Ole Doc Methuselah (28 page)

“Condemn
the early space pioneers,” said Ole Doc, his eyes aching and his back cricked
with weeks of constant peering. “Give me another phial.”

They
had made some progress along one line. Ole Doc had taken time off to make sure
he could communicate with the
enfants terribles
who swarmed now,
thirty-eight thousand of them, in the lion and horse pens. He had concocted a
series of two thousand slides, based on the methods used for teaching alien
intelligences lingua spacia, except he was teaching English.
Asleep and awake, the horde of precocious “babies” were confronted by
projected pictures and dinned with explanation. The projectors had to be very
carefully protected and even then blastproof shields had to be renewed every
few days when some enthusiastic kid bunged a slingshot pebble into it. But they
couldn't hurt the screens. Those were simply the concrete walls. So
willy-nilly, they learned “horse” and “cow” and “man” and “I am hungry” and
“How far is it to the nearest post office?”

It
was not safe to approach the pens now unless one wanted a short trip to
eternity. But Ole Doc, with a force screen, managed occasional inspections. And
on these he was jeered with singsong English phrases, such as “Go soak your
head. Go soak your head. Go soak your head,” which, when squalled from a few
thousand throats, was apt to give one, if not a soaked head, at least a
headache.

On
the very first day he had built five gestation vats in the bungalow and had
started two females and three males on their way. And all but two of these now
born had been hurriedly taken down to the main herd before they got ideas about
mayhem. The remaining pair, a boy and a girl, remained in iron cages on the
porch while Hippocrates took notes on their behavior. The notes were not
flattering but they were informative.

When
two months had passed after the birth of the experimental five from the vats,
the three, properly tagged, in the lion pens and horse pens, had learned to use
a small sling. But the two on the porch had not.

Ole
Doc's notebook was getting crammed with facts. And now and then he saw a
glimmer of knowledge about them. He had ruled out several things, amongst them
the unusual radiations which might be present, but weren't, on Gorgon. Next he
had crossed off machinery radiation and fluid activity.

And
then, on this afternoon, little Hippocrates saw him squint, stand up and
thoughtfully snap a slide into small bits.

“Maybe
solution?” said Hippocrates and O'Hara in different ways but almost in the
same instant.

Ole
Doc didn't hear them. He turned to the racks of paraphernalia and started to
drag down several bottles which he began to treat with pharmaceutical ray rods.

“You
maybe poison the whole batch?” said Hippocrates hopefully.

Ole
Doc didn't pay him any heed. He ordered up several flasks and put his weird
stew into them and then he drew a sketch.

“Make
a catapult like this,” said Ole Doc. “One on every corner of the pens. That's
eight. With eight flasks, one for each. Trigger them with a magnet against this
remote condenser so that when it is pushed, off they go into the compounds.”

“And
everybody dies?” said Hippocrates expectantly, thoughtful of the bruises he
had had wrestling these “babies.”

“Rig
them up,” said Ole Doc. “Because the rest of this is going to take another day
or two.”

“What's
the sudden rush?” said O'Hara.

Ole
Doc jerked a thumb at the sky. “They were about a hundred miles lower today.”

“They
were?” said O'Hara anxiously. “I didn't see them.”

“You
missed a lot of things,” said Ole Doc dryly. And he picked up a bundle of ray
rods and began to sort them. He took a look into the yard and saw a chicken
contentedly pecking at the dirt.

“Bring
me that,” he said. “By the way, where's Mookah?”

O'Hara
looked around as though expecting the overseer to be right behind him. Then,
suddenly, “Say, he hasn't been around for three days. He's supposed to make his
report at two o'clock every afternoon and that's an hour ago.”

“Uh-huh,”
said Ole Doc.

“Golly,
no wonder you guys live so long,” said O'Hara. He climbed off the porch and
came back with the chicken.

Ole
Doc took the bird, pointed a rod at it and the chicken flopped over on its
side, dead. Presently it was under a bell jar with more rays playing on it. And
then before the astonished gaze of O'Hara the chicken began to change form. The
feathers vanished, the shape vanished and within ten minutes there was nothing
under the jar but a blob of cellular matter. Ole Doc grunted in satisfaction
and tipped the mass into a huge graduate. He stuffed a ray rod into the middle
of the mass and left it.

“Another
chicken,” he said.

O'Hara
closed his mouth and ran into the yard to scoop up another one. It squawked and
beat its wings until a ray rod was aimed at it. Then, like its relative, it
went under the bell jar, became jellylike, turned into a translucent mass and
got dumped into another graduate.

Five
chickens later there were seven graduates full of cells, each with a different
kind of ray rod sticking out.

“Now,”
said Ole Doc, “we take that first baby. The boy.”

O'Hara
repressed a shudder. He knew that medicine could not make scruples when
emergency was present, but there was something about putting a baby, a live,
cooing little baby—if a trifle energetic—under a bell jar and knocking it into
a shapeless nothingness. But at that instant a howl sounded from the pens and
O'Hara was happy to assist the now returned Hippocrates in slapping the
vigorous infant on the face of the operating table.

O'Hara
expected to see the bell jar come down and a ray rod go to work. He was
somewhat astonished when Ole Doc began to strap the baby to the board and he
began to fear that it was going to be a knife job.

But
Ole Doc didn't reach for a scalpel. He picked up a big hypo syringe, fitted an
antisepticizing needle to it and took two or three cells out of the first
graduate. He checked it and then turned to the child.

He
made a pass with a glowing button and then plunged the needle into the baby's
spine. He withdrew it and made a second pass with the button. Rapidly, in six
separate places, he injected cells into the infant anatomy. And then O'Hara's
eyes bulged and he went a little sick. For the seventh shot was rammed straight
into the child's eye and deep into its brain.

