| In the early 1980s, I read a science fiction story and I want to find it again. It was about the world after a space-borne disease changes humanity. The disease is transmitted by touch, and the infected feel a compulsion to touch the uninfected, getting an almost sexual release when passing the organism.
It follows a man who believes (like the rest of the uninfected world) that the infected are driven mad, but mostly are recognizable by a change of skin color to an ash grey.
By the second page, he rescues a young infected woman who was about to be dumped into a lye pit by a mob of uninfected. He travels with her to a monestary of infected monks, where he meets a scientist who is trying to study the illness.
The scientist tells him that it's not really a disease, but a symbiotic gift from beings outside the solar system. Our hero learns that it came to earth as a meteor and was found by a machinist who ignored the layers of warning and cut directly through to the core. Inside, he found a jelly-like substance. He fed it to his cat, which promptly ran away, then tasted it himself, thus becoming the first infected.
The scientist tells our hero that the symbiot gives people new senses, and children born to infected parents have improvements they are only beginning to understand.
The man eventually accepts the gift of the "disease" and stays with the woman.
So, does this ring any bells with anyone on the list? Author, title? Thanks. |