The Neotenous Anomaly

It was as though the walls too were sweating. A sweet smell of rubber cloyed the air, mingling with the organic odour of sweat. Outside through the windows the diverted river ran sluggishly, slimily, through matted reeds. My blood too is overheated and viscous, mused Ronald. He hadn't expected a tension like this. After the angry demand to see him - right now - he'd slowly dismantled the cooling equipment and washed his hands. The only concessions he'd made to the authority of the professor had been to hastily button up his lab whites and take the syringe needles from his pockets. (Never, even for a moment, place syringe sharps in your pockets. p.65 II.14.) Just before he knocked he recalled the irritation in the professor's voice, and lowered the radiation badge to the regulation hip level. He removed the empty crisp bags from his pockets. They might crackle.

Now he sat with his hands folded over his lab whites, trying to follow what the professor was saying. The measured cadence was leading to something crucially important. The man was struggling to control his voice. The fan and the professor's head: the only two things in the room straining with effort.

Ronald hadn't reckoned on this tension. What was the problem anyway? Fair enough, the prof had issued a circular, warning everyone not to use the refrigeration units. They had been found faulty. But that seemed more in the nature of a warning: "Be careful - The refrigeration units are faulty." So he'd used them anyway, at his own risk, for a few samples that were not worth carrying down to cytogenetics a floor below. When he opened the fridge next morning the stench hit him right in the sinuses. He could feel it like a pain behind his eyes before he could smell it.

Ronald squeezed the bar of chocolate in his pocket and to his dismay felt a muddy warmness on his fingers. It slowly sunk in that they'd been arguing for the past half an hour over what the exact content, meaning, and authority were of a few words of the professor uttered over the shoulder in passing, along some corridor of the four-storey institute a full two weeks previously. Were they to be construed as advice, a warning, or an order?

"And did I not specifically say to you individually, apart from the general notice publicly available, did I not personally tell you not to use the refrigeration apparatus?"

Ronald could not find it within himself to be annoyed at the professor's tone of voice. It was out of sorts for the professor to be this way.

"I remember you said that. That's why I didn't put any vital samples in it."

"Did I not say explicitly that nobody was to use the equipment?"

"Something like that. I mean, the fridge did work, at least for a while . . ."

"I said explicitly that it wasn't to be used, isn't that right? And you chose to use it, isn't that correct?"

Ronald noted with alarm that the professor's teeth were clenched rigid. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and he was breathing slowly, trying to control a voice that threatened to snap off at the end into a growl.

"Am. I. Not. Right?" The professor spoke through his teeth. "Do you accept that this is what I said? Didn't you use this piece of equipment against my . . my. . against the laboratory rules? Is this not the truth?"

Ronald spread his hands submissively and shrugged. "You're right. I disobeyed the instructions. I'm sorry about causing all this mess. I remember now you told me after the Thursday meeting."

The professor turned from staring down Ronald and gazed out the window. His shoulders drooped. He held his hand to his forehead. All aggression had dissipated.

"I've already replicated the samples that were ruined," continued Ronald.

"Fine, fine. It's a simple matter really. It wasn't so important actually. Not important at all." The professor sat down and considered a moment. He looked at the rills of condensation on the walls and then at the dead hands of the clock.

"I've kept you a long time," he said, "I'm sorry. It wasn't a matter of crucial importance."

"Do you want me to report every piece of faulty equipment directly to you in future?" asked Ronald bluntly.

"No no, not at all. Report it to the technician, as usual. I just wanted to see . . . if I was right." He looked out the window and stood up again. With an effort of will he lightened his voice. "The heat you know, it's very annoying. It's hard to sit down and concentrate, don't you think?"

Ronald conceded a good-natured smile and nodded. "It's oppressive. It's like a tropical jungle." He took his leave stiffly, his left hand hidden in his pocket, slick with the muddy melted chocolate.

"It's the heat you know," said James, "I'm glad it wasn't me that had to face him. I just hope he doesn't ask me what I've been doing here for the past four months. I'd have to make up something on the spot."

"You'd best steer clear of him until the temperature drops below thirty-five. He's got something bothering him," Ronald said.

"I've got nothing to tell him that will cheer him up. Unless I think of a good joke. I'll stay well away from him," said James.

They were working together in the new lab, all tiles and white gleaming surfaces as though the wrapping had just been removed. It forced cleanliness on Ronald. To leave stains lying on the workbench, dirty glassware in the sink, or tatty books on the shaking machinery, all seemed a desecration of this temple of science.

