Fevers and Physicians in Space by various ~ Full Audiobook
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Pandemic by J.F. Bone We call it Thurston's disease for two perfectly good reasons, Dr. Walter Kramer said. He discovered it, and he was the first to die of it. The doctor fumbled fruitlessly through the pockets of his lab coat. Now where the devil did I put those matches? Are these what you're looking for?

the trim blonde in the gray seersucker uniform asked. She picked a small box of wooden safety matches from the littered lab table beside her and handed them to him. "Ah," Kramer said, "thanks. Things of a habit of getting lost around here." "I can believe that," she said as she eyed the frenzied disorder around her. Her boss wasn't much better than his laboratory, she decided, as she watched him strike a match against the side of the box and apply the flame to the charred bowl of his pipe.

His long dark face became half obscured behind a cloud of bluish smoke as he puffed furiously. He looked like a lean untidy devil recently escaped from hell with his thick brows, green eyes and lank black hair highlighted intermittently by the leaping flame of the match. He certainly didn't look like a pathologist. She wondered if she was going to like working with him and shook her head imperceptibly. Possibly, but not probably.

it might be difficult being cooped up here with him day after day well she could always quit if things got too tough at least there was that consolation he draped his lean body across a lab stool and leaned his elbows on its back there was a faint smile on his face as he eyed her quizzically you knew he said

"'Not just to this lab, but to the Institute,' she nodded. "'I am, but how do you know?' "'Hurston's disease. Everyone in the Institute knows that name for the plague, but few outsiders do,' he smiled sardonically. "'Virus pneumonic plague. That's a better term for public use. After all, what good does it do to advertise a doctor's stupidity?' She eyed him curiously. "'Demortuis?' she asked.

He nodded. That's about it. We may condemn our own, but we don't like laymen doing it. And besides, Thurston had good intentions. He never dreamed this would happen. The road to hell, so I hear, is paved with good intentions. Undoubtedly, Kramer said dryly.

"'Incidentally, did you apply for this job, or were you assigned?' "'I applied.' "'Someone should have warned you I dislike clichés,' he said. He paused a moment and eyed her curiously. "'Then why did you apply?' he asked. "'Why are you imprisoning yourself in a sealed laboratory which you won't leave as long as you work here? You know, of course, what the conditions are. Unless you resign or are carried out feet first, you will remain here. Have you considered what such an imprisonment means?'

"'I considered it,' she said. "'And it doesn't make any difference. "'I have no ties outside, and I thought I could help. "'I've had training. "'I was a nurse before I was married. "'Divorced. "'Widow.' "'Framer nodded. "'There were plenty of widows and widowers outside. "'Too many. "'But it wasn't much worse than the Institute, "'where, despite precautions, Thurston's disease took its toll of life. "'They tell you this place is called the Suicide Section, yes?' "'She nodded.

Weren't you frightened? Of dying? Hardly. Too many people are doing it nowadays. He grimaced, looking more satanic than ever. You have a point, he admitted. But it isn't a good one. Young people should be afraid of dying. You're not. I'm not young. I'm thirty-five. And besides, this is my business. I've been looking at death for eleven years. I'm immune. I haven't your experience, he admitted. But I have your attitude. What's your name? Kramer said.

Barton, Mary Barton. Hmm, well, Mary, I can't turn you down. I need you. But I could wish you had taken some other job. I'll survive.

He looked at her with faint admiration in his greenish eyes. "'Perhaps you will,' he said. "'All right, as to your duties, you will be my assistant, which means you'll be a dishwasher, laboratory technician, secretary, junior pathologist, and coffee maker. I'll help you with all the jobs except the last one. I make lousy coffee.' Kramer grinned, his teeth a white flash across the darkness of his face.

You'll be on call twenty-four hours a day, underpaid, overworked, and in constant danger until we lick Thurston's virus. You'll be expected to handle the jobs of three people unless I can get more help, and I doubt that I can. People stay away from here in droves. There's no future in it. Mary smiled wryly. Literally or figuratively, she asked. He chuckled.

