The Thing's anatomy and assimilation process

The two intertwined dogs were no prettier the second time around then they'd been the first. Cold radiated from them. They'd been kept in the lab freezer until only a few minutes ago. Despite the cold and Blair's treatments they were already beginning to smell.

"Whatever that Norwegian dog was, it . . . it was capable of duplicating itself," Blair told them solemnly. "Not to mention changing its form. Our visitor," and he pointed at the larger mass resting on the left side of the table, "wasn't a dog anymore.

"When it attacked our animal, whatever had taken possession of it began to try and link up." He indicated the tendon-like structures wrapped tightly around both corpses. "I believe those structures to be part of the duplicating takeover process.

"When I speak of 'taking possession' of another dog I mean in the biological sense. Technically, there's nothing mysterious or supernatural about the process. The methodology is purely mechanical.

"We can only theorize at this point as to the details. I don't have nearly the facilities to do more than that. What I believe happens during the takeover process is that the original thing injects a certain quantity of its own DNA into the cells of the animal it wishes to control." He held up a gooey dog leg that had been part of the Norwegian animal

"For instance, this isn't dog at all. It looks like dog, but the cell structure bears no resemblance to normal canine cellular architecture. The cell walls, as in the original creature," and he waved with the leg, a gruesome baton, "are incredibly flexible. Controlled by the patterns in the DNA, they can conform to any pattern the creature wishes, provided it can obtain a DNA 'blueprint' to copy. In this case, dog DNA. Get me a good electron miscroscope and in a few hours I won't be guessing at that, I'll be proving it.

"The critical requirement is DNA to copy. Apparently the thing's incapable of duplicating a living creature out of nothing. It needs the control information contained in a subject's nuclear material to merge with. Fortunately, we got to it before it had time to finish."

"Finish what?" Nauls muttered.

Blair indicated the remains of the camp's sled dog. "Finish taking control of our animal." His hand rested on the furry skull. "The merging activity which occurs among the cells of the brain is particularly rapid and insidious. Like I said, I don't really have the right equipment here for this kind of work, but from what I've seen so far, brain tissue from that animal," and he indicated the bloated corpse of the Norwegian dog, "contains some of the damnedest synaptic connections any biologist ever imagined. Combinations and linkages that haven't got shit to do with canine evolution. "So you see, in addition to taking control of existing cell structures and patterns, the original creature is also able to create new ones to its own requirements."

Copper frowned down at the table. "A body is only designed to support so much cellular material. If the invasion by this creature creates new matter in addition to taking over existing structures, how does the body's life support system cope with the extra load?"

Blair's voice remained even, tutorial. "As you say, the body is only designed to keep so much organic material alive and functioning. Portions of this dog's brain, for example, have been blocked off by new structures. The flow of oxygenated blood has been redirected."

"In other words," Copper said quietly, "part of its brain has been turned off?"

Blair nodded. "Certain cerebral regions were dead before this animal died, having been supplanted in importance by new activity elsewhere."

"What regions were kill . . . were turned off?"

"Difficult to say. There was massive parasitic invasion. Some of those which control portions of the memory, intelligence, and in particular individuality. Hard to tell with a dog, of course, be it dead or alive." He turned his gaze back to the interlocked bodies.

"I think the whole process would have taken about an hour. Maybe more. I've no way of knowing for certain, of course. There's nothing comparable in the literature. I'm extrapolating as best I can from what little we've been able to find out."

"And when that hour was up?" Garry asked pointedly.

The biologist looked over at him. "The conduits supplying connective material . . . these tendon things . . . would vanish and you'd have two normal-looking dogs again. Only they wouldn't be normal anymore, and they'd be dogs only in appearance."

"I'll buy that," agreed Palmer fervently. "That thing in the ice the Norwegians dug up sure weren't no dog."

"Of course not." Blair tried to control his impatience. These men are not scientists, he reminded himself, except for Bennings, Norris, and Fuchs. "If nothing else, the size of the missing portion of the excavated ice block points to a much larger creature.

"How much larger we've no way of knowing. As I've said, the altered cell structure is remarkably flexible. It's capable of a good deal of expansion or contraction."

"What do you think happened?" Garry asked him.

The biologist considered the question carefully. "Whenever the original thing was thawed out, revived . . . well, it was certainly disoriented. If its memory was intact, it must have realized it couldn't survive for long in our atmosphere in its orginal state. Being the incredibly adaptive creature that it is, it tried to become something that could" Once again he indicated the recumbent mass on the table.

"Before the Norwegians killed it, it somehow got to this dog."

"What do you mean, 'got' to the dog?" Clark asked.

Blair tried to be patient. "I've tried to make this simple. That may be impossible. This thing was a life form that was able to take control of any creature it got a hold of, cell for cell, neuron for neuron. The concept is staggering. The closest terrestrial analog I can think of is the lichen, which is not really an individual creature but an association of two very different kinds of life, algae and fungi.

"But this is much more complex and complete, and it's certainly not in the least symbiotic. The invading thing acts like a true parasite, taking complete control of the host for its own advantage. There's no mutual assistance, insofar as I've been able to determine. I . . . I don't pretend to completely understand all the ramifications myself."

"You're saying," Childs broke in, pointing skeptically at the Norwegian intruder on the table, "that big mother in the ice those guys chipped out became that dog?"

Blair nodded. "And there was no reason for it to stop there. As we can see here, it tried to take control of one of our dogs as well. I don't see what its limits would be. It could have become as many dogs as it wanted to, without surrendering control of its original host body. It doesn't take much organic material to alter DNA, though I'm not sure about the other largescale changes. "One cell is enough. The DNA pattern of the new host is irrevocably altered. And so on and so on, each animal it takes over becoming a duplicate of the original thing."

"You been into Childs's weed, Blair?" Norris muttered.

Blair's fist slammed onto the table. "Look, I know it's hard to accept! I know it's difficult to picture an enemy you can't see. But if that stuff gets into your system, in about an hour—"

"It takes you over," Fuchs finished for him.

"It's more than that, more than you becoming a part of it. The 'you' is gone, wiped out, shunted aside permanently by a new set of cellular instructions. It retains only what it needs of the original, the way it used the memory patterns of the Norwegian dog to make certain it acted in a recognizably doglike manner."

"It licked my hand," Norris murmured, "as it was being chased by those guys in the helicopter. It came right up to me and licked my hand and whined for help."

Blair nodded. "Sure it did. It keeps anything useful. This organism is highly efficient, not wasteful. And it's clever. Much too clever for my liking."

"So what's the problem?" Garry wanted to know. He indicated the two bodies lying unthreateningly on the table. "The torch crisped it pretty good."

The biologist turned to stare down at the canine forms. "There's still some cell activity. Clinically speaking, it's nor entirely dead yet . . ."

Clark jumped backward and stumbled over a waste can. The reaction from the rest of the men was similar if not as extreme.

"Take it easy," Blair told them, hiding the glimmerings of a smile.

"You said one cell was enough to take control," Norris murmured, his  eyes on the suddenly malignant corpses.

"To imprint a pattern, yes," Blair admitted, "but not to initiate the takeover procedure. That requires a much greater quantity of protoplasmic material. The tendon structures which seem so important to the process, for one thing. They're composed of millions of cells." But the men shuffled uneasily, still uncertain, still fearful.