Swamp Fever

'What you've got there, Finn, is a good, old-fashioned case of trench-foot'. Sanderson probed the sole of the geologist's pall-white foot with a surgical spatula, drawing a wince. 'You've got to keep your feet dry out in the field, you should know that.'

'Doc', Finn Bergerman replied caustically, 'if there was an intelligent life form out there they would have no word for "dry". Dry is a bizarre concept on this God-forsaken rock.'

Sanderson looked out of the window at the moisture dripping from the creeper festooning the forest. As he watched one of the taller saplings at the clearing's edge tilted and slowly withdrew a root-pad from the marshy ground, settling it back into a firmer position. The whole forest was a ripple of similar movement as trees stabilised themselves. 'Hell', he said, 'I'm never going to get used to vegetation walking. You almost expect it to march up to the port and demand to be taken to our leader.'

Bergerman winced again as the spatula strayed to a further tender spot. 'You should get out to Area 17" he said, "the damn stuff actually swims. The tidal bore drifts whole swatches of it away every morning. Come evening it's all climbed back up the mud banks. Of course, it's not trees as such out there but it's still some weird experience seeing all those bushes going against the current and inching their way back onto what passes for shore.'

Doc Sanderson turned back and peered into his medical supplies cupboard. 'Luckily' he said 'we've got better treatment for your condition than they had back in the Dark Ages'. He handed over a tube of ointment and a small bottle of pills. 'Base-rest for three days, rub the ointment in four times a day and take one pill after meals. Oh, and I suggest you keep well out of everyone's way. That stuff stinks.'

Bergerman wrinkled his nose. 'Gee, thanks Doc' and he limped carefully out of the surgery.

Sanderson tapped the geologist's medical notes into his computer and then ran the monthly comparative check. Bergerman's was the only case of foot-rot which was, perhaps. surprising but the man did have sensitive feet. No doubt as the Survey proceeded there would be more cases. The main problem had been those vicious little leech-like creatures that burrowed their way under the skin and then died as the metabolism of their hosts set up barriers against the unfamiliar incursion. The resultant infections were an irritant rather than a danger, but they were all too common and difficult to treat. At least it had revealed a marked resistance to anything bacteriological that "Sludge" could throw up (Delta Arcturus in strict Surveyological terms, but "Sludge" was more appropriate, and had stuck - so to speak).

Given the wet climate the risk of fungal infection was the biggest threat and anything organic that stayed put for more than a few hours at a time was likely to have a fine crop of miniscule mushrooms sprouting on it. But the crew had been lucky so far, only a few mild cases of rash to worry about, apart from Bergerman's foot rot. All in all, Sanderson decided, a remarkably uneventful initial run.

There was a heavy "splassh" from outside as one of the willowy trees missed its footing and wallowed in the marshy ground, bobbing its branches helplessly. 'What do you call a clumsy tree?' mused Sanderson incongruously, and then answered his own question, even more fatuously. 'A log!' He barked a short, ironic laugh and signed off his notes.

Sanderson's next monthly comparison confirmed his expectations. Bacterial infection negligible, fungal infection on the increase but under control, accidents no more than could

be expected, given the cramped conditions: as boring a tour of duty as the planet itself. True, the zoologists had found the most highly evolved species of ‘land’ animal so far, about the same size and vague appearance of a rabbit but, apparently, totally lacking the libido of its earthly counterpart, and permanently limp and bedraggled. So far they had been unable either to sex or even classify the docile creatures. Giulio, the chief zoologist, despaired that some of the trees showed more vitality than his charges. 'If I didn't know better, Doc' he said 'I would swear that these creatures are more vegetable than animal.'

Sanderson smiled and said 'They tell me they cook up a real mean rabbit stew. Don't sound like any vegetables I know.'

Giulio grunted. 'If you like that sort of thing. Me, I prefer a plate of taglietelli any day.'

What Sludge may have lacked in charm, however, it more than made up for in other ways, for practically anything that grew, hopped or swam was edible, although there were precious few of the latter two categories. 'I tell you Doc, I ain't seen nothin' like it in ten tours', Giulio said. 'The whole friggin' planet is one big market garden. If I have to eat just one more friggin' mushroom I'm gonna come down with ptomaine poisonin' just to give you somethin' to do.'

'Get outta here, Giulio. You got a constitution like a steel hull. Go find me the local intelligentsia. I could do with some real conversation.'

'Strikes me you're lookin' at it Doc'. Giulio poked one of the rabbit-like creatures which rolled a languid eye and, letting out a whimpering sigh, shifted its position a few inches. 'Hey, you want to hear something far out?' Giulio said. 'I just been talking to McKern of Meteorology. Seems like we're heading for the wet season. Wet Season! Hah! What we gonna do, snorkel our way around?'

'Might be an idea, Giulio. Save an awful lot on the laundry bill. There's too much goddam stink of drying clothes already.'

Bergerman poked his head around the door. 'Hey, Giulio, the old man's looking for you.'

