Edna Mayne Hull (também conhecida como Sra. A. E. van Vogt), "O Paciente".
O conto era parte de uma antologia.
A página de bibliografia do ISFDB para essa história tem uma lista de antologias e coleções nas quais apareceu.
Uma clínica de câncer perto de uma zona de guerra
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.
recebe um famoso paciente com câncer que eles tentam curar.
"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--"
No final, eles encontram uma cura, mas o paciente com câncer revela que ele não quer ser curado. Em vez disso, ele quer destruir qualquer cura, pois ele não é nada além de um tumor em forma humana. Segundo ele, o câncer é a próxima fase da evolução humana.
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."
Ele se transforma em uma bomba
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.
e explode a clínica (o melhor para esconder a evidência na zona de guerra),
The world ended in a shattering violence of explosion.
reformas em sua forma original e se afasta.
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.