The Bladerunner

by Alan E Nourse

  As usual, he was early, and as usual, he saw three or four other bladerunners enter the the lobby, taking seats or stopping at one of the shopping stalls. They saw him, but by common code there was no acknowledgment other than the slightest narrowing of eyes or lowering of eyelids. Certainly it appeared that the screening sweeps were not interfering much with business, yet Billy felt himself growing more and more nervous as he waited. Then, with a sigh of relief he saw a tall, gray-haired man step from the elevator with a crowd of people and make his way across the lobby toward the door. As the man passed the magazine stand Billy fell in a few discreet paces behind him.

  At the door Doc stopped and frowned at the still-growing crowd of demonstrators. As he pushed past the guards, a large man with a fearsome half-shaved beard and dark, angry eyes suddenly moved into his path. “Here’s a doctor!” the man shouted. “Walking out with his bloody hands! I’ve seen him here before — ”

  Others near the man turned and began converging on Doc. A middle-aged woman with a placard thrust her face up into Doc’s. “Going on an errand of mercy tonight, Doctor?” she screamed. “Or do you just do your dirty work for the government?” Doc tried to push his way past the woman, but the big man moved to box him in, forcing him to a standstill.

  “How does it feel to have blood on your hands, Doctor?” the man shouted. “What work have you been doing today in that Palace of Blood and Death? No, don’t try to run away, these people here want answers!”

  Billy moved, shouldering through the crowd of placard-wavers. At the same time a blue-uniformed Health Control guard pushed his way up to Doc’s side, night stick at ready. “All right, that’s enough!” the guard shouted. “Move on, you people, out of the way there!”

  The man with the half beard turned his attention from Doc to the guard, and a long curving knife appeared from beneath his robe. Doc turned aside, pushing away through the crowd. His eyes caught Billy’s, and Billy fell in ahead of him, running interference with surprising agility. A scream went up behind them as a ground-cab inched past. Billy whistled it down, then stepped aside as Doc opened the door and plunged in. The door slammed and the cab moved off as Billy turned his attention to the street again, still clutching the blue flight bag under his arm. Somewhere in the distance a siren was howling now, and a police copter appeared from the north and came down to hover over the demonstration that was fast turning into a riot. Billy turned and ran in the opposite direction, away from the growing crowd. A block away he came to a thoroughfare and finally flagged down a passing ground-cab. He gave a nearby address and then settled back with a sigh. That had been close, altogether too close. He had seen plenty of Naturist demonstrations before, but never one quite so close to violence. And with Doc caught right in the middle, it could have turned into a disaster.

  Ten minutes later the cab drew up to a corner coffee shop. Billy paid his fare, and walked inside. To the rear, in a booth, he spotted Doc and went to join him. Doc still looked shaken. “Boy, I was glad to see you,” he said.

  “That was an ugly crowd,” Billy breathed.

  “They’re getting worse every day, but that was the first time they ever nailed me as a doctor.”

  “Yes, how did that happen?”

  “I don’t know. Probably just chance; I’m coming out there about the same time every night. Or maybe they’re beginning to single out individual doctors to harass. There’s no telling what the Naturists will do next. Some of their people are real fanatics.”

  “You’re telling me! That big guy had a knife.”

  “A lot of them do. They say it’s part of their religion to go armed, and I guess it’s legal as long as they keep them out of sight.”

  “Religion!” Billy said scornfully. “How can they call themselves a religion?”

  Doc sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Some of them are just rabble-rousers, but others are in real earnest They claim that medical care is thwarting the will of God, working against nature, and they want all health care completely banned, whether people qualify for it under the Eugenics Laws or not. Above all, they want the qualification provisions thrown out.”

  “You mean the mandatory sterilization requirements?”

  “Exactly. And that’s where they get a lot of their support. Lots more people than just the Naturists are balking at the sterilization laws these days.” Doc smiled wearily. “As we well know. You all set for tonight?”

  Billy pointed to the bulging flight bag. “I got everything Molly told me to. Where is she, by the way?”

  “She was called back on duty for a late case, a gall bladder or something. They were just closing up when I left, so she’ll be along pretty soon. Meanwhile, I’m starved.”

  Doc picked up a menu card, punched it for a steak and coffee and dropped it down the slot Two minutes later he opened the service unit to take out the freshly delivered order. For a few moments he ate in silence. Then he said, “Okay, now tell me about this bug.”

  “Better have some privacy first,” Billy cautioned.

  “You’re really nervous, huh?” Doc fished out a coin and dropped it into a slot to activate the booth’s electronic muffler. Immediately the blaring juke-box noise died to a whisper and the rattling of dishes and other sounds around them vanished. “Now, then,” Doc said.

  Billy told him about his discovery of the bug, his call to Molly and his talk with Parrot. Doc listened to the story intently, nodding once or twice but saying nothing. “Anyway, I was in a bind about contacting you,” Billy finished. “Until I knew for sure what was going on I didn’t dare try to make a direct contact, so I called Molly instead.”