Giulio picked up the alien creature and stuffed it back into its cage. 'O.K. Bergerman. On my way.' He squeezed past the big geologist and loped away down the narrow corridor to the Director's cubicle whilst Bergerman stooped through to look at the captive animal.

'The guys call these Nerds, Doc. Big Nerd, Little Nerd ... they ain't come across no Baby Nerd yet. Word is they reproduce by parthenogenesis. Leastways no-one's found the wherewithal for any other way, but they do say Giulio couldn't sex an egg, so maybe there's something tucked away somewhere.'

Sanderson smiled. 'Androgynous is my guess too, Bergerman' he said. 'Maybe the sexual difference only manifests itself when it's needed. Unusual for a higher life-form though. And talking about life-forms, how're your feet now? No more problems'

'No Doc. That ointment of yours did the trick, although it sure didn't improve my social standing any. How come no-one else got a dose?'

Sanderson shrugged. 'Well, you always said you were unique, Bergerman.'

Bergerman scratched at his face. 'There's no other geologist would do a tour on a planet that's just water and mud Doc, that's for sure.'

'Come on, Bergerman, don't put yourself down. You're doing a fine job. The boss tells me we're streets ahead of any other sector on geological data.'

'We just happen to have a great team here, Doc. No-one goes piss-assing about protocol and such. It makes for an efficient operation.'

'Can't argue with that, Bergerman. What'd the boss want with Giulio?'

Bergerman heaved his shoulders and scratched at his face again. 'Somethin' about an expedition into the interior.' He rolled his eyes heavenwards. 'Seems like the gods want answers before anyone wrote the question.'

'Typical!' Sanderson spat the word out venemously. 'Don't they have any idea of the conditions we're working under here?'

'Oh yeah. They know all right. Signed, sealed and written in blood ...in triplicate. Question is, do they care?' He made a rubbing motion with his fingers. 'Money, Doc. They pay us what they think is way over the odds, they expect results.' He scratched furiously at his face again. 'Sheeit! Hey, Doc, you better take a look at this face. I think I got a rash maybe.'

Sanderson turned Finn's face to the light and steered him in the direction of the surgery. 'Some kind of rash coming for sure, Finn. Let's go take a look.'

As the door closed, the Nerd sniffed the air expectantly, and started to scratch.

Two days later the rains began, and the edge of the clearing disappeared behind a solid sheet of water. The pervasive odour of damp became almost oppressive within the base and the cleaning detail were kept busy keeping exposed surfaces free from the fine film of mould that formed if left untended too long. Despite the gods' injunctions, the weather had made any expeditionary work quite out of the question and Giulio's proposed trip had been put on hold. He had plenty to keep him occupied, however, for his captive Nerds had suddenly started displaying an animation quite at odds with the leisurely pace at which events generally moved on Sludge. 'What's the Sludge equivalent of fleas, Giulio?' Sanderson asked. 'Can't you stop the things thrashing around like that? Look. The big one's drawn blood.'

'Short of sedating them, no. And we don't know what effect drugs will have. I don't want to have to get another specimen. God knows they're hard enough to find as it is.'

'You may not have much choice. That thing's skin is coming off in strips. It'll be down to bone soon.'

'I'm not so sure, Doc. I've got a hunch this thing is seasonal. A natural phenomenon. The animals don't seem to be in any great distress. They're still feeding normally. Eating more, if anything. It may be no more than an extreme form of moulting. Don't forget we're into what passes for summer now. In fact' he continued, picking up the smaller of the Nerds 'this parthenogenesis theory might soon be proved. I got a feeling this animal is coming into season. Look.'

Sanderson peered at the nodules appearing on the denuded area where one might normally expect to find the genitalia on terrestrial mammals.

Giulio pinched one between thumb and forefinger. 'They weren't there yesterday. And the other one's got a couple of pimple's where the fur's scratched away.'

Sanderson scratched himself unconsciously, then realised what he was doing. 'Hey, this thing is catching' he joked. 'When this beautiful blonde walks in here tomorrow, Giulio, don't make your move straight away. Just remember, it may be me!'

Giulio laughed. 'I should be so lucky, Doc. Don't worry, I'm going to sit up all night with these babies - I'd be too tired to make a pass.' Sanderson laughed in return and left to open morning surgery.

Bergerman was waiting outside, and his cheek looked as if it had been flayed. Sanderson took one look and ushered him through.

'Shit, Doc. My face is on fire!' Bergerman moaned. His fingernails were stained with blood where they had scratched away the skin, which was puckered corpse-white around the edge of the raw spot. 'It started last night. That ointment you gave me only irritates it. I feel like I want to rip my friggin' face off.'

Sanderson lay him on the examination table and probed the livid mass gently. His fingers traced a distended array of capillaries leading from the sore down Bergerman's neck, and touched the palm of his hand to the geologist's forehead. 'You've got a temperature, Finn. I'm going to have to keep you in quarantine.'

'Doc' Bergerman gasped. 'You keep me anyplace you like. Just stop this godawful itching.'