You have a nice sense of graveyard humor, he said. It'll help, but don't get careless. Assistants are hard to find. She shook her head. I won't. While I'm not afraid of dying, I don't want to do it, and I have no illusions about the danger. I was briefed quite thoroughly. They wanted you to walk upstairs? She nodded. I suppose they need help, too. Thurston's disease has riddled the medical profession. Just don't forget that this place can be a death trap. One mistake and you've had it.

Naturally, we take every precaution, but with a virus no protection is absolute. If you're careless and make errors in procedure, sooner or later one of those submicroscopic protein molecules will get into your system. You're still alive. So I am, Kramer said, but I don't take chances. My predecessor, my secretary, my lab technician, my junior pathologist, and my dishwasher all died of Thurston's disease. He eyed her grimly. Still want the job? he asked.

"'I lost a husband and a three-year-old son,' Mary said with equal grimness. "'That's why I'm here. I want to destroy the thing that killed my family. I want to do something. I want to be useful.' He nodded. "'I think you can be,' he said quietly. "'Mind if I smoke?' she asked. "'I need some defense against that pipe of yours.' "'No, go ahead. Out here it's all right, but not in the security section.'

Mary took a package of cigarettes from her pocket, lit one, and blew a cloud of grey smoke to mingle with the blue haze from Kramer's pipe. "'Comfortable?' Kramer asked. He nodded. He looked at his wristwatch. "'We have half an hour before the roll-tube cultures are ready for examination. That should be enough to tell you about the modern Pasteur and his mutant virus. Since your duties will primarily involve Thurston's disease, you'd better know something about it.'

He settled himself more comfortably across the lab bench and went on talking in a dry, schoolmasterish voice. Alan Thurston was an immunologist at Midwestern University Medical School. Like most men in the teaching trade, he also had a research project. If it worked out, he'd be one of the great names in medicine, like Jenner, Pasteur, and Salk.

The result was that he pushed it and wasn't too careful. He wanted to be famous. He's well known now, Mary said, at least within the profession. Right, Kramer said dryly. He was working with gamma radiations on microorganisms, trying to produce a mutated strain of micrococcus pyogenes that would have enhanced antigenic properties.

"Wait a minute, Doctor. It's been four years since I was active in nursing. Translation, please." Kramer chuckled. "He was trying to make a vaccine out of a common infectious organism. You may know it better as Staphylococcus. As you know, it's a pus-former that's made hospital life more dangerous than it should be because it develops resistance to antibiotics. What Thurston wanted to do was to produce a strain that would stimulate resistance in the patient without causing disease.

something that would help patients protect themselves rather than rely upon doubtfully effective antibiotics.

That wasn't a bad idea. There was nothing wrong with it. The only trouble was that he wound up with something else entirely. It was like the man who wanted to make a plastic suitable for children's toys and ended up with a new explosive. You see, what Thurston didn't realize was that his coaches were contaminated. It secured them from the university clinic and had, so he thought, isolated them. But somehow he'd brought a virus along, probably one of the orphan group or possibly a phage.

Orphan? Yes, one that was not a normal inhabitant of human tissue. At any rate, it was a virus. And he mutated it rather than the bacteria. Actually, it was simple enough, relatively speaking, since a virus is infinitely simpler in structure than a bacterium and hence much easier to modify with ionizing radiation. So he didn't produce an antigen, he produced a disease instead.

Naturally, he contracted it, and during the period between his infection and death, he managed to infect the entire hospital, before anyone realized what they were dealing with. The disease jumped from the hospital to the college, and from the college to the city, and from the city to— Yes, I know that part of it. It's all over the world now, killing people by the millions. Well, Kramer said, at least it solved the population explosion.

He blew a cloud of blue smoke in Mary's direction. And it did make Thurston famous. His name won't be quickly forgotten. She coughed. I doubt it ever will be, he said. But it won't be remembered the way he intended. He looked at her suspiciously. That cough. No, it's not Thurston's disease. It's that pipe. Rancid. It helped me think, Kramer said. You should try cigarettes. Or candy, he suggested. I'd rather smoke a pipe.

