Space Service

by Andre Norton

  “Promise me you won’t go tramping around inside one of those ships,” she insisted.

  “That’s sure death; particularly if the cause of the dead lights is bacterial. That’s what killed Craig, I understand. They brought in a ship from the Mycops nucleus. The bacteria thrived on ultraviolet radiation. They were evolved in an atmosphere that was intensely ionized and extremely hot. I understand the planet is extremely rich in radium. He sterilized himself in an acid shower, covered himself with a flame blanket, but when he bivalved his suit in his quarters one of them must have still been alive. He was dead within an hour. They volatilized the ship.” He shook his head. “Nope, I can assure you I won’t go exploring into a derelict. Do I look as though I were dropped on my head as an infant?”

  She ignored his humor. “Let me talk to the Director,” she suggested tenderly. “I’m doing some work for his Bureau; maybe he’ll listen to me and give you new orders.”

  The line of his mouth grew hard and chiseled at this threat to his masculine ego. “Roberta, you’ll do no such thing. Look, I have a lot of work to do. I’ll call you before I go over to Exotic.”

  “No, don’t.” She touched the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “I’ll be here waiting for you when you return. Just return, that’s all I’m warning you. Besides,” she managed a smile, “I’ve got work to do, too.”

  “Once I get to Exotic, I can’t call you, you know.”

  “That’s better, it won’t interfere with what I’m doing. I’m trying to set up a pharmacologic formula for chitinizing the skin of the beryllium workers in the mines of Nebos. Of course it has to be reversible so they can come back to their families. Besides,” she laughed reflectively, “we should be saving our money. Just think when you come back you’ll get a year’s vacation. Let’s settle on Zercan. I hear it’s a gorgeous planet. I’ll be a housewife and cook your meals right from cans like a real twentieth-century wife and you can practice medicine. Oh! David, do be careful.”

  He cut off the phone, hating himself for the emotionalism that made the globus form in his throat; realized the trajectory of such thoughts was causing mental trauma sufficient to make him a physical coward.

  He clicked his jaws, drew up a scribe bank, dictated his will. He was removing his personal effects from the desk when Dr. Russell walked in.

  “Personnel hated to do this to you,” Russell informed him after their formal greeting, “but there was just no one else in the area with your experience who hadn’t already been there twice. You were the nearest.”

  “It’s for the public,” Dave pointed out.

  “Just don’t venture beyond the landing rooms of any dead ships chasing unclassified bacteria,” he cautioned, “and I’m sure you’ll come through. Remember, don’t risk your life for nothing.”

  Dave thought the warning was excessive. “You want to be briefed on this station?”

  “I had a similar duty on Meissner. Fill out any gaps for me.” He clicked details on his fingers. “Lunar Operations routes the ship to your station. You check the ship’s surgeon with the analyzer and if everything is all right the ship is granted pratique for Earth.”

  “If feature correlation is in excess of aging difference, check eye grounds. Some of these tramp freighters can do wonders with illegal plastic surgeons. They drag in contraband and all kinds of organisms.”

  “I’ll remember that. If the ship has a doubtful itinerary, cradle and your ground crew decontaminate the ship and its cargo and the junior medics examine the personnel. They report deviants to you for whatever action you decide.”

  “Whenever you have a doubt, send it to Exotic,” Dave insisted. The blonde-haired secretary appeared on the phone. “Exotic Disease Control on 4; can you take the call?”

  Dave flicked switches on his desk. “Munroe, Ninth Lunar Quarantine. You want me?”

  “This is Thurman, chief of ratings at Exotic, sir. I called Operations and they referred me to you. The Canaberra is here, medical officer is a Dr. Blackbern. We started the routine hull wash but he refuses to let my crew in to decontaminate the hold areas. Dr. Nissen is examining the crew now. And, sir,” Thurman appeared worried, “the Starry Maid is over us demanding that we remove some patients at once. Their doctor is most insistent.”

  “What’s the Starry Maid?”

  Russell leaned forward, blanked the phone. “That’s the private yacht of Mr. Latham Nordheimer.”