Ole
Doc pulled out the needle, made a pass with the button again, and stood back.
O'Hara expected a dead baby. After all, it had had needles stuck in the back of
its head, its spine, its heart and its brain. But the baby cooed and went to
sleep.

“Next
one,” said Ole Doc.

“There
isn't going to be a next one,” said a cool voice behind them.

They
whirled to find a leathery-faced, short-statured character in leather garb who
stood indolently leaning against a porch post with an undoubtedly lethal weapon
aimed in their general direction.

“And
who are you?” said Ole Doc.

“The
name is Smalley. Not that you'll be very interested for long. All done playing
with the kids? Well, stand away so you're not in line with those cages and
we'll get this over with.”

Ole
Doc looked at Hippocrates and Hippocrates looked at Ole Doc. It would have
taken a very good poker player to have told what passed between them. But Ole
Doc knew what he wanted to know. During his chicken treatments his orders had
been carried out. He laid his hypo on the table with a histrionic sigh and
carelessly thumbed the button on the magnetic release. Very small in the
distance, there were slight pinging sounds.

“You
know,” said Ole Doc, “I wouldn't be too much in a hurry, Smalley.”

“And
why not?”

“Because
I was just giving this kid a treatment to save his life.”

“Yeah.
I believe you.”

“Happens
to be the truth,” said Ole Doc. “Of course, I didn't have any idea that their
friends would be along so soon, but I just didn't like to see kids die
wholesale. If you'll call up your medico, I'll show him what's to be done—”

“About
what?”

“About
this illness,” said Ole Doc. “Strange thing. Must be a lion disease or
something. Very rare. Affects all the nerve centers.”

“Those
two kids look all right to me!” said Smalley, getting alert and peering at the
cages on the porch.

“These
I've practically cured, although the girl there still wants her final treatment.
But down at the pens—”

“What
about the pens?” demanded Smalley.

“There's
thirty-eight thousand mighty sick babies. And it's going to take a lot of
know-how to heal them. Left untreated, they'll die. But, as you're the one
who's interested—”

“Say,
how do you know so much?” snarled Smalley.

“I
happen to be a doctor,” said Ole Doc.

“He
is Ole Doc Methuselah!” said Hippocrates with truculence. “He is a Soldier of
Light!”

“What's
that?” said Smalley.

“A
doctor,” said Ole Doc. “Now if you'll bring your medico here—”

“And
if I don't have one?”

“Why,
that's surprising,” said Ole Doc. “How do you expect to keep thirty-eight
thousand kids whole without a doctor?”

“We'll
manage! Now get this, Doc. You're going to unbuckle that blaster belt right
where you stand and you're going to walk ahead of me slow to the pens. And
you'd better be telling the truth.”

Ole
Doc dropped his belt, made a sign to Hippocrates to gather up the graduates and
stepped out toward the pens.

Here,
under the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun, it became very obvious
that there wasn't an Achnoid in sight. Instead there were various beings in
disordered dress who held carefully ordered weapons commanding all avenues of
escape.

“Thought
you'd land tomorrow,” said Ole Doc.

“How's
that?” snapped Smalley.

“Oh,
the way the Achnoids acted. And a detector that's part of my operating kit
which said you'd already come down twice before, last week, to the south of
here.”

“Just
keep walking,” said Smalley. “You might get past me but you won't get past the
gate or get near your ship. We've had that guarded for two months hoping you'd
show up.”

“Lucky
I didn't, eh?” said Ole Doc. “Your harvest here would be dead.”

They
stood now near the concrete wall of one pen. Smalley, keeping an eye out behind
him and walking with caution, mounted up the ramp. But contrary to Hippocrates'
fond expectation, no pellet knocked the top of his head off. He stiffened and
stared.

Ole
Doc went up beside him and looked down. As far as these pens reached they could
see kids lying around, some inert, some twitching, some struggling but all
very, very ill. And obvious on the first of them were big red splotches.

Smalley
yelled a warning to his guards to stay clear and then faced Ole Doc.

“All
right. They're sick. How they goin' to get cured?”

“Why,
I was all set to cure them right here,” said Ole Doc. “But if you're so
anxious to shoot me—”

“That
can wait! Cure them! Cure them, you hear me?”

Ole
Doc shrugged. “Have it any way you like, Smalley. But I'll need the rest of my
equipment over here.”

“All
right, you'll get it!”

 

Ole
Doc dropped down into the first pen and Hippocrates handed him equipment. From
his cloak pocket Ole Doc took a gun hypo which did not need a needle to
penetrate. He fitted a charge in this and shot the first kid. Then he rolled
the infant over and got to work with his hypo needle.

Smalley
looked suspicious. He kept his place at a distance and kept down the visor of
his space helmet. Two of his guards came up and, some distance from him,
received further orders and went back to watch from the gate.

The
first kid got seven shots and then another charge from the hypo gun. The red
splotches began to vanish and the child was asleep.

It
was assembly-line work after that with O'Hara and Hippocrates slinging kids
into place and holding them and Hippocrates quadridextrously administering the
before-and-after gun shots.

Night
came and they lighted the pens and the work went on. Ole Doc stopped for food
after he reached the thousand mark and came back to where Smalley was watching.

“Give
me a hand up,” said Ole Doc.

Smalley
had watched child after child go peacefully to sleep and the blotches vanish
and despite his air, he was too confused about Ole Doc not to obey the order.
Ole Doc gripped the offered hand and came up over the ramp.