S.T.A.R. FLIGHT (13 page)

A simple thing, mused Preston. A thing every child knows almost by instinct. The need to wash before touching anything which should be kept clean. Semmelweis proved the necessity. In return he was viciously derided by his own profession.

Thirty years, thought Preston, watching the screen. Thirty wasted years before the message Semmelweis had given had been accepted in the light of new discoveries. Would those years have made all that difference? Perhaps, he told himself. Western civilization had been poised on the springboard of scientific progress. It was the time of new discoveries, new inventions, an enlarging of the horizons of the mind. Had that wealth and enthusiasm been channelled into the field of medicine, who could guess at the progress which could have been made? But those thirty years had
been wasted. Semmelweis had not been heeded. And who could tell what genius had been lost on dirty operating tables or in the filthy conditions reigning in the maternity wards of famous hospitals?

Night came, a darkening of lights and dimming of visibility. Little sounds died, orderlies moved like pink ghosts down the corridor, the smooth life of the hospital, in this section at least, slowed in obedience to the basic animal-rhythm of day and night. Preston tried to sleep and found it impossible. He stirred and tried the television. A swirl of kaleidoscopic colour and a soft, hypnotic voice — “… relaxed. So relaxed, so sleepy, so detached. Just look at the colours and let yourself go. Sink deep into the wonderful colours, sink, sink … relax … sleep …”

Other channels were the same. The programme, he guessed, was piped, selected to a particular audience. Patients with insommnia were more easily treated with hypnotism than with drugs.

Irritably he turned, half tempted to get up and see what could be done, knowing that any such action would be an invitation to disaster. He had to pretend that he was too weak to stand so that, when and if the right time came, he would at least have the advantage of surprise.

“Are you awake? Please tell me if you are awake.” The voice was familiar, he had heard it before. Preston stayed motionless as the voice whispered from beneath his pillow. The radio, he thought. Someone has tapped the wire. Or, he corrected, maybe someone wants me to think exactly that. “Are you awake?” The voice was a little petulant. “Answer if you are.”

Preston yawned, rolled, hunched the covers so as to cover his mouth. A man trying hard to get to sleep. “I’m awake,” he said. “I can hear you.”

“Good. Do not move or show surprise. When you answer do not move your lips or speak too loudly. Everything you say and do is being monitored.”

“I know,” he whispered. “Who are you?”

“Please listen. There are things that we must know. First, what is your name?”

“Preston. Martin Preston.” The Kaltich knew that already, he was giving nothing away.

“You killed a man. What was his name?”

“Dultar. A gamma. An interrogator of the Kaltich.” They knew that too.

“Anyone else?”

Preston didn’t answer. So that’s it, he thought. It didn’t end with Dultar. It will never end. Aloud he said, “I don’t understand what you mean. Do you think I go around killing people?”

“The Kaltich have a special interest in you,” whispered the voice. “We would like to know just why.”

“Are you curious or do you have a reason?”

“Not so loud,” warned the voice then, “We have a reason. If you are important to them you could be important to us. If so, we are willing to help you. But first we must be certain that the effort will be justified. Why are the Kaltich so concerned?”

“They think I know something,” said Preston. He hesitated, then mentally shrugged. The voice could be telling the truth or it could be a part of an involved trap. In either case he had nothing to lose. “They caught me impersonating an alpha. I guess to them that’s a pretty serious crime. They want to make me pay for it.”

“And the man whose clothes you were wearing,” said the voice shrewdly. “Did you kill him?”

The big one, he thought sickly. The one question he’d hoped to avoid. Did they have the bed wired as a lie-detector? Were they even now waiting, leaning forward perhaps, eager to learn whether or not he had done that unspeakable thing?

“No,” he said. The voice hadn’t specified which clothes. When shot he’d been wearing the uniform of a gamma and he hadn’t killed the man. He hadn’t even seen him. The
truth, he told himself. Always tell the truth — or at least your version of it. To hell with the Kaltich and their tricks.

“You are cautious,” said the voice. “We can admire you for that. And you are a little afraid. That too we can understand. The Kaltich inspire fear. And yet you have shown that fear to be an empty thing. We could learn from you. More important you may have something we could use. But we must be certain that you are not a plant.”

