"Well," Burton said, "Benedict certainly didn't make it outside--"
And then they saw the satellite.
It was upright, a sleek polished cone three feet high, and its edges had been cracked and seared from the heat of reentry. It had been opened crudely, apparently with the help of a pair of pliers and chisel that lay on the floor next to the capsule.
"The bastard opened it," Stone said. "Stupid son of a bitch."
"How was he to know?"
"He might have asked somebody," Stone said. He sighed. "Anyway, he knows now. And so do forty-nine other people. " He bent over the satellite and closed the gaping, triangular hatch. "You have the container?"
Burton produced the folded plastic bag and opened it out. Together they slipped it over the satellite, then sealed it shut.
"I hope to hell there's something left," Burton said.
"In a way," Stone said softly, "I hope there isn't."
They turned their attention to Benedict. Stone went over to him and shook him. The man fell rigidly from his chair onto the floor.
Burton noticed the elbows, and suddenly became excited. He leaned over the body. "Come on," he said to Stone. "Help me."
"Do what?"
"Strip him down."
"Why?"
"I want to check the lividity.
"But why?"
"Just wait," Burton said. He began unbuttoning Benedict's shirt and loosening his trousers. The two men worked silently for some moments, until the doctor's body was naked on the floor.
"There," Burton said, standing back.
"I'll be damned," Stone said.
There was no dependent lividity. Normally, after a person died, blood seeped to the lowest points, drawn down by gravity. A person who died in bed had a purple back from accumulated blood. But Benedict, who had died sitting up, had no blood in the tissue of his buttocks or thighs.
Or in his elbows, which had rested on the arms of the chair.
"Quite a peculiar finding," Burton said. He glanced around the room and found a small autoclave for sterilizing instruments. Opening it, he removed a scalpel. He fitted it with a blade-- carefully, so as not to puncture his airtight suit-- and then turned back to the body.
"We'll take the most superficial major artery and vein," he said.
"Which is?"
"The radial. At the wrist."
Holding the scalpel carefully, Burton drew the blade along the skin of the inner wrist, just behind the thumb. The skin pulled back from the wound, which was completely bloodless. He exposed fat and subcutaneous tissue. There was no bleeding.
"Amazing."
He cut deeper. There was still no bleeding from the incision. Suddenly, abruptly, he struck a vessel. Crumbling red-black material fell out onto the floor.
"I'll be damned," Stone said again.
"Clotted solid," Burton said.
"No wonder the people didn't bleed."
Burton said, "Help me turn him over. " Together, they got the corpse onto its back, and Burton made a deep incision into the medial thigh, cutting down to the femoral artery and vein. Again there was no bleeding, and when they reached the artery, as thick as a man's finger, it was clotted into a firm, reddish mass.
"Incredible."
He began another incision, this time into the chest. He exposed the ribs, then searched Dr. Benedict's office for a very sharp knife. He wanted an osteotome, but could find none. He settled for the chisel that had been used to open the capsule. Using this he broke away several ribs to expose the lungs and the heart. Again there was no bleeding.
Burton took a deep breath, then cut open the heart, slicing into the left ventricle.
The interior was filled with red, spongy material. There was no liquid blood at all.
"Clotted solid," he said. "No question."
"Any idea what can clot people this way?"
"The whole vascular system? Five quarts of blood? No." Burton sat heavily in the doctor's chair and stared at the body he had just cut open. "I've never heard of anything like it. There's a thing called disseminated intravascular coagulation, but it's rare and requires all sorts of special circumstances to initiate it."
"Could a single toxin initiate it?"
"In theory, I suppose. But in fact, there isn't a toxin in the world--"
He stopped.
"Yes," Stone said. "I suppose that's right.'
He picked up the satellite designated Scoop VII and carried it outside to the van. When he came back, he said, "We'd better search the houses.
"Beginning here?"
"Might as well," Stone said.
***
It was Burton who found Mrs. Benedict. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged lady sitting in a chair with a book on her lap; she seemed about to turn the page. Burton examined her briefly, then heard Stone call to him.
He walked to the other end of the house. Stone was in a small bedroom, bent over the body of a young teenage boy on the bed. It was obviously his room: psychedelic posters on the walls, model airplanes on a shelf to one side.
The boy lay on his back in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. His mouth was open. In one hand, an empty tube of model-airplane cement was tightly clenched; all over the bed were empty bottles of airplane dope, paint thinner, turps.
Stone stepped back. "Have a look."
Burton looked in the mouth, reached a finger in, touched the now-hardened mass. "Good God," he said.
Stone was frowning. "This took time," he said. "Regardless of what made him do it, it took time. We've obviously been oversimplifying events here. Everyone did not die instantaneously. Some people died in their homes; some got out into the street. And this kid here..."