Ole Doc Methuselah: The Intergalactic Adventures of the Soldier of Light
Page 23
He was nearly back to the bungalow, with one of the guards tagging him, when Smalley screamed. Ole Doc went back.
“What’s the matter?” he asked solicitously.
“I’m poisoned!” screamed Smalley, sagging down and clawing at his helmet. His face was already turning red, his hands were covered with blotches.
“Well, before you pass out,” said Ole Doc, “you’d better tell your guards that I’ll have to treat you so they won’t think I’m killing you and shoot me out of enthusiasm for their commander.”
“Don’t shoot him! Don’t shoot him whatever he does!” screamed Smalley.
The guards stood well back, eight of them. It made them very nervous when Ole Doc had Hippocrates pass up a hypo gun and a syringe. It made them more nervous when Ole Doc started to ram Smalley’s spine and brain with that long, glittering point.
The first gun cured the blotches, the last gun put Smalley to sleep. And then Ole Doc went on into the bungalow to get himself some food and a little rest.
The following many hours were hectic indeed, for it was enough to simply treat thirty-eight thousand kids suffering from skin allergy without the other labors. And to complicate things, members of the hostile ship kept coming down with it, one by one. A scribbled message from Smalley’s fourth successor, for instance, finally carried it back to the ship itself. And when the crew tried to bring up the ailing members for treatment, they came down.
Shoot with a hypo gun to cure the blotches. Shoot seven times with seven different things in seven different places for each patient. Shoot again to put them into a few hours’ slumber.
Ole Doc didn’t sleep. He kept himself going on multithyroid, which Hippocrates said was very bad for him indeed. But O’Hara keeled over in nervous and physical exhaustion before they had reached the ten thousandth case. They put him under the influence of the second hypo gun and left him in his own lion pen to snooze it off.
And Hippocrates and Ole Doc went on.
It takes a long while to handle thirty-eight thousand babies and one hundred and ten crewmen, much less treat them. But within three days they were done.
Ole Doc stood up and looked at the still-snoring acres of babies. And at the rows of sleeping crewmen. And at the five who, nervously aloof, still covered the gate with powerful weapons and barred any escape.
Ole Doc pondered giving them something. But he was too tired to take off. He went into the bungalow and stretched out and soon was sleeping the sleep of the innocent and just.
Eighteen hours later, fully refreshed, he rose and washed his face. He looked out of the window at the vigilant guards and sighed.
“Hippocrates, go gather up our gear.”
“We leaving?”
“On the double,” said Ole Doc.
With a swish and a swoosh the little being collected their scattered equipment into a portable pile.
“Now go gather up O’Hara and bring him along,” said Ole Doc.
Hippocrates swept off to get the chief of the experimental station and came back lugging him with ease. Then he took up the mountain of heavy equipment in his other two hands and with O’Hara’s heels trailing in the dust, tagged after Ole Doc, who walked, buckling on his blasters.
The five at the gate were wary. They had been on the post, in the two enfilading towers, when all the illness began and they weren’t going to tolerate anything now. But they were apprehensive because they could not be sure that their leader and other people would wake up.
“Stop or we shoot!” barked their squad leader.
Ole Doc negligently fingered his first cloak button. It hummed a little. He kept on walking.
“Stop!” cried the squad leader. “Stop and go back until I’m sure they’re going to recover or we’ll kill you!”
Ole Doc stopped. He looked sadly at the five on the wall above him. And then he suddenly dived to the right and drew in a blur which flamed before it could be seen. He fired rapidly.
Three shots came at him. Three shots ricocheted off his portable force screen. Five guards went down in charred heaps where the ashes lay amid glowing bits of metal.
Ole Doc looked alertly across the savannah, glanced back to make sure the screen had protected Hippocrates and then struck off for the Morgue.
There was no guard there now since that guard had been changed from the ship. Ole Doc swung in, indicated a couch where O’Hara was to be tossed and walked through the vessel to check her for ascent. But she had not been harmed and in a few minutes he could sink with confidence behind his controls and buckle his belts.
He rang for takeoff and got Hippocrates’ cheery okay back. And then the Morgue hurtled upwards to an altitude of three miles.
It looked so peaceful down below. The dark green of the jungle bounding the silver of the lakes was pretty to his appreciative eye. And then he dived and put five big, solid charges into the battle cruiser and left her a curling, smoking mass of wreckage. And he dived again at another place to the south and slammed two shots into a mountainous stockpile of structural materials and munitions and saw how prettily their black smoke rose, interspersed red with exploding shells.
That gave him a great deal of satisfaction.
He skipped upwards then through the atmosphere and out into the black comfort of absolute zero and set his course and speed for home.
“Calling Center,” he said into his mike. “Calling Center. Methuselah. Methuselah. Calling Center—”
“Come in! Hey! Come in!” said Center, a tenth of a galaxy away.
“Methuselah with a report.”
