An eager-faced young Earthman noticed Ole Doc and made way for him in the circle. Ole Doc stumbled against the hydrant which studded this as well as every other lot in Junction City. These people had no home, he observed, nor lumber with which to build one. They were living instead on the bare ground using blanket screens to protect their dressing. There were several children sprawled even now outside the ring and one of them whimpered and a woman went to it.
The song was done and the young man, offering his tobacco to Ole Doc, said with a smile of camaraderie, “Where’s your lot, stranger? Close by?”
“Pretty close,” said Ole Doc.
“How many in your party?” said the young man.
“Just myself and a slave.”
A woman nearby leaned over with a laugh, “Well, a young fellow like you,” she said, “is going to need help when it comes to putting his house together. Why don’t you come and help us and then when you get ready we’ll help you?”
The young man laughed, several of the others joining in. “That’s a fair bargain,” he said. “There are fourteen of us and only two of you. That’s a pretty good ratio.”
The woman looked smilingly on Ole Doc. “We got to remember this is a new country,” she said, “and that we’re all neighbors. And that if we don’t all help each other out then we’ll never make anything of it.”
Ole Doc looked around. “I don’t see any building materials here yet,” he said.
The young man shook his head, “Not yet. We’re looking around to find a job. It took what money we had to buy our passage and get the lot you’re sitting on.”
An older man across the circle joined in. “Well, according to Captain Blanchard, that atomic power plant should be going up any day now and then we’ll all have work. If we don’t build a palace first off, why, I guess that can wait for a while. A solid roof is all I ask. This one we got now leaks.” He looked up at the stars.
They all laughed and the old man who had just spoken, finding the strain too much for him, began to cough. He did so alarmingly, as though at any moment he would spray his soul out on the ground before him. Ole Doc watched, eyes narrowed, suddenly professional. He stood up.
“You want to watch these cold nights, old man,” said Ole Doc. He fumbled through his pockets but it was Hippocrates behind him who found what he sought. The small black kit had been stowed in his boot pocket.
Ole Doc took it out now and selected from it a very small but extremely potent pill. He skirted the fire and gave it to the old man.
“Take this and you’ll feel better.”
There was some question in the eyes about him and considerable reluctance on the part of the old man. For all beware the unhappy human frailty of trying to administer to everyone else’s diseases.
“Go ahead,” said Ole Doc, “I’m a physician.”
The old man took the pill then and swallowed it.
“That ought to cure you in an hour or so,” said Ole Doc. “And if you keep yourself dry and warm, your asthma shouldn’t be coming back on you very soon.”
There was renewed attention about the circle. “Well, by Saturn,” said the old man, “I never heard of no pill that’d cure asthma in two or three hours. What kind of a doctor do you be?”
Unbidden, phonograph-recordwise, Hippocrates was only too glad to answer this question. “‘The Soldier of Light is no ordinary physician,”’ he announced in his shrill voice. “‘He is part of an organization of seven hundred who have dedicated themselves to the ultimate preservation of mankind no matter the wars or explorations of space. There are one hundred and seventy-six trillion human beings throughout this galaxy. There is roughly one physician for every hundred and sixty of these. There are only seven hundred Soldiers of Light. They give allegiance to no government, need no passport; so long as they do not engage in political activity, their persons are inviolate.
“‘An apprenticeship of one hundred years is required to become a member of this society and membership is not confirmed even then until the applicant has made an undeniably great contribution to the health and happiness of mankind. Members of the Universal Medical Society do not practice as do ordinary physicians. They accept no fee. The organization is self-supporting.’
“You see before you my master, Soldier of Light seventy-seven, known as Methuselah.”
Before Ole Doc could stop them, all the members of the circle about the fire had risen to their feet and the men had uncovered their heads. Not one person there had failed to hear of the organization and several had heard of Ole Doc Methuselah. None of them had ever before been privileged to behold a member of this awed and sacred society.