"I'm going for a coffee," said James. He hung back for a reply from Ronald, then added: "I shouldn't really, but I need a break."

Ronald knew that this was a hint to come and join him. He also knew that James would never ask directly.

"See you after then," he said.

James Humphrey had arrived at the biotechnology institute four months earlier with two overpacked sports-bags and a pretty impressive publication record. Since then he'd done nothing. He'd come from some (second-rate, as the coffee room sniding had it) university in the north of England. He'd fallen out with the staff there - every one of them - and wanted a change. Whatever the truth was about the rumour, there was a wariness in his character that set people on edge. His efforts at being funny drew thin smiles. Ronald found him intolerable.

The originally marshy site chosen for the new buildings gave the evening air a damp coolness after the close-fitting warmth of the day. The marsh was reclaiming its domains, at least here around the swamped and silted river bends. Prof. Byrne threw open the stiff-hinged aluminium windows. He turned the tap and ran cold water over his hands and wrists until he felt ready to think. At this late hour, with the sun sinking over the motor way, he finally felt capable of doing some work.

He worked his way through the letters efficiently, clipping some into a folder, scrunching up the rest and dropping the envelopes into the waste-paper basket. At times he scrawled a note for the secretary's attention in the morning. A flock of seagulls whirled and dived outside in waves of motion. They distracted him, his eyes skipped constantly to the window to track them. But the next letter held his attention. From Northwick HD Institute of Biotechnology, "Private and Confidential" on the outside.

Dear Professor Byrne;

It has come to my attention that James Humphrey, a graduate of our school of biotechnology, is employed in postgrad research at your institute. I feel I should warn you that while he is an admirable scientist, he is socially badly adapted and has some personal failings. To be explicit, he was involved in petty thieving here and unprofessional antagonism of other staff. It's only fair to warn you about this. I view this as a certain immaturity, and I consider it unlikely that he would commit a serious offence.

Curious phrasing. He held it for a long time, unsure of where to file it. Then he slit open the next letter. Something about long-standing conjectures . . . similar efforts in your labs . . . the benefit of your experience . . . your thoughts on . . . . what do you think? . . . Think about it . . . think!

He gazed out the window at a diving bird and wondered how he could track down, hunt, and catch a thought. What trace did it leave? How could he seize it? By what art beyond metaphor could he pick its bones clean? He sat back helplessly, his eyes following obsessively the dipping and soaring of a lone seagull.

"Doctor Ronald, Doctor Ronald!" The girl rushed in, her voice quavering on the edge of hysterics. Normally Ronald would have smiled at the double naiveté of the second-year student, first in assuming that all her teachers had PhD's, and then placing the title on his first name. But there was an urgency in her voice.

"What's the problem Angela?"

"I was just with Professor Byrne. He was very rude to me."

"Rude?" He led her into the staff room and sat her down.

"In what way rude? Don't be afraid to say, you know. It won't get back to him."

"I wanted to tell him how I would have to miss some courses next term and he flared up."

-"Exactly what do you mean - 'flared up'?"

"He called me a . . a stupid bitch. I was frightened of him."

Ronald drew in a breath. "Did he threaten you - physically"

"I was frightened of him. It was just the way he stood up in front of me. I ran out of the room."

Ronald rose unsteadily from his chair.

"I think the professor might be under a lot of stress lately," he began in a measured tone, "but that doesn't excuse anything. This is just too much. I'll go and speak to him. Perhaps you'd better go home. I'll see to it that you get marked in." The girl nodded and swallowed hard.

"You can go now, if you feel OK," he said. She opened the door ajar, peered left and right, and then her nervous footsteps resounded down the tiled corridor to the exit. Ronald was seething. The student was one of his cleverest. One of the cutest too, he was also aware.

He stood before the brass plate, about to knock respectfully on the professor's door. To hell with formalities. This was strictly unofficial. He slammed open the door.

"Professor, do you realise what you said to that student? There are standards of acceptable behaviour . . . "

The professor turned from his computer screen and stood up. He was clean-shaven, his hair still held its coiffure from his morning combing. His shirt too was freshly pressed from the laundry, just like every morning. But his tie hung loose from his neck and the top buttons of his shirt were ripped off. He coolly approached Ronald without speaking. Stopped exactly a metre before him, his chest heaving, and stared him in the eye.