“Methuselah is enough!” said Ole Doc Cautery at Center. “We have had five navies and the marines looking for you for months. We’ve had six empires scared ’til they can’t spit. WHERE have you been?”
“Got a report,” said Ole Doc. “Turn this on confidential.”
“Circuits on. Begin report.”
Ole Doc spoke into the five-wave scramble which had defied cryptographers since the UMS had adopted it two hundred years before. “Alien extragalactic race attempted foothold for jump-off attacks on Earth. First independent space flight originators met so far. Stature about three-quarters Earth normal. Carbon people. Almost a duplicate of man but missing several tissues essential of emotional balance including one brain cord intimately related to kindness, worry and judgment. Established depot of supplies but unable to transport workmen and soldiers in quantity and so made use of Department of Agriculture Experimental Station vats on Gorgon, wrecking freighter and substituting its phials. Very sentient. Obviously well-informed intelligence at work in this galaxy. Leaders conditioned to enterprise and spoke English. Detectable by uncommon strength. Life period very short, reaching maturity at about six years of age due to emotional imbalances and early development of gonads and so easy to detect in society by rapid aging.
“Treatment and handling of case: Developed the formulae of their gene patterns and isolated missing development cells. Synthesized cells and injected them into proper areas where they will harmonize with bodies. They succumb easily to a strawberry allergy and are painfully affected by it. All beings so located and all artificial gestations infected so that they could be treated. All treated and left in a stupor except five who could not be reached with strawberries.
“Recommendations: That you get hold of the Department of Agriculture of the United States as soon as possible and inform them as follows: Their vessel Wanderho destroyed. Their station on Gorgon deserted but undamaged; the Achnoids there were bought by the aliens and are no longer to be trusted; inform them that the Gorgon Station is now inhabited by about thirty-eight thousand aliens converted to human beings and that a relief expedition should be sent to take care of them, since they will none of them be found over twelve years of age and the bulk of them a human five or six months, needing care. Expedition should be armed but should also contain several dozen expert nurses. Gorgon can now be considered to be humanly populated.
“Proceeding at normal speed to base to refit. Please h
ave somebody air out my quarters, preferably Miss Ellison. That is all.”
As he threw the switch he heard a gasp behind him. “That’s all!” said O’Hara. “You convert thirty-eight thousand one hundred and some-odd extragalactic invaders to human beings and you say ‘That’s all’! Man, I’ve heard legends about the Soldiers of Light, but I never realized what super boys you fellows really are.”
Ole Doc gave him a very bored look and then and thereafter ignored him.
“Hippocrates,” said Ole Doc, “we’re almost home. Let’s open those last two bottles of wine.”
Glossary
The words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s add a unique flavor and authenticity to this tale. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.
abattoir: slaughterhouse; a facility where farm animals are killed and processed into meat products. Used figuratively. → to text
Algol System: a three-star system in the constellation Perseus located in the northern hemisphere, approximately 92.8 light-years from Earth. The brightest star, Algol, known as the “Demon Star,” has also been called the “Blinking Demon” due to the fact that every 68.75 hours its light dims rather suddenly for several hours before returning just as quickly to its former brightness, a change that can be seen with the naked eye. This phenomena is caused when Algol is eclipsed by the dimmer secondary star (Algol B) as it passes in front of the brighter star once per orbit; thus the light reaching Earth is temporarily decreased. → to text
Alpha Centauri: the triple-star system that is closest to the Earth. → to text
Apocalypse: the final destruction of the world as described in the biblical Book of Revelation (the last book in the New Testament). The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are personified as plague, war, famine and death, sent as harbingers of the end of the world. → to text
asepsis: the state of being free of disease-carrying organisms. → to text
avec: (French) with. → to text
backwash: isolated, secluded or backward. → to text
Benadryl: a medication used to treat allergies. → to text
Beta: the fifth brightest star in Ursa Major and also one of the “Pointers” that leads the way to Polaris, the North Star. It is located seventy-nine light years from Earth. → to text
blue-sky: having dubious value; not financially sound. → to text
Boccaccio: Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), Italian poet and writer whose classic work, the Decameron (1348–1353), is a collection of 100 tales set against the melancholic background of the Black Death. The Decameron, which means “ten days,” is a fictional account of ten young people who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a country manor, and begin telling stories to keep themselves occupied and diverted from the tragedy they have fled. Ten days pass and each refugee tells one story, every day, making a total of 100 different tales. The stories explore a wide range of moral, social and political issues with candor and wit. → to text
bos’n: bosun; a ship’s officer in charge of the supervision and maintenance of the ship and its equipment. → to text
bucko: a person who is domineering and bullying. → to text
buncombe: hogwash, especially ludicrously false statements; bunk. The term arose in 1820 during a debate in Congress from the Representative of Buncombe County, North Carolina who gave a long rambling speech with little relevance to the current debate and refused to yield the floor. He informed his colleagues that his speech was not intended for Congress, and confessed that it was only made because his electors expected it, and that he was “speaking for Buncombe.”→ to text
calcine: to reduce or dry (a substance) by roasting or strong heat. → to text