There's cancer of the lip and tongue, he said helpfully. Don't quote Ashna, I don't agree with him. And besides, you smoke cigarettes, which are infinitely worse. Only four or five a day. I don't saturate my system with nicotine. In another generation, Kramer observed, you'd have run through the streets of the city brandishing an axe, smashing saloons. You're a lineal descendant of Kari Nation.

He puffed quietly until his head was surrounded by nimbus of smoke. "'Stop trying to reform me,' he added. "'You haven't been here long enough. Not even God could do that, according to the reports I've heard,' he said. He laughed. "'I suppose my reputation gets around.' "'It does. You're an opinionated slave-driver, a bully, an intellectual tyrant, and the best pathologist in this center.'

"The last part of that sentence makes up for unflattering honesty of the first," Kramer said. "At any rate, once we realized the situation, we went to work to correct it. Institutes like this were established everywhere the disease appeared for the sole purpose of examining, treating and experimenting with the hope of finding a cure. This section exists for the evaluation of treatment. We check the human cases and the primates in the experimental laboratory.

It is our duty to find out if anything the boys upstairs try shows any promise. We were a pretty big section once, but Thurston's virus has whittled us down. Right now there is just you and me, but there's still enough work to keep us busy. The experiments are still going on, and there are still human cases, even though the virus has killed off most of the susceptibles. We've evaluated over a thousand different drugs and treatments in this institute alone.

And none of them have worked? No. But that doesn't mean the work's been useless. The researchers saved others thousands of man-hours chasing false leads. In this business, negative results are almost as important as positive ones. We may never discover the solution, but our work will keep others from making the same mistakes.

I never thought of it that way. People seldom do, but if you realize that this is international, that every worker on Thurston's disease has a niche to fill, the picture will be clearer. We're doing our part inside the plan. Others are too, and there are thousands of labs involved. Somewhere, someone will find the answer. It probably won't be us, but we'll help get the problem solved as quickly as possible. That's the important thing. It's the biggest challenge the race has ever faced, and the most important. It's

It's a question of survival. Crim's voice was sober. We have to solve this. If Thurston's disease isn't checked, the human race will become extinct. As a result, for the first time in history, all mankind is working together. You mean the communists are too?

Of course, what's an ideology if there are no people to follow it? Kramer knocked the ashes out of his pipe, looked at the laboratory clock and shrugged. Ten minutes more, he said, and these tubes will be ready. Keep an eye on that clock and let me know. Meantime, you can straighten up this lab and find out where things are. I'll be in the office checking the progress reports. He turned abruptly away, leaving her standing in the middle of the cluttered laboratory.

"'Now what am I supposed to do here?' Mary wondered aloud. "'Clean up,' he says. "'Find out where things are,' he says. "'Get acquainted with the place,' he says. "'I could spend a month doing that.' She looked at the littered bench, the wall cabinets with sliding doors half open, the jars of reagents sitting on the sink, the drain-barred on top of the refrigerator and on the floor. The disorder was appalling.

"'How he ever manages to work in here is beyond me. "'I suppose that I'd better start somewhere. "'Perhaps I can get these bottles in some sort of order first.' "'She sighed and moved toward the wall cabinets. "'Oh well,' she mused, "'I asked for this.' "'Didn't you hear the buzzer?' Kramer asked. "'Was that for me?' Mary said, "'looking up from a pile of bottles and glass where she was sorting. "'Partly. "'It means it sent us another post-mortem from upstairs. "'What is it?' "'I don't know. "'Man or monkey, it makes no difference.'

Whatever it is, it's Thurston's disease. Come along, you might as well see what goes on in our ultra-modern necropsy suite. I'd like to. She put down the bottle she was holding and followed him through a green door at the rear of the laboratory. Inside, Kramer said, you will find a small ante-room, a shower and a dressing room. Strip, shower and put on a clean set of lab coveralls and slippers which you will find in the dressing room. You'll find surgical masks in the wall cabinet beside the lockers.

"Go through the door beyond the dressing room and wait for me there. I'll give you ten minutes." "We do this both ways," Kramer said as he joined her in the narrow hall beyond the dressing room. "We'll reverse the process going out. You certainly carry security to a maximum," she said through the mask that covered the lower part of her face. "You haven't seen anything yet," he said as he opened a door in the hall. "Note the positive air pressure," he said. "Theoretically nothing can get in here except what we bring with us, and we try not to bring anything."