"Professor?"

The professor slowly raised his right arm from where it hung by his side, to a horizontal position in front of him, inches from Ronald's throat.

"Professor? Can we . . . sit down?"

The professor opened his mouth as though to answer, his head tilted slowly backwards, and instead of speech there issued a hideous stream of hoarse vocalisations, a single growl that spanned from a deep-chested rumble to a savage whine, sounds that no human throat could produce. Sounds that touched directly the raw nerves of the paeleolithic cerebellum. Ronald flinched. More than flinched. He backed off like a servile dog.

Then the professor threw back his head and let loose an unrestrained and tormented wailing. Ronald backed out the door, pulling it shut. He fled down the corridor to the phone, shaken to the core not just by that strange, imploring wail, but also that final glimpse of the professor, his fists clenched, teeth bared, and his throat exposed. And though the chin was cleanly shaven, a mat of dark coarse hairs sprang upwards from beneath his shirt and spread along both sides of his neck.

He flicked the white ceramic switch. The solid 'clunk' of the relay contacts echoed to him down the corridors. The laboratory flooded with clean fluorescent light. All exactly the same. And why wouldn't it be, Ronald reflected. Though it had been a long two days.

The professor had undergone chemotherapy, blood tests, cat scans, a tomography, and a Freudian analysis. He had slept soundly for eight hours. When he woke he demanded a pen and paper so he could write a letter of apology to the girl.

The doctors could determine no cause for the whatever fit had afflicted the professor. All vital signals were perfectly normal. He took walks in the corridor and conversed sensibly and amiably with the team of specialists and paramedics. Only in the nurses' staffroom was there a hint of discontent with the eminent patient.

The futuristic construction of glass tubing and black metal supports on the table in front of him recalled Ronald's attention, and he went back to making adjustments. He worked steadily until finally his hands measured and clipped mechanically. He ran eighty-four different chromatography samples and tapped them into the computer. The hours flew by.

The consultants' opinions converged on a psychological explanation for the professor's illness. Analysis had uncovered an unfortunate incident in his childhood involving a dog, a vacuum cleaner, and a pair of oven gloves. They conjectured his ego was belatedly splitting into both that of the misadventurous young master and the unfortunate dog. This went a long way towards explaining the pouncing around and chasing of stray movements. Ronald had not drawn their attention to the hair on his chest, those thickened workman's fingers - and that voice, a stranger's voice.

"A stranger's voice!" He let his voice ring out brightly through the spacious laboratory. No changes there. He peeped under his shirt. Just the normal thin sprinkling of chest hairs. Feeling a little silly he rolled up his sleeves and inspected his arms. The door swung open and the cool night air swept in. James was standing there. There was a wild, absent look in his eyes. Ronald felt himself swoon with horror and dread.

-"James, how are you?" he breathed.

"OK I suppose. I just thought I'd catch up on some work here. Hey, do you want to join me for a coffee first?"

"Yes! Let's go for a coffee," said Ronald, almost light-headed with relief. James was without doubt one hundred percent his usual self. He'd never have thought he'd be so glad to go for a coffee with him. James told him the latest news on the state of the professor. Ronald listened grimly.

-"Before his relapse did he mention anything about that matter he wanted to see you about?" said Ronald. "Last time I saw him he was pretty keen to see you about some letter from Northwick. "

James sighed resignedly and wiped the sweat from his brow. He made a show of being reluctant to talk about it.

"I have an idea what it could be about all right. It's all an awful mess. I don't know how I got into it, it's terrible." He waited for some words of reassurance from Ronald. Moments later he continued anyway. "It's hard to talk about it, it's all very embarrassing. - Can I confide in you, man-to-man?"

Ronald suppressed a feeling of nausea. However the overhanging tragedy made him less harsh than he might have been. "Go ahead, I'm listening."

"What cracked me up first of all was when I found my girlfriend was pregnant and I knew she was pretending it was mine. I couldn't be sure it wasn't, but I'd seen her around with other fellows. Now I was willing to stay with her, but if it's some other guy that has loads more money than me he should be footing the bill, you know what I mean? So she was nagging at me, and I didn't know what to do . . ."

Ronald nodded, his face a mask of forbearance.