Embarrassed and a bit out of patience with his faithful slave, Ole Doc left hurriedly. He was angry within himself in the realization that it was he himself who was at fault, for he had never attempted to educate Hippocrates into intrigue. He doubted that anyone could possibly impress upon the fellow that Ole Doc could or would do anything which could not be published on every visioscreen in the galaxy. True, there had been some peccadillos in the past but this was before the time of Hippocrates. However, for all his good intentions, he could not bring himself to address the slave in friendly terms and so walked on harshly ahead of him.
Hippocrates, disconsolate, outcast the second time, dropped far behind and finally sat down on a stone beside the path to try to exude his misery into the night and so be rid of it.
By himself Ole Doc reached the ship. He was all the way into the dining salon before he fully recognized the fact that it was empty. Miss Elston was gone.
At first he thought she might have gone out to take a turn in the night but then a piece of paper, icy white on the salon table, told him this was not the case. It was in Miss Elston’s handwriting.
Please do not try to find me or come for me. I am doing this of my own accord and I have no wish to get you into trouble knowing very well that you could be cast out of your society for engaging in political affairs.
Alicia Elston
Ole Doc read it through twice, trembling. Then throwing it savagely into the corner he dashed to the cabinet where he had enclosed Dart. That worthy was gone. Belatedly he bethought himself that the Martian might well have had his pocket radiophones concealed about him.
The cabinet containing Elston, being unknown, was, of course, undisturbed.
From a locker Ole Doc grabbed a blaster, fifty rounds and a medical case. Still buckling it on he ran across the field where the Morgue stood. He headed straight for the building where he had that day seen Blanchard.
Chapter Five
Blanchard’s white hands fluttered in the night gesticulating before the face of the tramp rocket-ship captain. Now they threatened, now they pleaded, now they rubbed thumb against fingers in the money sign, but whatever they did the hard-bitten old master of the spaceship remained adamant.
Dart squirmed and wriggled nervously as he regarded the odds in the form of five armed spacemen which they faced.
The captain stood sturdily on the lower step of the air lock and grimly shook his head. “No, Mr. Blanchard, I cain’t do nothing like that. I gotta yella ticket, I tell ye. I cain’t clear until it’s turned white by him that wrote it.”
“But I tell you again and again,” cried Blanchard, “that I can get a physician here in Junction City who’ll give you a white ticket that will get you through any planetary quarantine you face.”
“Naw sir, you ain’t no regular port and if there’s disease to be carried I ain’t carryin’ it. Nawthing can make me go up against a yella ticket signed by a Soldier of Light.”
Sudden intelligence shot through Blanchard’s face. His hands stiffened, clenched. “How can this be? When did it happen?”
“Just afore sundown, Mr. Blanchard. He come here and he give me the ticket and he give everybody else the same yella ticket. And while he didn’t say wot disease, and while he didn’t even say there was disease, a yella ticket from a Soldier of Light is good enough for me. I don�
�t go nowhere and I don’t take you nowhere, and there’s no use askin’ it ’cause I’d make myself and my crew an outlaw for all the rest of my days if I was to do it. There ain’t no planetary port anywhere in the galaxy that’d receive us with a yella ticket from him.”
Anger displayed the extent of Blanchard’s defeat. “I can show you there is no disease,” he cried wildly. Then, bethinking himself that a more proper frame of mind would better suit his ends, he calmed.
“How could you get rid of such a thing as a yellow ticket? Supposing the Soldier of Light himself were to be stricken by the disease? Supposing he were to die? Then what? Supposing any number of things happened? Supposing Junction City burned down? Supposing, well, you can’t stand there and tell me that you would then refuse to leave.”
“Oh, that would be different, Mr. Blanchard. But them conditions ain’t nowise appeared. While there’s a Soldier of Light alive and well and as long as I holds his yella ticket I don’t go no place. There’s no use offering bribes and there’s no use using threats. I ain’t going!”
The space door shut with a clang.