He stood aside to show her the glassed-in cubicle overhanging a bare room, dominated by a polished steel post-mortem table that glittered in the harsh fluorescent lighting. Above the table a number of jointed rods and clamps hung from the ceiling. A low metal door and series of racks containing instruments and glassware were set into the opposite wall, together with the gaping circular orifice of an open autoclay.

We work by remote control, just like they do at the AEC. See those handlers? He pointed to the control console set into a small stainless steel table standing beside the sheet of glass at the far end of the cubicle. They're connected to those gadgets up there.

He indicated the jointed arms hanging over the autopsy table in the room beyond. I could perform a major operation from here and never touch the patient. Using these, I could do anything I could do in person, with the difference that there's a quarter-inch of glass between me and my work. I have controls that let me use magnifiers, and even do micro-dissection if necessary. "'Where's the cadaver?' Mary asked."

"'Across the room behind that door,' he said, waving at the low sliding metal partition behind the table. "'It's been prepped, decontaminated, and ready to go.' "'What happens when you're through?' "'Watch,' Dr. Kramer pressed a button on the console in front of him. A section of flooring slid aside and the table tipped. "'The cadaver slides off that table and through that hole. Down below is a highly efficient crematorium.' Mary shivered. "'Neat. And effective,' she said shakily."

After that the whole room is sprayed with germicide and sterilized with live steam. The instruments go into the autoclave, and thirty minutes later we're ready for another post-mortem. We use the handlers to put specimens into those jars, he said, pointing to a row of capped glass jars of assorted sizes on a wall rack behind the table.

After they're capped, the jars go onto that carrier beside the table. From here they pass through a decontamination chamber and into the remote control laboratory across the hall, where we can run biochemical and histological techniques. Finished slides and mounted specimens then go through another decontamination process to the outside lab. Theoretically, this place is proof against anything.

"'It seems to be,' Mary said, obviously impressed. "'I've never seen anything so elegant.' "'Neither did I until Thurston's disease became a problem,' "'Cramer shrugged and sat down behind the console. "'Watch now,' he said as he pressed a button. "'Let's see what's on deck. "'Man or monkey? "'Want to make a bet? "'I'll give you two to one it's a monkey.' "'She shook her head. "'The low door slid aside "'and a steel carriage emerged into the necropsy room, "'bearing the nude body of a man.'

The corpse gleamed pallidly under the harsh, shadowless glare of the fluorescence in the ceiling, as Kramer, using the handlers, rolled it onto the post-mortem table and clamped it in place on its back. He pushed another button, and the carriage moved back into the wall, and the steel door slid shut. "'That'll be decontaminated,' he said, and sent back upstairs for another body. "'I'd have lost,' he remarked idly. "'Lately the posts have been running three to one in favour of monkeys.'

He moved a handler and picked up a heavy scalpel from the instrument rack. "'Has a certain advantage to this,' he said as he moved the handler delicately. "'His gadgets give a tremendous mechanical advantage. I can cut right through small bones and cartilage without using a saw.' "'How nice,' Mary said. "'I expect you enjoy yourself.' "'I couldn't ask for better equipment,' he replied noncommittedly.

With deft motion of the handler he drew the scalpel down across the chest and along the costal margins in the classic inverted Y incision. "We'll take a look at the thorax first," he said as he used the handlers to pry open the rib cage and expose the thoracic viscera. "Ah, thought so. See that?" he pointed with the small handler that carried a probe. "Look at those abscesses and necrosis. It's Thurston's disease, all right, with secondary bacterial invasion."

The grayish, solidified masses of tissue looked nothing like the normal pink appearance of healthy lungs. Studded with yellowish spherical abscesses, they lay swollen and engorged within a gaping cavity of the chest. "You know the pathogenesis of Thurston's disease?" Kramer asked. Mary shook her head, her face yellowish-white in the glare of the fluorescents.

"It begins with a bronchial cough," Kramer said. "The virus attacks the bronchioles first, destroys them, and passes into the deeper tissues of the lungs. As with most virus diseases there is a transitory leukopenia, a drop in the total number of white blood cells, and a rise in temperature of about two or three degrees."