  Dave whistled. “Where,” he whispered, “would he have been to pick up anything needing Exotic?”

  Russell shrugged. “He’s got a socialite playboy for a medical officer. He couldn’t tell the difference between simple acne and malignant space burn. He’s my idea of what a high-grade moron would be with no intelligence. He’s crazy about Nordheimer’s daughter but whether it’s mutual or not I don’t know. Because he is so intellectually inferior he’s like all dim brains; dangerous when crossed. He loves his power as medical man to one of Solar’s richest men. He’d like nothing better than to turn in a doctor for a missed diagnosis.”

  “Nice boy to talk back to,” Dave unblanked the phone. “Thurman, tell Dr. Blackbern I ordered you to enter the ship. If he questions this order further, call the Duty Officer of the Guard and request the riot Marines. I’ll back you up.”

  “Shall I remove the patients from the Starry Maid?”

  “No. They might have something contagious. Let them stew in their own impatience. We’re the Public Health Service not animals to be ordered about.”

  He cut off the phone, poured two cups of coffee. “I’m not going to get high blood pressure for some rich man.” Dave grinned at Russell. “Have you ever noted that a rich man becomes paranoid; starts thinking he is above the people?”

  Russell’s laugh was as soothing as balm on a space boil. “Just the same I admire your courage telling the mighty Nordheimer to wait. It’s always a comfort, though, to know the Bureau will back us up for the public.”

  Dave finished his coffee. He picked up the phone, announced to the station the transfer of authority. He turned off the phone, locked the tape box, handed over the keys to Dr. Russell. “It’s all yours now. Would you have your steward pack my clothes and ship them to the Personnel Desk in the Bureau? I’ll pick them up there if I come out of Exotic.”

  “Will do.” At the panel leading to the mobile ramp Russell placed a comforting hand on Dave’s shoulder. “Good luck, Munroe. Stay out of derelicts and I’ll try not to send you anything green.”

  Exotic Disease Control is located on the northern edge of Mare Capsicum. The station is as functional as a lathe and with just about the same amount of beauty. It consists of a group of hemispherical buildings arranged concentrically around the metallic cradling table.

  It lacks the dynamic architecture that makes Lunar Quarantine Stations so outstanding. Exotic Control was designed solely for isolating the new bacteria, viruses, fungi and yeasts with which mankind infects himself from the distant, biologically unexplored planets.

  The little brown house, as the doctors refer to the isolation hospital, is located here. It is in its wards that passengers and spacemen, who have become infected, wait until their disease is cured or—! It is a part of the cost of spatial exploration; man would have it no other way.

  At Exotic Disease Control are located the esoteric pathologists, the virologists, bacterio-chemists, pharmacologists. Here, too, are located the planetary cartographers and ecologists, ceaselessly studying the characteristics of the better planets so they can be certified for colonization.

  When Dave alighted from the lunar car, the crew about the dirty freighter dropped chemical lines, greeted him with brazen clanging of metal as they clapped bronzed sheathed hands on the armor of his metal-covered shoulders.

  The medical division, the landing gangs, the sterile squads and the decontamination crews followed him into the Administration Building. “It’s good to be back here again,” Dave said when he had thrown back his glassite helmet.

  A
t this palpable lie, all the men let out a whoop of laughter. He stilled it with raised hand. “I don’t need to enlarge on our responsibility to the public. They trust us to prevent disease reaching Earth.

  “We’ll work here now just as we did the last time I was here. I alone will investigate ships from any of the outer nuclei, or those that have questionable disease in any way. I will make all primary diagnosis and do autopsies on those remains found in ships. No one try to risk his life doing something that is my duty. These are my orders.”

  Dr. Blackbern shouldered his way through the group about Dave. “Cute talk you boys make. Very lovely prattle about the care the public gets, but how about me, us? We’re a part of the public, too. I’ve been here now for three hours and all I’ve heard is talk, talk, talk.”