  Doc nodded. “That was fine, under the circumstances. She got word to me right away. But that’s not going to help us tomorrow or the next day if that bug stays there.”

  “Well, why do you think it’s there?” Billy demanded.

  Doc chewed his lip. “I wish I knew. Of course, it could be a random screening sweep, but that seems pretty doubtful to me. I’ve seen how these Health Control snoopers work, and they don’t do much of anything without a solid reason behind it. If they’re watching you all of a sudden, that means they’ve got a toe in the door of our operation, somehow, whatever may have tipped them off. If there’s a new policy of increased screening sweeps, there must be some reason for that, too, and if they’re doing it without making arrests, then it isn’t by accident, it’s by intent, whatever the purpose may be. But I wonder if maybe we’re looking too far afield.”

  Billy looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I could be the one that’s tipped them off to something funny. I’ve been monitored on every one of my Hospital cases this week and most of last week too. All of a sudden they’re watching what I’m doing there very, very closely — and I’m not sure why.”

  “Have you been having trouble with your cases?” Billy asked.

  Doc looked at him. “Trouble? No … not exactly. I’ve been doing more or less routine transplants, and I have a better record on them than anybody else at Number Seven Hospital. But lately I’ve also had to take some risks. It’s the only way I can figure to outfox the pantograph and computers, and a couple of times lately I’ve had some narrow squeaks as a result.” Doc chuckled. “It’s hard enough to do heart surgery at all, without deliberately trying to do things the wrong way. And I’m afraid the monitors are getting suspicious at the number of things I seem to be doing wrong.”

  Billy whistled. “Doc, you’re going to start having bodies in the laboratory if you don’t watch out. Can’t you just settle for doing midnight cases and let the Clinic work slide off your back?

  “Not as long as the Hospital has a neuropantograph picking my brain during surgery, I can’t,” Doc said fiercely. “Doing the work is one thing; being forced to teach a robot to do it is something else. Look, don’t get confused, I’m not letting anything bad happen to my patients. I couldn’t do that, pantograph or no pantograph. It’s just that the computer has to count on cons
istencies in order to program a robot, and I’m throwing in as many inconsistencies as I can, without doing the patient any harm. Sometimes I just take longer with a procedure than necessary, or I reverse the order of certain steps, or leave certain steps out, or do things slightly differently from one case to the next — anything so that the computer can’t pin down a coherent, consistent pattern of action. I make random mistakes — never bad mistakes, just little ones — and then I use randomly chosen remedies, never the same remedy for the same mistake twice in a row. All so that the computer can’t program a robot to do a safe transplant procedure by learning from me how it’s done. Aha, here’s Molly.”

  A tall, dark-haired girl had come into the coffee shop and was making her way back to their booth. Although she wore no cap, the dark blue cape with the red satin lining and the traditional white uniform marked her as a registered nurse. Her blue eyes were wide with concern as she slipped into the booth facing Doc and Billy. “Oh, I’m glad you got away when you did,” she said breathlessly. “I had to leave by the parking garage, and even then it took forever to get through the police cordon — ”

  “Police cordon!” Billy said. “What happened after we left?”

  “Those Naturists outside the Hospital — somebody pulled a knife and it turned into a full-blown riot. Night sticks, tear gas, half a dozen police copters herding bystanders away. The demonstrators broke through into the lobby and were trying to occupy the business office before the police finally got them out; they must have arrested a dozen of them. Three patients and one doctor injured, according to one report. If anything like this happens again, I’m afraid there’s really going to be trouble.”

  “It’ll happen again,” Doc said somberly. “Basically the Naturists are a violent group, and when certain ones of them say ‘Destroy the Hospital’ they mean literally take it down, brick by brick.” The older man shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s Health Control’s problem. We’ve got problems of our own. Billy has the packs, right?”

  “Two T&A packs.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  Once outside the coffee shop, they caught a ground-cab to the heli-cab station a few blocks north. The place was crowded with early-evening travelers, and the small interurban helicopters were landing and taking off in rapid sequence like bees around a hive. Doc dialed for an auto-pilot model, and they joined the line waiting at the designated landing pad. Doc stood first on one foot and then the other, impatient and irritable, while Billy clutched the flight bag with the surgical packs tightly under his arm. Only Molly Barret appeared calm and unruffled as they waited. Doc kept peering critically at Billy over his glasses. Finally he said, “When did you scrub your hands last?”

  “This afternoon when I woke up,” Billy said.

  “Nails and all? Looks to me like you’ve been shoveling coal,” Doc said.

  Billy looked at his hands, which were anything but clean. “Well, I can’t help it if they get dirty. I scrubbed them.”

  “How long?”

  “Maybe five, ten minutes.”

  “I thought I told you twice a day for fifteen minutes at a time,” Doc said. “What would you do if you had to step in and help me in an emergency?” Billy spread his hands helplessly. “Well, you might have to any time,” Doc said testily. “When I tell you I want you surgically scrubbed, I mean surgically scrubbed. How about cap and mask? Did you bring them for yourself?”