As the virus attacks the alveolar structures, the temperature rises and the white blood cell count becomes elevated. The lungs become inflamed and painful. There is a considerable quantity of lymphoid exudate in pleural effusion. Secondary invaders and pus-forming bacteria follow the viral destruction of the lung tissue and form abscesses.

Breathing becomes progressively more difficult as more lung tissue is destroyed. Hepatization and necrosis inactivate more lung tissue as the bacteria get in their dirty work.

And finally, the patient suffocates. But what if the bacteria are controlled by antibiotics? Then the virus does the job. It produces atelectasis, followed by progressive necrosis of lung tissue with gradual liquefaction of the parenchyma. It's slow but just as fatal. This fellow was lucky. He apparently stayed out of here until he was almost dead. Probably he's had the disease for about a week. If he'd have come in early, we would have kept him alive for maybe a month.

the end however would have been the same it's a terrible thing mary said faintly you'll get used to it we get one or two every day he shrugged there's nothing here that's interesting he said as he released the clamps and tilted the table

For what seemed to marry an interminable time, the cadaver clung to the polished steel. Then abruptly it slid off the shining surface and disappeared through the square hole in the floor. We'll clean up now, Kramer said as he placed the instruments in the autoclave, closed the door and locked it, and pressed three buttons on the console. From jets embedded in the wall, the fine spray filled the room with fog. Germicide, Kramer said.

Later, there'll be steam. It's all for now. You want to go? Mary nodded. If you feel a little rocky, there's a bottle of scotch in my desk. I'll split a drink with you when we get out of here. Thanks, Mary said. I think I could use one. Barton, where is the McNeil stain? Kramer's voice came from the lap. I left it in the sink and it's gone.

It's with the other bloodstains and reagents, second drawer from the right in the big cabinet. There's a label on the drawer, Mary called from the office. If you can wait until I've finished filing these papers, I'll come and help you. I wish you would, Kramer's voice was faintly exasperated. Ever since you've organized my lab, I can't find anything. You just have a disorderly mind, Mary said as she slipped the last paper into its proper folder and closed the file.

I'll be with you in a minute. I don't dare lose you, Kramer said as Mary came into the lab. You've made yourself indispensable. It'd take me six months to undo what you've done in one. Not that I mind, he amended, but I was used to things the way they were. He looked around the orderly laboratory with a mixture of pride and annoyance. Things are so neat they're almost painful.

"You look more like a pathologist should," Mary said as she deftly removed the tray of blood slides from in front of him and began to run the stains. "It's my job to keep you free to think." "Whose brilliant idea is that, yours?" "No, the director's. He told me what my duties were when I came here, and I think he's right. You should be using your brain rather than fooling around with blood stains and sectioning tissues." "But I like to do things like that," Kramer protested. "It's relaxing.

What right have you to relax, Mary said. Outside people are dying by the thousands, and you want to relax. Have you looked at the latest mortality reports? No. You should. The WHO estimates that nearly two billion people have died since Thurston's disease first appeared in epidemic proportions. That's two out of three. And more are dying every day. Yet you want to relax?

I know, Kramer said. But what can we do about it? We're working, but we're getting no results. You might use that brain of yours, Mary said bitterly. You're supposed to be a scientist. You have facts. Can't you put them together?

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I've been working on this problem longer than you think. I come down here at night and I know I clean up after you. Sure, we can isolate the virus. It grows nicely on monkey lung cells, but that doesn't help. The thing has no apparent antigenicity. It parasitizes, but it doesn't trigger any immune reaction. We can kill it, but the strength of the germicide is too great for living tissue to tolerate. Some people seem to be immune. Sure they do, but why? Don't ask me, I'm not the scientist.

"Play like one," Kramer growled. "Here are the facts. The disease attacks people of all races and ages. So far, everyone who is attacked dies. Adult Europeans and Americans appear to be somewhat more resistant than others on a population basis. Somewhere around sixty percent of them are still alive, but it's wiped out better than eighty percent of some groups. Children get it worse. Right now I doubt if one percent of the children born during the past ten years are still alive."