That makes two of us, thought Preston. “Listen,” he said urgently. “I don’t know who you are but you seem to know all about me. I killed a Kaltich. A gamma. You must know what that means. Do you think they would allow one of their number to be killed just to set up a decoy?”

The voice was cold. “They might.”

“Then you know little about them. They take. They never give. They promise but never perform. As a race they’re selfish. As individuals even more so. I want to get out of here,” said Preston. “Out and back to my own world. Can you help me do that?”

“Perhaps.”

“If you can’t or if you don’t want to then keep out of my life,” he snapped. “I’ve had enough sadism to last me as long as I’m going to live. In other words,” he emphasised, “put up or shut up. Understand?”

Silence.

“All right,” said Preston savagely. “If that’s the way you want it. Goodnight!”

He felt his hands clench until the nails dug into his palms. I handled it right, he assured himself. The only way I could handle it. Beg and they would have got suspicious. Plead and it would have been the same. Defy them and maybe they’ll get curious. They think I’m tough, he thought. I couldn’t disappoint them.

Them?

He knew who they were, who they had to be. It was inevitable, he thought. In a world like this they couldn’t help but be strong. Just like Earth, he told himself. We have
STAR. There must be similar organizations on other worlds. On every world that had pride and the ability to see ahead. That’s where the voice came from. That’s who is going to help you escape. The only ones really equipped to do it.

If they decided to do it.

Seconds dragged into minutes. He began to sweat and had to force himself to lie still. They’ve got to come to me, he thought. If I try to contact them they’ll run like mice. There’s nothing you can do now but wait. And wait. And wait.

“We have decided,” said the voice. “We will arrange to help you. It is imperative that you follow every order without question and without delay. Is this understood?”

“Yes.”

“You will be notified.”

“Wait!” He swallowed choosing his words. “Just who are you?” he said carefully. “I think I should know.”

“Certainly. We are GERM.”

“Germ?”

“G.E.R.M.,” said the voice patiently. “General Earth Resistance Movement. Goodnight.”

GERM, he thought, rolling over onto his back and looking thoughtfully at the screen. A good name for a medical world. An appropriate name. He could appreciate the innuendo. GERM, the disease which could weaken and even destroy the Kaltich. GERM.

General Earth Resistance Movement.

He stiffened in the bed.

Earth
?

On the smooth floor the rubber wheels of the trolley made not even a whisper of sound. Preston lay as ordered, rigid, stiff as a corpse. motionless as the vehicle moved, turned, dropped, moved to drop again into what he guessed must be the basement of the building. A door closed. Light squinted his eyes as the sheet was jerked from his face. A woman wearing green looked down at him. She had red hair and blue eyes. Her age, he guessed, couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

“Hello.” She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Sylvia Meecham.” Her voice was the one which had come from beneath his pillow. Preston sat upright and took her hand. It was hard, firm with developed muscle, a surgeon’s hand.

“I’m glad to meet you,” he said, and added. “I mean that more than perhaps you realise.”

“Let us hope that you have no reason to change your mind.” She threw him a bundle of clothing, an orderly’s uniform plus soft-soled shoes. “Get off the trolley and change into these.” She watched as he stripped, unembarrassed by his nakedness, then turned to the two men in pink who had handled the vehicle. “Trouble?”

One of them shook his head. “None. Everything went as planned.”

“Good. You’d better get back now. I’ll handle it from here.”

They left. Preston finished dressing and looked at the girl. “Listen,” he said. “There’s something I’ve got to ask you.
About GERM. What —“

She interrupted, glancing at her watch. “Later.”

“But —”

“Later. Now please follow me.”

Preston shrugged. It was her game and he had to play by her rules but, he told himself, I’m going to get to the bottom of this and soon. If she won’t answer then perhaps her friends will.

“Hurry,” said the girl.

“Coming,” said Preston and stepped through the door into an anatomist’s nightmare.