  “You didn’t tell me to bring them,” Billy said.

  “Didn’t tell you! Do I have to tell you every single time?”

  “Well, I just forgot.”

  “Oh, great. I wonder what else you forgot.”

  Molly interrupted. “It’s about our turn,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you remind him about a cap and mask?” Doc asked her.

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “You shouldn’t have to, but if this idiot can’t remember fundamentals like scrubbing his hands and bringing cap and mask, somebody has to remind him.”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Molly said defensively. “You’d forget things too if you woke up and found a bug in your room. He’s just had a bad day, is all. And it’s too late to worry about it now. That’s our cab coming in.”

  Moments later the little heli-cab landed on the pad and discharged passengers. Doc, Billy, and the nurse climbed aboard. The rotor continued idling until Doc had address-coded their destination into the miniature computer console; there was a series of clicks as the computer searched all the legal heli-cab channels between the pad and the designated destination and locked in on a flight plan. Then the little cab lifted slowly into the air, circled twice awaiting electronic clearance for entering the traffic channels, and then began moving south and west, steadily gaining altitude.

  They were airborne for ten minutes before anyone spoke. Doc kept peering at the 360-degree radar scan pattern on the cab’s console, double-checking that no one was following them. Billy sat hunched and tense, nervous as always when he was farther than jumping distance from solid ground. “Is the anesthetist going to meet us there?” he asked finally.

  “Nope, not tonight.”

  “You mean Trautman refused to come?”

  “He wasn’t asked,” Doc said. “He’s been drunk the last three times, and I decided that was enough. I can’t afford to take that kind of risk.”

  “Well, what are you going to do for anesthesia? I got the ether, like you asked.”

  “Fine,” Doc aid. “I think we’ll let you give it, too.”

  Billy stared at the surgeon. “Me give it! I don’t know how to give anesthesia.”

  “Then it’s time you learned,” Doc said. “You’ve certainly watched Trautman often enough. You know the reflexes to check, and I can coach you, just as long as I don’t have to fool with the ether mask while I’m working.”

  “Why not have Molly do it?”

  “She’s got to be scrubbed in and helping me, right Molly?”

  The girl nodded. “But Billy, this is a great chance for you,” she said. “If you could learn to replace Trautman, you could be a real part of the operating team — couldn’t he, Doc? There aren’t many bladerunners who even get to observe, much less help. And you’re certainly smart enough to learn.”

  Billy stirred uneasily and scratched his nose. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe for an extra hundred — ”

  “No dice,” Doc said. “No extra pay while you’re learning. You need the experience.”

  Billy looked at him. “Don’t give me that, Doc. You need somebody to give anesthesia, that’s the truth of it.”

  “Oh, honestly!” Molly broke in. “It’s more for your own good than anything, Billy. You get a chance like this and you sit and bicker about money! What’s wrong with you, anyway?”

  “Well, I’ve got to make a living, too,” Billy said unhappily.

  “You’re making a handsome living just running packs, and you know it,” Molly said. “Good lord! I don’t get paid at all, and Doc barely breaks even on these cases as it is. You have to hang around until the instruments are ready to go back anyway. Why shouldn’t you make yourself useful?”

  “But he pays Trautman three hundred — ”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Doc said. “Trautman is an M.D. anesthetist, and you’re just a bladerunner. Now you can take it or leave it: help out in return for learning, or don’t help out and we’ll pack up and go home. On my patients you learn on your own time.”

  Billy was silent for a long moment, staring out at the city lights passing below. Then, slowly, he said, “Okay, I’ll do it — tonight. But when are you going to pay me extra?”

  “About the time I pick you over Trautman by choice,” Doc said sourly.

  “You’re a real prince,” Billy said. He settled into a sullen silence, staring out as the helicopter moved on through the night. Minutes passed, and Doc leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Then Billy said, “Doc?”

  “Yes?”
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br />   “When are you going to fix my foot, Doc?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Doc said. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m no bone surgeon?”

  “You’re not a throat surgeon, either, but you’re doing T&As.”

  “Well, fixing a crippled foot is a different matter.”

  “But Doc, you promised. Way back when I first started with you, you said you’d arrange it. Molly remembers, don’t you, Moll? You said you’d get somebody to fix it for me.”

  “Okay, fine, so I promised. And I will, too, when I can find the right man and the circumstances are right. Right now I’m so loaded with work I can’t think straight, with all these underground patients, and fixing your foot would throw you out of it for weeks.”

  “But, Doc, it’s my foot, not just some underground patient’s. And the longer I wait the tougher the surgery will be, that’s what all the books say.”

  “Well, maybe so and maybe not.” Doc sighed. “I just don’t know enough about it, you need an expert bone surgeon to tell you.” He was silent for a moment. “Look, I’ll try to get it arranged, okay? The first chance I get.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Billy persisted.

  “Well, we’ll talk about it later. Maybe we can get something rolling. Right now we’re about to land, it looks like.”