"'It's awful,' Mary said. "'It's worse than that. It's extinction. Without kids, the race will die out.' Kramer rubbed his forehead. "'Have you any ideas?' "'Children have less resistance,' Kramer replied. "'An adult gets exposed to a number of diseases to which he builds an immunity. Possibly one of these has a cross-immunity against Thurston's virus.' "'Then why didn't you work on that line?' Mary asked."

Because what do you think I've been doing? That idea was put out months ago and everyone's been taking a crack at it. There are 24 laboratories working full-time on that facet, and God knows how many more working part-time like we are. I've screened a dozen common diseases, including the six varieties of the common cold virus. All, incidentally, were negative.

Well, are you going to keep on with it? I have to, Kramer rubbed his eyes. It won't let me sleep. I'm sure we're on the right track. Something an adult gets gives him resistance or immunity, he shrugged. Tell you what, you run those bloods out and I'll go take another look at the data. He reached into his lab coat and produced a pipe. I'll give it another try.

"'Sometimes I wish you'd read without puffing on that thing,' Mary said. "'Your delicate nose will be the death of me yet,' Kramer said. "'It's my lungs I'm worried about,' Mary said. "'They'll probably look like two pieces of well-tanned leather if I associate with you for another year. "'Stop complaining. You got me to wear clean lab coats. Be satisfied with a limited victory,' Kramer said absently, his eyes staring unseeingly at a row of reagent bottles on the bench. Abruptly he nodded.

"Fantastic," he muttered, "but it's worth a check." He left the room, slamming the door behind him in his hurry. "That man," Mary murmured, "he'd drive a saint out of his mind. If I wasn't so fond of him, I'd quit. If anyone told me I'd fall in love with a pathologist, I'd have said they were crazy. I wish—" Whatever the wish was, it wasn't uttered. Mary gasped and coughed wrackingly.

Carefully, she moved back from the bench, opened a drawer and found a thermometer. She put it in her mouth. Then she drew a drop of blood from her forefinger and filled a red and white cell pipette and made a smear of the remainder. She was interrupted by another spasm of coughing, but she waited until the paroxysm passed and went methodically back to her self-appointed task.

She had done this many times before. It was routine procedure to check on anything that might be Thurston's disease. A cold, a sore throat, a slight difficulty in breathing all demanded the diagnostic check. It was as much a habit as breathing. This was probably the result of that cold she'd gotten last week. But there was nothing like being sure. Now let's see. Temperature 99.5 degrees. Red cell count four and a half million.

White cell count? Oh, 2,500. Leukopenia. The differential showed a virtual absence of polymorphs, lymphocytes, and monocytes. The whole slide didn't have 200. The eosinophils and basophils way up. 20 and 15 percent, respectively. A relative rise rather than an absolute one. Leukopenia. No doubt about it. She shrugged. There wasn't much question. She had Thurston's disease.

It was the beginning stages, the harsh cough, the slight temperature, the leukopenia. Pretty soon her white cell count would begin to rise. But it would rise too late. In fact, it was already too late. It's funny, she thought. I'm going to die. But it doesn't frighten me. In fact, the only thing that bothers me is that poor Walter is going to have a terrible time finding things.

that I can't put this place the way it was. I couldn't hope to. She shook her head, slid gingerly off the lab stool and went to the hall door. She had better check in at the clinic, she thought. There was bed space in the hospital now, plenty of it. That hadn't been true a few months ago, but the only ones who were dying now were the newborn, an occasional adult like herself. The epidemic had died out not because of lack of virulence, but because of lack of victims.

The city outside, one of the first affected, now had less than forty percent of its people left alive. It was a hollow shell of its former self. People walked its streets and went through the motions of life, but they were not really alive.

The vital criteria were as necessary for a race as for an individual: growth, reproduction, irritability, metabolism. Mary smiled wryly. Whoever had authored that hackneyed mnemonic that life was a grim proposition never knew how right he was, particularly when one of the criteria was missing. The race couldn't reproduce. That was the true horror of Thurston's disease. Not how it killed, but who it killed.