  His dark face, stained by the tarnish of his beard, was sarcastically malevolent. “We’ve got a fortune in skins out there we want to take to Earth. One of your medics came aboard, jerked about all of our crew.”

  “Before you got here,” Nissen, the pathologist, interposed, “I went aboard to see Blackbern’s men. Nordheimer was getting so impatient I began to worry about what he might do to you.”

  “I don’t think he can hurt me officially,” Dave said easily. “What about the crew?”

  “Orya fever, ninety-five per cent morbidity rate. Bacterioscope reveals it in their blood; profound toxemia on the hemospectroscope. They’ll all have to stay in isolation until cure is effected. The inner fittings of the ship will have to be burned. I checked the pelts but they can be decontaminated in the gas house.”

  “You don’t touch that ship or those pelts.” Blackbern’s face flamed with anger. “I’ve got a right to talk, too. I’m telling you I’m going to Earth to sell those skins—”

  “Shut up!” Dave’s voice was suddenly explosive. “I run this station—”

  “Why you little test-tube washer.” Blackbern’s arm swept out, pushed the men back, away from him. He came forward, a black, enraged animal, fists like lead ingots whirling madly. Dave saw it, saw the frustrated hysteria in the man, sidestepped the blow with the ease of a professional dancer, for all that he was incased in heavy armor. He caught the raging man’s arm, whirled him over his shoulder to fall stunned and helpless at his feet.

  He winked at the grinning men. “He didn’t know that we test-tube washers, softies that we are, have to exercise at 3-Gs one hour every day.” He looked at Blackbern’s stupefied face. “Get up,” he ordered curtly, “we’re medical men, not marines.”

  Blackbern crawled heavily to his feet. His venomous eyes were more respectful. “You going to check my ship,” he hesitated, added grudgingly, “sir?”

  Dave flicked the wrist switch of his armor. Gears whined in its metallic flanks as it bivalved. He stepped out, shook the creases out of his uniform. “I’m going to check the spacemen first.”

  The patients, thin, wasted caricatures of men, lay in their bunks in the isolation ward, watched him with anxious expressions in their deeply socketed eyes.

  Corpsmen, clad in contagion-free gowns, were setting up the steri-banks. Nurses were briskly inserting needles into the veins of the cubital fossa, sterilizing their blood, adding amino acids to the nutrient to speed recovery.

  He stopped by one of the bunks. “When did you first get sick?”

  The spaceman’s voice was a harsh croak. “About six weeks out of Halseps. Nothing but processed food to eat. Air went foul. Too much work . . . holding the ship together. No medicines . . . air ducts corroded through . . . no circulation—” The voice trailed off into sleep.

  It was the typical story of a tramp freighter. He continued with his ward rounds: offered the cheering confidence of an early recovery to the patients; cautioned corpsmen against carelessness.

  Before he was through, a messenger came to him with a note from Thurman: “Nordheimer has just put through a call to the Chancellor’s Office protesting his needless delay.”

  Dave swore softly, balled the note, dropped it in the flame chute of a decontagion basket. He turned to Dr. Nissen: “Conduct the Guard Office, tell them what we have here. They may want to hold the captain for improper conduct. When the skins are clean, call the Finance Division of the Colonial Office so they can arrange an auction for the skins. I’m going out to check the ship.”

  The interior of the Canaberra was a rotten, rusted mess. Eroded hull plates allowed air seepage so the atmosphere generators were constantly overloaded. In consequence of the lowered oxygen tension the men had suffered debilitating, chronic anoxemia. Air ducts were fouled so that circulation of even vitiated air was impossible. The sewage disposal plant had broken down and filthy sludge filled the under decks.

  He shuddered to think of the social conditions at the periphery of man’s empire. The crew’s quarters were a stifling miasma; it was a wonder any of them lived to make Earth. The holds of the ship were filled with untreated nalyor skins, which in spite of their filthy condition radiated the glowing platinum beauty which made them the most beautiful pelt ever seen in the astrosphere.

  Dave summoned Blackbern. “I’m condemning your ship. It will be taken to the hulk yard and broken up. You may protest this action before the Domain Board. This condemnation is for the public.” He ignored the vituperative response.

