The man had run to the shelter of his ship, but before he could remove his armor the alien creature had bitten him on the upper leg. There had been excruciating pain from the venom the thing injected, and a large ulcer had since developed.
But, the dots and dashes reported, the course of Matson's Disease had been not only arrested but reversed. His bones were hardening again. Perhaps under proper conditions the venom might....
It was the first hint that the pioneer had been suffering from the deadly plague, and public sympathy and fascination multiplied.
George Carlin bought more whisky.
Two days later the light on the moon winked again. A rough analysis of moon-louse venom showed it to be a complex pseudo-protein, with silicon substituting for carbon and chlorine for oxygen.
There followed a series of recommendations that set the press and radio of the world completely wild. There was almost no questioning of the wisdom of the voice from the moon, only acceptance and enthusiasm that swept aside all hesitation.
Within hours the leading governments of Earth had pooled their resources in one gigantic effort. The officers of Carlin Industries accepted the message as a command from the owner and all personnel who had had anything to do with construction of the first spaceship were assigned to supervisory and coordinating positions.
Fifteen spaceships were to be built at top speed, and each was to carry to the moon as much excess fuel as it could lift. There all fuel would be transferred to one ship, which would return with a supply of living moon-lice.
Thousands of welders were at work on the plates of a huge, hermetically sealed laboratory building, while an army of machinists prepared the vacuum pumps and huge refrigerating machines that would reproduce lunar conditions for the alien creatures, and special laboratory equipment was being assembled.
But George Carlin knew little of all this.