He readjusted the focus carefully,
carrying on a running commentary.
Then he gasped. Each of the little filaments carried three tiny darker
sections; each was a cell, complete in itself, with the typical Martian
triple nucleus.
He put a film with a tiny section of the nerve tissue from a corpse into
the chamber next, and again a quick glance at the screen was enough. The
filaments were there, thickly crowded among nerve cells. They _did_
travel along the nerves to reach the base of the brain before the larger
lump could form.
A specimen from one of the black specks was even more interesting. The
filaments were there, but some were changed or changing into tiny, round
cells, also with the triple dark spots of nuclei. Those must be the
final form that was released to infect others. Probably at first these
multiplied directly in epithelial tissue, so that there was a rapid
contagion of infection. Eventually, they must form the filaments that
invaded the nerves and caused the brief bodily reaction that was
Selznik's migraine. Then the body adapted to them and they began to
incubate slowly, developing into the large cells he had first seen. When
"ripe", the big cells broke apart into millions of the tiny round ones
that went back to the nerve endings, causing the black spots and killing
the host.
He knew his enemy now, at least.
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