  The ground crew attached cables to the overtop shackles and tugs lifted the freighter from the cradle.

  Instantly, it seemed, the sleek lines of the Starry Maid appeared over the cradling table. Its polished hull gleamed like living flame.

  The landing crew grabbed anchoring lines, passed terminal hooks through the ground eyelets. Winches in the landing compartments of the yacht turned, tightening the lines, and as power was released from the gravity plates the ship fell slowly into the bassinet.

  The landing lock opened and two figures came down the ramp.

  Dave blinked his eyes.

  Never had he seen such space armor. The helmets were domes of jet; the wearer could see out through the uni-transparent metal but he couldn’t see within the cover. A red cross of inlaid rubies flamed brilliantly on the chest of one of the figures. A blaze of diamonds monogramed J. N. flickered on the left breast of the other armored figure. Scrolls of gold foamed over the arms and shoulders of the armor.

  “I’m Dr. Mortimer J. Mortimer, Senior Surgeon of Nordheimer & Company and Medical Officer of the yacht—”

  “Which of you is which?” Dave looked from one dome to the other. How in the name of deep space could they expect him to know which of the slender figures was speaking?

  The figure with the jeweled medical cross stepped forward. “I wish to protest our long delay. A hulk like that freighter should not be seen ahead of Mr. Nordheimer. I want you to bring up litters and remove our patients at once.”

  Dave listened to the contentious voice with amused incredulity. “Look, Doc,” he said after a long pause, “this is Exotic Disease Control. If you think you have something serious enough for isolation, then it must be serious enough to warrant potential quarantine of the entire ship. Suppose we see the patients first.”

  Dave walked up the ramp. As the panels closed the diamond-monogramed figure disappeared into another compartment. Dave watched curiously as the other figure stepped into a metal frame which unhinged the armor. At the sight of its ornate, padded interior he wondered with a perverse sense of humor if the motors of the suit weren’t gold-plated and the air ducts lined with platinum.

  “Whatcha got?” he asked after introducing himself.

  Dr. Mortimer J. Mortimer’s arrogant face puckered into a haughty frown. “Now really. I don’t know. I’m not a planetary epidemiologist. That’s your field.”

  “What’re their symptoms?”

  “It’s a loathsome thing; changes their personality.” Dr. Mortimer J. Mortimer delicately touched the waves of his beautiful blond hair. “I’ll tell you about them as we go to their quarters.”

  He led the way through corridors tesselated with fabulously b
eautiful paneling, over carpeting as soft as rubberoid foam. Intricately engraved doors opened at their approach, whispered softly as they closed behind them.

  “It had an insidious onset. They became weak; at first we thought it sheer laziness, so many spacemen are, you see. It’s a big problem on many of our outer nuclei freighters. You’d be surprised at all the difficulty our captains have with the bums. I have an entire department just—”

  “Never mind the economics of your job,” Dave cut in sharply, “how about your patients now?”

  Dr. Mortimer J. Mortimer turned, stared insolently at Dave. “The malaise I was speaking of appeared like laziness. I insisted the captain work them harder. I realized they were ill with some strange malady when they started developing a rather alarming glossitis. Their mouths and tongues were inflamed; dysphagia was quite pronounced. They are now having difficulty in even swallowing water. Then their skins started turning that loathsome green color. I knew it was serious and of course isolated them at once; had a special air filter rigged, it’s really quite a work of engineering art. I’m thinking of writing a paper on it for publication in the Journal of Spatial Medicine.”

  “What? The air filter or the men’s illness?” Dave did not even try to hide the derision in his voice.

  Dr. Mortimer J. Mortimer ignored the scom in Dave’s voice. “Their hair got brittle and started falling out and their nails became ridged. As you will see they are wasting rapidly from a profound toxemia. We must have them off at once. I can assure you none of us have become infected.”

  They passed through the crew’s quarters, stopped abruptly at its welded door. Some spacemen wheeled up a portable lock, started fastening it to the paneling.