If Blanchard’s eyes had been acetylene torches they would have cut it neatly through, but they were not. He and Dart, followed by three outlaws who carried amongst them a quantity of baggage and a peculiarly noisy chest, made their way back towards the Comet Saloon.
They had not gone nearer than the outskirts of the platted town when they encountered two pioneers at one of the innumerable water hydrants which Blanchard had used as props to give stability to his swindle.
They had just drunk when one of them said, in a sour voice, “Look at that damned sky. Goin’ to rain, sure as hell.”
Blanchard glanced up. The fine brilliance of the stars was not marred by a single cloud anywhere.
“Rain, hell,” said the other pioneer, “it’ll probably hail or sleet. I never saw a worse lookin’ night!”
“My old woman,” said the first, “she’ll probably die if it turns cold. She’s doin’ awful poor.”
“And you never saw ground,” said the second, “harder to dig a grave in.”
This gloomy dissertation caused Blanchard to walk faster. The soft turf yielded, the night was fine. But there was chill in the wind which was not temperature. A lot depended upon the state of mind of these people.
Near the river he paused and let the three carriers come up. They jostled to a halt in the starlight.
“Men,” said Blanchard, “I expect there’s going to be a little trouble.”
This did not amaze the three or bother them. They had been spawned in trouble. Their mental reaction was that Blanchard could be shaken down for a little more now. Not so Dart. He shifted his mask uneasily and mopped behind it with a silk cloth and squirmed. He felt rivulets of perspiration running inside his mailed jacket and yet he was chilly.
“Dart and I,” said Blanchard, “have a task to perform, after which we will get our white ticket for the captain back there. The three of you leave your baggage at this point and go to the saloon. We will join you.”
“What’ll we do with this chest?” said one. He looked at the river.
There were muffled beatings coming from within it now. It was true that someone might come near it and investigate.
Blanchard waved a careless hand. “Make sure she’s silent and then throw her in. Things are too complicated now for any part of that.” He motioned to Dart and went on.
The three opened the chest and stood for a moment looking down at Alicia Elston.
Dart felt the chill deepening into his brittle bones as he slithered after his master. He looked out at the stars which winked and glared and saw, suddenly, that all this immensity was small indeed. Hardly a livable planet in this galaxy remained where a Soldier of Light had not trod. A thin, luminous wheel faintly beckoned—but it was difficult to get passage on an intergalactic ship. Passports, money, time. And a man with a slave passport such as his would not get far. The very stars seemed to be crowding down against him, pressing into his skull. He clawed suddenly at his mask for his breath was quick, and the abrupt flood of oxygen into his lungs made his pointed ears shrink and ring and the path before him blurred.
Blanchard cursed him as he stumbled and would have said more except for the hum of voices, hive-like, which came from the main section of the town. Uncertainly, Blanchard paused. He hesitated for some time at the edge of the field where stood the Morgue, rubbing his sweating palm against the butt of his blaster. The hum increased and there were angry shouts.
Pointing at the crude landing tower beside them, Blanchard ordered Dart up, watching his slave intently.
From the top, Dart viewed the town square and held on hard.
“Well?” yelled Blanchard.
“It’s a big mob!” Dart shouted back. There was hysteria in his voice. “That Soldier is up there on a platform talking to them! He’s got a portable speaker but I can’t hear—”
A renewed and savage howl came from the town, blotting Dart’s words. Blanchard started across the field to the Morgue.
He scouted the big ship for a moment and then boldly, with past familiarity, wrenched open the port and went into the main control section. His eyes scorched over the walls until they found the long-range weapon rack. He wrenched a missile thrower from its clamps and fitted its telescopic sight upon it. A moment later he was back at the landing tower and climbing.
His white fingers trembled as they gripped the hewn crossbars, for he was well aware of the crime he contemplated and all that it might involve. But his fingers did not tremble when he leveled the missile thrower and there was only bitter calculation in his eye as he gazed through the scope, into the lighted square.