centrifuge: a machine that separates substances of different densities by rotating the sample at very high speed. → to text
chandlery: commodities sold by a retailer who deals in specified goods or equipment. → to text
chief warrant bos’n: chief warrant officer bosun. The bosun in charge of the deck crew holding the rank of chief warrant officer. The bosun uses a pipe (whistle-like device) to communicate orders via different arrangements of notes. The pipe is used during ceremonial honors when officers or officials board or leave a ship. → to text
colloid: colloid cancer; a cancer characterized by excessive production of mucus-producing cancer cells. → to text
comptometer: a type of mechanical or electro-mechanical adding machine. Although it was designed primarily for adding, it could also do division, multiplication and subtraction. Special comptometers with varying key arrays (with from thirty to well over one hundred keys) were produced for a variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and measures of weight. In the hands of a skilled operator, the comptometer was faster to use than electronic calculators and remained in use into the 1990s. The name is apparently from a blend of “compute” and “meter” meaning measure. → to text
cycle, ten-to-thirteen: range of sound vibrations measured by the number of cycles of a (sound) wave per second. The frequency of sounds lie in the range of 20–20,000 cycles per second and anything below 20 cycles per second cannot be heard by the ear. → to text
dynamo: a machine by which mechanical energy is changed into electrical energy; a generator. → to text
enfants terrible: (French) literally, “terrible children”; unmanageable, mischievous children. → to text
ephedrine: a drug that opens the air passages, used in the treatment of asthma. → to text
eugenicized: to produce genetic qualities or features by controlled selective breeding. → to text
fop: a foolish person. → to text
G: gravity; a unit of acceleration equal to the acceleration of gravity at the Earth’s surface. → to text
gorget: an ornamental collar. → to text
governor: a mechanism on an engine which automatically restricts the speed. → to text
Graves’ disease: a disease that causes hyperactivity of the thyroid gland, a gland that helps set the rate of metabolism. When the thyroid is too active, it makes more thyroid hormones than the body needs and can cause weight loss, rapid heart rate and nervousness leading to heart problems and death. Named for the Irish doctor Robert James Graves who described it in 1835. → to text
griffin: a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature, and a guardian of the divine. → to text
grog shop: a cheap tavern where alcoholic drinks are served. → to text
gypsum: a common white or colorless mineral used to make cements and plaster, especially plaster of Paris. → to text
gyro: gyroscope; an apparatus consisting of a rotating wheel so mounted that its axis can turn freely in certain or all directions and capable of maintaining the same absolute direction in space in spite of movements of the mountings and surrounding parts; used to maintain equilibrium, determine direction, etc. → to text
Harun al-Rashid: (766–809) fifth caliph of Baghdad (786–809). He is best remembered, however, as a central character in The Arabian Nights where he is portrayed as the epitome of the learned and just ruler. He often traveled about the city at night in disguise to learn firsthand the condition of his people. → to text
helio motor: a motor run by energy from the sun. → to text
hoist by his own petard: literally “to be blown up by one’s own bomb” or to have a situation of one’s own doing lead to one’s downfall. The line comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “For ’tis sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard. . . .” Hamlet finds his childhood comrades, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are plotting to have him killed. Hamlet
turns the plot on them by substituting their names for his in the death warrant they carry from King Claudius. He goes on to say, “But I will delve one yard below their mines / And blow them at the moon.” The mines he speaks of are land mines or petards, small explosive devices designed to blow open barricaded doors and gates, a favorite weapon in Elizabethan times. Hamlet is saying, figuratively, that he would bury his bomb beneath Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and “hoist” them, that is, “blow them at the moon.”→ to text
humpy: (British slang) annoyed. → to text
hypothyroid: affected by a deficiency in the activity of the thyroid gland, characterized by a lowered metabolic rate and general loss of vigor or sluggishness. Used humorously. → to text
jig time, in: rapidly; in no time at all. → to text
jingoist: extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. It refers to sections of the general public who advocate the use of threats of or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what they perceive as their country’s national interests. The term comes from the chorus of a song commonly sung in pubs and music halls at the turn of the twentieth century: We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too,
We’ve fought the Bear before, and while we’re Britons true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople. → to text
Johns Hopkins: Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is the first American research university and is particularly regarded for its hospital and schools of medicine. Named for Johns Hopkins who left $7 million in his will for the foundation of the university, it has the stated goal of “The encouragement of research . . . and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell.”→ to text
lingua: any hybrid language used for communication between different peoples. → to text
log table: a table of common logarithms. A logarithm of a given number to a given base is the power to which you need to raise the base in order to get the number. For example, the logarithm of 1,000 to the common base 10 is 3 (10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000). Before the invention of calculators, the only alternative to slide rules was to use tables of logarithms that showed conversions of numbers into logarithms and vice versa, saving work in laborious calculations by hand on paper. → to text