Alone in the lab now, James went through the ritual of setting up his apparatus. He felt better after having spilled his guts to Ronald. Exhausted, but not ashamed. There was a kind of delight in shocking Ronald. Prim, prissy Ronald, both of whose parents were university lecturers. Who had been offered the carrot of a brand-new car if he got just one 'A' in his school cert. James had gotten five. Ronald, who had been sent to the best university in the country, and only managed to scrape through after two extra years and a substantial investment in grinds. Who'd only ever done any work at college under constant pressure from his parents, and then suddenly, just two years later in his coveted position as research assistant, had suddenly developed a full-blown work ethic a carbon copy of his parents. And now he lorded it around over students and lab assistants alike. Results! Publications! Another rung up the ladder to success. Just like him too to find a girlfriend who's also a biologist. She wouldn't have been a shop assistant. She was probably the one turning the screws on him now. Undoubtedly the proposal of marriage would follow shortly after the next promotion. He'd never once done an experiment out of sheer curiosity, just out of a desire to understand what was happening. He just followed the most obvious line of inquiry, never thought up his own experiments. At least when I work, he reflected, it's because I want to work, not to please Mummy or Daddy or The Boss. And it's hardly surprising I haven't wanted to work for the past four months. Maybe now at last I can get clear of the past. Once Northwick keeps off my back. Even if they do get on to me, maybe if I just come clear? One person already knows - at least most of it. Maybe it could all work out OK.

He clipped the glassware together and measured out enzymes. Pausing in his work, he leaned over Ronald's bench and without a trace of guilt read through his lab notes. Neoteny, plasmids, apotosis. Ronald did everything by the book and had no idea beyond that. He had mechanically repeated the same basic experiment hundreds of times, and tabulated the results meticulously in rows and columns. James sat down and tried to make sense of the mass of raw data. He thought long and hard about it. What was the next step? How could he test the hunch he had? Ronald had stumbled onto something significant all right. There must be some interesting process going on at the back of it.

Six hours later, at one o' clock in the morning and a fine drizzle drifting in horizontally over the dim yellow campus lamps, James was still working steadily at his bench. Had anyone been watching him it would have been a remarkable sight. He sat perched on the edge of a high wooden stool, peering down a bifocal microscope. His head was motionless - his whole body was motionless. His left hand gripped the edge of the bench for support, his right held a pen poised over a slowly moving band of graph paper. Sporadically the pen descended to make a quick cryptic note on the paper. The winding mechanism slowly carried the mark off to the left, where the band of paper coiled onto a roll driven by a small humming motor. He was counting off metamorphosing cells, making a different mark each time according to the way the cell developed.

At ten minutes to four the last cell turned a dusky colour, swelled up, and burst into manganese purple. He made one last tick and raised his red-rimmed eyes from the microscope. He looked at the clock for a moment, wondering at what he had done. Lying back with his eyes shut, the after-images of swarming cells drifted and divided in the blackness. He roused himself with a start and put his head back to the eyepiece. After observing some fresh cells he suddenly realised what he'd been doing. He'd been watching the cells grow and divide; a process that takes thirty-five minutes - but he'd been seeing it in motion. He concentrated on the hour hand of the clock, staring at it fixedly. It was moving! He blinked and checked the time: twenty minutes had gone by.

This was the way it must be. Extra sensitivity to motion. His sensitivity to slow or very small movements had increased by several orders of magnitude. The process was almost compete. There must be other indicators he could find. He must act quickly.

The professor's condition showed no improvement the next day. The psychoanalysts grew more confident in their diagnosis. They proposed bringing in a collie to establish a healthier human-pet relationship then the miserably dysfunctional one from childhood. They had no objections to the continued use of Lithium however. His physical health remained perfect, as evidenced by his ability to pounce from the radiator and snap a butterfly circling the ceiling.

The psychiatrists marvelled at the unfathomed power of the unconscious mind. They were all familiar with cases of asthma attacks being brought about by purely mental causes. There was a well-documented case in the literature of a thirty-six year-old housewife who spontaneously developed blisters on the corresponding part of her epidermis when it was suggested to her under hypnosis that she was being touched with a hot object. There was even a case of an adolescent girl who had exhibited all the external symptoms of smallpox, without, of course, having any trace of the virus. But this was the first case they'd seen of a massive increase in chest hair as a result of a psychological disturbance in the patient.

James was still there, his eyes drawn from lack of sleep and ringed with red from the long hours pressed against the eyepiece of a microscope. Once again Ronald approached him warily, a quiver of apprehension seizing him.

