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.”“Mine,” he said, seeming proud of it, “but grown at least in part from what the boffins have told me.”“So what has happened?” I asked him, feeling a little exasperated now.“What’s going down, Smiler?”“Not so much going down,” he shook his head, “as coming out.”“Coming out?” I waited, not sure whether to smile or frown, not knowing what to do or say.“Of me.”And still I waited.It was like a guessing game where I was supposed to come up with some sort of conclusion based on what he’d told me.But I didn’t have any conclusions.Finally he shrugged yet again, snorted, shook his head, and said: “But you do know about cancer, right? About the Big ‘C’? Well, when I went up to Luna II, it changed my cancer.Oh, I still have it, but it’s not the same any more.It’s a separate thing existing in me, but no longer truly a part of me.It’s in various cavities and tracts, all connected up by threads, living in me like a rat in a system of burrows.Or better, like a hermit crab in a pirated shell.But you know what happens when a hermit crab outgrows its shell? It moves out, finds itself a bigger home.So…this thing in me has tried to vacate—has experimented with the idea, anyway….”He shuddered, his whole body trembling like jelly.“Experimented?” It was all I could find to say.He gulped, nodded, controlled himself.And he sank what was left of his drink before going on.“In the night, a couple of nights ago, it started to eject—from both ends at once—from just about everywhere.Anus, throat, nostrils, you name it.I almost choked to death before they got to me.But by then it had already given up, retreated, retracted itself.And I could breathe again.It was like it…like it hadn’t wanted to kill me.”I was numb, dumb, couldn’t say anything.The way Smiler told it, it was almost as if he’d credited his cancer with intelligence! But then a white movement caught my eye, and I saw with some relief that it was the boys from the ambulance coming for him.He saw them, too, and clutched my arm.And suddenly fear had made his eyes round in his round face.“Peter….” he said.“Peter….”“It’s OK,” I grabbed his fist grabbing me.“It’s all right.They have to know what they’re doing.You said it yourself, remember? You’re not going to die.”“I know, I know,” he said.“But will it be worth living?”And then they came and took him to the ambulance.And for a long time I wondered about that last thing he’d said.But of course in the end it turned out he was right….The car door slammed and the telephone rang at one and the same time, causing me to start.I looked out through the control shack’s dusty window and saw Big “C” receding from the car.Apparently everything was OK.And when the telephone rang again I picked it up.“OK, Peter,” Smiler’s voice seemed likewise relieved, “you can come on in now.”But as well as relieved I was also afraid.Now of all times—when it was inevitable—I was afraid.Afraid for the future the world might never have if I didn’t go in, and for the future I certainly wouldn’t have if I did.Until at last common sense prevailed: what the heck, I had no future anyway!“Something wrong, old friend?” Smiler’s voice was soft.“Hey, don’t let it get to you.It will be just like the last time you visited me, remember?” His words were careful, innocent yet contrived.And they held a code.I said “Sure,” put the phone down, left the shack and went to the car.If he was ready for it then so was I.It was ominous out there, in Big “C”’s gloom; getting into the car was like entering the vacant lair of some weird, alien animal.The thing was no longer there, but I knew it had been there.It didn’t smell, but I could smell and taste it anyway.You would think so, the way I avoided breathing.And so my throat was dry and my chest was tight as I turned the lights on to drive.To drive through Big “C,” to the core which was Ben ‘Smiler’ Williams.And driving I thought:I’m traveling down a hollow tentacle, proceeding along a pseudopod, venturing in an alien vein.And it can put a stop to me, kill me any time it wants to.By suffocation, strangulation, or simply by laying itself down on me and crushing me.But it won’t because it needs Smiler, needs to appease him, and he has asked to see me.As he’d said on the telephone, “Just like the last time.” Except we both knew it wouldn’t be like the last time.Not at all….The last time:That had been fifteen months ago when we’d agreed on the boundaries.But to continue at that point would be to leave out what happened in between.And I needed to fill it in, if only to fix my mind on something and so occupy my time for the rest of the journey.It isn’t good for your nerves, to drive down a midmorning road in near darkness, through a tunnel of living, frothing, cancerous flesh.A month after I’d seen Smiler on the beach, Big “C” broke out.Except that’s not exactly how it was.I mean, it wasn’t how you’d expect
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