Edna Mayne Hull (aka fru A. E. van Vogt), "patienten".
Kort historien var en del av en antologi.
ISFDB-biblioteksidan för den berättelsen har en lista över antologier och samlingar där den dök upp.
En cancerklinik nära en krigszon
London, Aug. 23, 1943--Reports reaching this capital state that a universal cancer cure has been perfected at the Midland-West Coast Hospital for Cancer Patients. Since the war, this hospital has been largely converted to military purposes, but one wing is still under the charge of the brilliant cancer research scientist, Dr. Lyall Brett, who is to make a public statement shortly.
tar emot en berömd cancerpatient som de försöker bota.
"Remember my telling you of a patient who came to Carl Hamber's New York Cancer Institute last year--the fellow who'd been to every cancer institute as well as to every quack in the world? He's the perpetual cancer patient. He has an operation practically every year. They've cut cancer out of his throat, his chest, his head--and he's still alive. He's the cancer patient, known all over the world. If you can cure him--"
I slutet hittar de botemedel, men cancerpatienten avslöjar att han inte vill bli botad. Han vill istället förstöra några botemedel eftersom han är ingenting annat än en mänsklig formad tumör. Enligt honom är cancer nästa fas i mänsklig utveckling.
Brett sighed and said: "Why do you want to kill me? On the entire earth, I am probably the only man who can make you well."
The stranger shook his head. In the half-light, his eyes gleamed. "I am not a madman, Dr. Brett; and unfortunately for you, the very extent of your success makes it necessary for me to kill you. Let me ask you a question: Can you imagine a perfect physical being?"
It struck Brett sharply that if only he could keep the fellow talking . . . He said cautiously: "Universal adaptation would be a required ability for such a being. That means . . . amorphism . . . changing shape at will . . . which would require radical cell and tissue growth like--"
He stopped, his eyes wide. Before he could speak, the man Grainger said softly: "Yes, Dr. Brett, like cancer; and you would destroy the free-growth potentiality of the cell, man's hope for biological perfection, for adaptive power so complete that he can swim and fly and live in airless space, live anywhere under any conditions."
Han förvandlas till en bomb
His mind wrenched from its hopeless thought. For the man was changing. Changing. His face was transforming, shining. Abruptly, there was a glistening steel-like bomb standing upended on the floor.
och blåser upp kliniken (desto bättre att dölja bevisning i krigszonen),
The world ended in a shattering violence of explosion.
reformer till sin ursprungliga form och går av.
It took an hour for the dynamic cells of the man, in their blind will to cohesion, to come together. Slowly, in the darkness, Peter Grainger took form. He stood for a while, staring at the wreckage of the hospital wing; then he turned off into the night.