thought that, living here, they would know about this particular parasite and would have taken proper precautions to keep it out of their living quarters. It always astonishes me how little interest some people have in their immediate surroundings.” He raised the specimen. “Observe.”

The intern reluctantly took the glass tube, twirling it back and forth between his fingers as he studied its single wiry, voracious occupant. “It doesn’t look like much, just one of them.”

“No,” agreed the doctor. “Not just one.” He stared at the heaving, pulsating mattress, tapped the glass tube. “Notice how much it resembles nothing so innocuous as a human hair?”