Ole Doc’s image wavered in the glass and then steadied. The finder against height registered six hundred and eighty meters. The sight whined for an instant and then flashed green. As the sight opened again, the entire square leaped into the widened spotter field and the black light of the sight itself came back with all images clear and close.
There was a crash of fire against the pillar on Ole Doc’s right and he reeled. Sprays, like orange plumes, radiated down into the crowd and slammed men and women to earth. The material of the platform began to burn and at its base small green puffs bloomed where the dust was burning.
With considerable pride, glowing with the pleasure of good marksmanship, Blanchard looked long at the motionless figure of the doctor about whom fire shoots began to sprout, first from the planking and then from his clothes.
Dart’s hysterical tugging brought Blanchard away from the sight. The slave was gesturing at the river which lay on their right.
Bright starlight showed on two bodies which bobbed there, traveling evenly in the quiet current. A moment later a third crossed the light path of an enormous star. The grisly trio hovered together in an eddy as though holding a ghostly conference and then, having decided nothing, drifted casually apart and traveled on.
“To hell with it!” said Blanchard. “A drunken brawl.” And he would have gazed again at the square except that he was almost dislodged by Dart’s fleeing down the tower with such violence that even his slight weight shook it. He was screaming shrilly.
Blanchard’s nerves were grating already. His anger flashed after the running slave. It was all too clear that Dart had broken before this crime’s importance. And a broken slave . . .
Throwing the missile weapon to his hip, Blanchard shot at the running Martian. He tossed flame before the slave but Dart bolted on. Clicking the action over to automatic, Blanchard sprayed gouts of fire around and about the escaping man. But the recoil of the weapon was such that the last blast was directed more nearly at the zenith than at the runner.
Dart, however, had been hit. He was running still but his course was erratic and shortly brought him back into a pattern of fires the weapon had made. He stumbled out of this but now his clothing burned. He stopped, tore in agony at his mask. His screams were punctuated by the slaps of the tenacious
mouthpiece against his lips. He turned once more and fell heavily into a fire, sending green drops hurtling up about him. The flames flared, smoke rose and then, no longer fed, the fire guttered down and went out.
Blanchard’s hands were trembling as he reached for the crossbars to swing down from the landing tower. He was not without a sense of loss, and for a moment he was appalled at the manner he had handed death to one who, while he might have been cowardly, had at least been loyal. More than this he was shocked by his own lack of self-control, a shock which was doubled by a sickness he felt at being so far thrown out of orbit with his plans.
He reached the ground and, for a moment, hesitated. But the heaviness of his cash-lined pockets and the knowledge that so far he had triumphed gave him courage. He took a deep breath of the cold night and then, with renewed assurance, reloaded his missile weapon and looked about him.
It was not until then that an idea struck him. He crouched a little as though buffeted by the renewed yells coming from the center of town. His gaze swept across the field to the Morgue. A white ticket? What did he need of a white ticket?
He laughed in a sharp bark. There were guns on the Morgue. Ray disintegrators. And while the ship would have been bested in a battle with a major naval vessel, few transports would be so well armed. And even if the ship had no guns, one could stand her on her tail above this town and the other vessels in the port and leave not one scrap of anything to tell the systems other than that space pirates had evidently been at work.
The yells seemed louder. But without a glance back, Blanchard sprinted to the Morgue. Soldier of Light. Well, few would question the occupant of the ship and many were the dismal planets where one could jettison such as she and buy another for half the currency that would be aboard her.
It was for an instant only that Blanchard regretted the way in which he had been forced into doing things for which a man could be enslaved and sent to the hells forever. Elston had been his scapegoat. And a good one, for Elston was dead. But even then Blanchard doubted that any blame would be attached to anyone now except the inevitable space pirates to which the System Police always assigned blame for those crimes which otherwise were never solved. And in ten minutes this corner of Spico would be subject to certain chain reactions caused by either guns or tubes.
Ole Doc Methuselah Page 4