-"James, you're up early. How is the work going?"

"I never left, Ronald. And the work is going well. Very well. I've found out what's causing the professor's illness." Ronald's feeling of wariness had still not fully evaporated. He remained where he was, standing at the end of the bench.

"It's simple really. You should have recognised it yourself. After all, it is your fault."

"What do you mean?" asked Ronald in a ghost of a voice.

"The work you're doing on the neotenous mice. You wanted to see if you could block the gene that makes them mature into adult mice, and so let them grow to adult size while remaining in all other respects immature. You succeeded, didn't you?"

"Yes I did. But that work has been done before - I didn't think up the idea." James smiled wryly.

"I know that. But you did try to find a way to reverse the process - to switch on the gene again so the overgrown juveniles could continue their arrested development. Did you succeed in this?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't figured out the results yet. It's all a bit ambiguous."

"Ambiguous," sneered James, "The data clearly indicates you found a way to alter the gene itself so it would be expressed. The indications are that this is what has happened. Your three-year-old mice finally grew up to be adults. The case of the professor confirms it too."

"Who?" said Ronald.

"Professor Richard Byrne. What you didn't know is that man is also such a neotenous animal. Somewhere in the African rift valley about seven hundred thousand years ago there was a spontaneous mutation in the genes of a hominid. This ape never grew up to be an adult. He remained a child all his life, pushed around by the more aggressive adults no doubt. But he became sexually mature. Enough to pass on his or her genes. These child-apes didn't develop the heavy brow-ridges, leathery skin and aggression of the adults. Psychologically too, they remained in a permanent state of childhood, with a love of playing for its own sake, mimicking others, always with a vague feeling that they should be obeying someone else. All their lives they remained mentally still half-children, with a yearning for someone to come and look after them, comfort them, tell them what to do.

"And they thrived, despite being almost children. They must have thrived - we are here today. Evolved a lot further, but that single mutation was the crucial. We are the inheritors of this mutated gene - until you accidentally found a way to alter it again. Reversing the effect of that mutation. Correcting it in a way."

"I never heard of this theory. Have you any hard evidence for it?" Ronald stammered.

"The 'parent' species isn't around for comparison any more. But I've checked the location of the affected gene in your mice and in human cells, and they correspond. I don't know exactly how it occurred, but the plasmids you used somehow reached the professor in sufficient quantities to alter the expression of his genes. I've been compiling a list of the psychological changes that can be expected. I think our professor demonstrates all of them, plus a few more bizarre ones of his own.

One: The subject can only consider something from one point of view - his own. He or she will lose the ability to project themselves into another person's frame of mind.

Two: Judgements will fall into just two categories, which we may label RIGHT and WRONG. All statements and actions will fall into one, and just one, of these categories.

Three: The mode of relationship to another is either command or obedience. In every new contact the subject tries to determine who it is that should command and who should obey.

Four: An increased visual sensitivity to motion.

Five: Powers of concentration during a repetitive activity will increase manyfold. Like a dog or a cat, the subject will be able to continually watch one thing for hours on end.

"That last symptom, or characteristic as I'd prefer to call it, I haven't been able to observe in the professor. But I've noticed it in myself."

"You mean you too . . . ? Are you sure? Is it contagious?" Ronald backed off, holding his hand to his mouth as though to avoid breathing.

"Contagious?" said James, "You should know better than that. It was your experiments that started it. Did you follow all the recommended precautions for dealing with gene-interactive plasmids? Did you ensure they were isolated from human contact?"

Ronald backed further away towards the door.

"Did you not read anything at all about neoteny? And did you use a variant sufficiently different that there would be little chance of a mutation spreading to the wild variant? And did you do the most rudimentary tests to see if gene-material transference was possible? Did you even wash your hands?"

"I did, I did," answered Ronald finally. "I followed every single prescribed procedures. I didn't set out to interfere with the gene itself, only with the role of the gene in the development of the cell. I'm not sure if all the safety regulations apply in that case."

"They do," snapped James.

"I'm not so sure about that, where is it stated?"

"It is stated. I have said so. Are you calling me a liar?" Ronald turned his eyes from that commanding glare and muttered to one side fearfully,

"It's happening, just as you've said. You need help, James. There are people who can help you, find some way to stop it. Or you'll . . . you'll go like the professor."