Sanderson took him through to the small quarantine bay, gave him a sedative shot, told the duty orderly to keep a close eye on him, and left to run some checks through the computer on Bergerman's close contacts - which was practically everyone on base. Some hours later Sanderson was satisfied that Bergerman's was an isolated case and looked in on him again. The sedative had obviously calmed the inflamed membrane around the raw patch, for it looked less angry, and the geologist's fever had abated. In fact, he felt clammy, Sanderson decided, and piled more blankets on. 'Watch that he doesn't overheat' he told the orderly and left to bring the Director up-to-date.

On the way Guilio pulled him into the lab, brushing away his protests. 'A helluva thing, Doc!' he breathed enthusiastically. 'I left to get a bite to eat, and when I got back the damn things had gone comatose on me, and now these swellings are getting so big they look fit to burst.'

Despite his anxiety about Bergerman, Sanderson spared the time to look at Giulio's Nerds. They were now quite denuded of fur, glistening globules of visceral flesh laced with a network of hair-thin veins and distended with angry-looking pustules that, as Giulio said, looked ready to burst. Sanderson had seen nothing like it. 'I don't like the look of this, Giulio' he said.

'Not a pretty sight, I know, Doc. But this is one alien planet. Nothing is what it should be. And that obviously goes for sex as well. I'm convinced these things are going to start screwin', or whatever they do, any minute now ... and I want to be here to see it.'

Sanderson excused himself. 'I got my own problems, Giulio. Bergerman's in the quarantine bay. Got himself a dose of something I don't know what. I may have to run a screening programme, which is goin' to screw the schedules right up. The gods are not going' to be pleased. Catch you later.' He left him watching his charges avidly to report events to the Director.

Resignedly, the Director had warned the "gods" about the potential problem and had received a grudging acknowledgement, but when Sanderson looked in on Bergerman again, he seemed more himself. The itching had stopped, and the tracery of capillaries was less obvious, although they had spread further down his body. The raw wound itself had taken on that glassy, almost liquescent, sheen that presaged the healing process and Bergerman was sitting up. "Hi, Doc", he said weakly. "You ever heard of trench foot on the face?"

Sanderson smiled. "Similar, Bergerman. Similar. Fungal infection, at least. You seem to be on the mend. You don't know how glad the gods will be to hear that!'

Bergerman leaned back on his pillow. 'I can guess, Doc. I can guess.'

Suddenly an excited cry echoed down the corridor from the direction of Giulio's lab.. 'Sanderson! You gotta come see this!' Sanderson hurried to the zoology lab, just beating others who had heard Giulio's scream of enthusiasm. They stood wedged in the doorway as Sanderson crowded Giulio's shoulder to see what was happening with the Nerds. They were now Nerds in name only. They had lost all recognisable form and were bloating into a different shape, even as the men watched. Then, there was a brief moment when, in place of what had been two rabbit-like creatures, two glaucous, phallus-shaped fungi took form before the heads burst open, scattering clouds of yellow spores into the air. Giulio and Sanderson ducked out of the room, colliding with the others in the doorway, and brushing spores from their hair and clothing.

As they watched, the remains of the two fungi collapsed in on themselves and immediately began to deliquesce until nothing remained but two pools of putrescent liquid. Then, as the spores settled on the table, those that landed in the liquid began a remarkable and rapid transformation. Almost like a film running backwards the liquid was siphoned up and a forest of miniature phalluses grew. As the last of the liquid disappeared, there was a brief hiatus, and then the fungi began to throb, gently.

Giulio and Sanderson moved back into the room and Giulio probed one of the miniature phalluses. The skin was translucent. He prised it up from the table and held it up to the light. Inside, dimly seen was the perfect form of a miniscule Nerd! Giulio let out a long, low whistle. 'Sheeit, Doc. Parthenogensis my ass. Perfect symbiosis. I knew it! Not animal, not vegetable, but both. I was getting round to that way of thinking ... but so fast!'

Sanderson peered at the other phalluses. Each was the same. Each contained a miniature replica of a Nerd. 'Hey, Giulio. You found Bergerman's baby Nerds,' he said.

There was an excited ripple of conversation amongst those watching which cut off as an agonised scream came from the direction of the sick-bay. Sanderson recognised Bergerman's voice and left the zoologist's lab at the gallop.

He pulled up short at the quarantine-bay door. Inside Bergerman was staggering about the room, tearing at his face with the most agonised screams Sanderson had ever heard. The geologist's face was pulsating beneath his hands then, to one last terrified howl, erupted under his fingers in a tower of glistening, phallic flesh. Almost immediately it burst, scattering clouds of the familiar yellow spores into the quarantine-bay, and Bergerman's body fell to the floor, twitched once and lay still.

Sanderson watched, horrified, as patches of liquid spilled out from beneath the crumpled body, and witnessed the obscene growth of other fungi as the floating spores hit the putrescence and fed on it greedily.

He turned, wan-faced, to the rest of the crew crowded behind him ... and slowly began to scratch.