He was surrounded by tiers of crystal vats in which rested lungs, spleens, kidneys, livers, stomachs, glands, fathoms of intestines, miles of nerve-fibre. Eyeballs floating like watchful marbles. Hearts beat with a sleepy rhythm. Bone looked like yellow-white sticks of celery immersed in nutrient fluids. Every part of the human body grew quietly in the rows of containers. Every part but a brain.

“That is the one spare part we cannot supply,” said the girl, guessing his thoughts. “We can grow a cortex, of course, but doing so gives rise to various problems. Intelligence,” she explained.’ “Awareness of self. We could use cerebal matter as the control nexus of organotic servomechanisms. We could even produce a brain with a surrogate personality but what would be the point? If you were to die,” she said, “really die, which means the destruction of the brain, what good would it do you for us to supply a new brain with its own personality?”

“None,” he admitted. “But I am surprised that you have such ethical considerations. Surely, to you, a body is what a hover car is to a mechanic?”

“True,” she said. “But only as far as we deal in organic replacements. The brain is in a different category. We do not tamper with the seat of intelligence. We can rebuild a brain,” she admitted, “but always there is the problem of personality. Have you seen a zombie?”

Preston shook his head.

“A living, walking, breathing creature. But one without conscious intelligence. Worse than a moron. Worse than insane. A thing. The brain serving only to coordinate the functions of the body. Horrible!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Preston. He had, he thought, taken her word for quite a lot but, as yet, he had nothing to complain about. “What happens now?” he demanded. “I mean, won’t the Kaltich get annoyed when they find I’m gone? Won’t they guess you had something to do with it?”

She smiled, obviously amused. “Why should they? You are dead,” she said. “A body now lies in your cot. Soon a doctor will examine you and pronounce you officially extinct.”

“But the monitoring device? Won’t they have spotted the exchange?”

“No.” She stepped past the last tier of vats and led the way down a corridor. “We run this hospital,” she pointed out. “At the critical time an adjustment was made in the circuitry. The waiting Kaltich noticed nothing. There was no reason for him to guess that he was watching another patient. After you had left the adjustment was rectified. The examining doctor, of course, is a member of GERM.”

It made sense, thought Preston. If you wanted to build up a resistance group what better place than in a hospital? The staff already worked in unison, had a common loyalty, were used to emergencies and sudden effort. He guessed that the body which had taken his place had been made to resemble himself.

“They won’t like it,” he said. “The Kaltich, I mean. They’re not going to like it at all.”

Sylvia shrugged.

“They can be nasty,” he warned.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “We’ve learned that in the past. Why else do you think we have GERM?”

The passage ended in a door. Beyond it was a small room
containing three men, a chair, a cabinet of drugs and instruments and a large wall clock. One of the men pointed to the chair. “Sit down.”

Preston sat, rising immediately when he saw one of the other men coming toward him with something glittering in his hand. “Now wait a minute,” he protested.

“Sit down,” repeated the first man. “Jarl. Max.”

“All right,” said Preston. He sat down and looked at the woman. She stood silently behind the obvious leader of the group. “What’s going to happen?”

“No talking,” said the man. “Just keep sitting and do as you’re told.”

Preston took a deep breath, sprang upright and spun so as to stand behind the chair. He gripped it, lifted it, poised it to throw.

“No!” said the woman sharply. “Don’t be a fool!” She looked at the leader. “Tell him, John. Explain.”

“We’ve got to find out if you’re genuine,” said the man reluctantly. “Now put down that chair and relax so that we can get on with it.”

Preston hesitated.

“You’ve got a choice,” said John. “You do things our way or we kill you. This isn’t a game,” he added. “This is for real. Now put down that chair and stop wasting time.”

“It’s my time,” said Preston.

“Maybe, but it’s our necks.” John lifted his hand. He held a gun. “I’m giving you one last chance. Put down that chair or I’ll drop you.”

He wasn’t bluffing. Preston put down the chair and sat in it. Jarl came towards him holding a hypogun. The blast of air made a small sound as it sent a charge of drugs through the pink uniform, through the skin and fat into the bloodstream. Preston leaned back, relaxing as he looked at the clock. The hands pointed to 3:37. He blinked. The hands now pointed to 4:26. He looked around. Aside from Sylvia and John the room was empty.