"It's not all that bad," said James cheerfully. "My mind is as clear as ever - far clearer in fact. I've played chess against the computer. I'm standing here having a reasonable conversation with you. The full development to maturity has no affect on intelligence. I'll be just as clever - or as stupid - as before."

"Tell that to the professor. He's chasing butterflies now."

"You may choose to think I'm wrong," said James slowly, "but the professor's development is an aberration. He's reacted badly. He's one in ten million."

"No James," pleaded Ronald, "Your thinking has been blurred by this . . change. You must get help. And if your ideas have any truth in them, we have to stop any chance of it spreading. I don't know how the professor got it and I didn't. Let's call in the specialists so you can get quarantined and get treatment. It's the right thing to do."

"And you, do you want to spend the rest of your life closed away in an isolation ward?"

"It's unlikely I've been contaminated. It would have shown itself by now."

"You've got it. You have to have it," screamed James in jealousy and rage. "Tell me, don't you notice any increase in bodily hair?"

Ronald shook his head.

"Muscle twitches? Increased sensitivity to motion?" Ronald shook his head to these too.

"Hardening of skin tissue? Inability to digest milk? Difficulty in pronouncing words clearly? Mood swings? . . . Ah, I see we've found it. Which one is it?"

Ronald felt a sea swell in his stomach, a flash-back to the severe stomach cramps of the day before. That had been directly after a glass of milk on his breakfast cereal. And then a mere dribble of milk in his coffee that morning and he had suffered hot flushes. He sat down heavily and let a few fitful sobs into his cupped hands.

"You have it then? You can feel it, can't you?" said James.

"Yes, I'm pretty certain." Ronald collected himself and pleaded. "Let's call in the specialists. Maybe even now they can prevent us from going all the way."

"I don't want to be caged up and examined for the rest of my life. I feel fine. After all, it's only natural."

Gripping the bunch of keys, Ronald edged his way closer to the door. James realised what he was up to and rushed him, determined not to be locked inside. He dived at Ronald in a rugby tackle and brought him to the ground. The latter pushed him off with his legs. James lost his footing on the slippery tiles and his slight body flailed backwards. Ronald sprang up and threw him back against the benches, sparring, at him with boxing jabs he remembered from his student days. James tried to fend off the blows, but he had always been the weakling, no match for his larger and more powerfully built opponent. He felt himself being lifted up bodily and thrown against a rack of shelving. Cascades of glassware spilled and shattered across the floor. Ronald pummelled him fast and hard. James twisted out of reach and fell heavily onto the shattered crystals. He could feel splinters of glass piercing him all done his back and howled in pain. Ronald rushed for the door again, then stopped in his tracks. He scanned the floor for the keys. James had a moment to pick himself up off the floor. Glass shards hung from his bloodied arms. With a grin of triumph he lifted the bunch of keys and sprang up onto the benches. Then stepping from bench to bench he ran the length of the lab. He ducked and dodged the bottles that Ronald flung at him in a rage.

"Let's face it Ronald," James cried, tearing off his blood-stained shirt, "AT LAST WE'RE GROWING UP."

He jumped down the opposite side of the row of benches and barged through the emergency doors.

The cool draught of air soothed the burning cuts on his back. Just a few more minutes. It wasn't worth risking any longer. Though the police might be slow enough to look for him. It would take a while for Ronald to convince them. With his right hand he kneaded the skin all the way down his right side. There were no more splinters. He checked his left side, and squeezed out one last sliver of glass. His roll of plasters was all used up. The rest he patched with gauze and stick tape.

Despite the needle sharp pains, he felt good. He'd never felt so good before. Never felt so sure, so certain, that he knew what he had to do and knew how to do it. Never had such a confidence that there were things worth doing, such a clear-head impression of the things around him, the room and the darkness, the coolness and fear and hatred and love and pity and jealousy and forgiveness, and all the manifold kinds of feeling these childish creature fail to distinguish. They were real to him now, as real as the stabbing pain in his back, more real than the dull roar of the traffic outside.

Lowering himself over the windowsill, he dropped the three metres to the ground and jogged off along the rectilinear patterns of the city streets. It was eight o' clock, late shopping. One glance at a face was enough, and he could mark on every face the signs of human weakness, incertitude and indecision. All this he could intuit in an instant, and felt a kind of pity for them. He could hear the apathy in their voices and smell the sweat of their fear. It was too much for him, so he slipped onto the quieter lanes and loped off into the darkness. He had things to do.