No children played in the parks and playgrounds. The schools were empty. No babies were pushed in carriages or taken on tours through the supermarkets and shopping carts. No advertisements of motherhood or children or children's things were in the newspapers or magazines. They were forbidden subjects, too dangerously emotional to touch. Laughter and shrill young voices had vanished from the earth to be replaced by the drab grayness of silence and waiting.

Death had laid cold hands upon the hearts of mankind, and the survivors were frozen to numbness. It was odd, she thought, how wrong the prophets were. When Thurston's disease broke into the news, there were frightened predictions of the end of civilization, but they had not materialized.

There were no mass insurrections, no rioting, no organized violence. Individual excesses, yes, but nothing of a group nature. What little panic there was at the beginning disappeared once people realized that there was no place to go, and a grim passivity had settled upon the survivors. Civilization did not break down. It endured. The mechanics remained intact.

People had to do something even if it was only routine counterfeit of normal life, the stiff upper lip and the face of disaster. It would have been far more odd, Mary decided, if mankind had given way to panic. Humanity had survived other plagues nearly as terrible as this, and racial memory is long. The same grim patience of the past was here in the present. Man would somehow survive, and civilization go on.

It was inconceivable that mankind would become extinct. The whole vast resources and pooled intelligence of surviving humanity were focused upon Thurston's disease, and the disease would yield.

Humanity waited with childlike confidence for the miracle that would save it. And the miracle would happen. Mary knew it with a calm certainty as she stood in the cross corridor at the end of the hall, looking down a thirty yards of tile that separated her from the elevator that would carry her up to the clinic and oblivion. It might be too late for her, but not for the race. Nature had tried unaided to destroy man before, and had failed.

and her unholy alliance with man's genius, would also fail. She wondered as she walked down the corridor if the others who had sickened and died felt as she did. She speculated with grim amusement whether Walter Kramer would be as impersonal as he was with the others when he performed the post-mortem on her body. She shivered at the thought of that bare, sterile room and the shining table. Death was not a pretty thing.

But she could meet it with resignation, if not with courage. She had already seen too much for it to have any meaning. She did not fault her as she placed a finger on the elevator button. Poor Walter, she sighed. Sometimes it was harder to be among the living. It was good that she didn't let him know how she felt. She had sensed a change in him recently. His friendly impersonality had become merely friendly. It could, with a little encouragement, have developed into something else. But it wouldn't now.

She sighed again. His hardness had been a tower of strength, and his bitter gallows humor had furnished a wry relief to grim reality. It had been nice to work with him. She wondered if he would miss her, her lips curled in a faint smile. He would, if only for the trouble he would have in making chaos out of the order she had created. Why couldn't that elevate her hurry? "'Mary, where are you going?' Kramer's voice was in her ears, and his hand was on her shoulder.

Don't touch me. Why not? His voice was curiously different, younger, excited. I have Thurston's disease, she said. He didn't let go. Are you sure? The presumptive tests were positive. Initial stages? She nodded. I had the first coughing attack a few minutes ago. He pulled her away from the elevator door that suddenly slid open. You were going to that death trap upstairs, he said. Where else can I go? With me, he said. I think I can help you.

"'How? Have you found a cure for the virus?' "'I think so. At least it's a better possibility than the things they're using up there.' His voice was urgent. "'And to think I might never have seen it if you hadn't put me on the track. Are you sure you're right?' "'Not absolutely, but the facts fit. The theory's good. Then I'm going to the clinic. I can't risk infecting you. I'm a carrier now. I can kill you, and you're too important to die.'

You don't know how wrong you are, Kramer said. Let go of me. No, you're coming back.

She twisted in his grasp. "'Let me go!' she sobbed and broke into a fit of coughing worse than before. "'What I was trying to say,' Dr. Kramer said into the silence that followed, "'is that if you have Thurston's disease, you've been a carrier for at least two weeks. If I'm going to get it, your going away can't help, and if I'm not, I'm not. Do you come willingly, or shall I knock you unconscious and drag you back?' Kramer asked."

She looked at his face. It was grimmer than she had ever seen it before. Numbly, she let him lead her back to the laboratory. "'But, Walter, I can't. That's sixty in the past ten hours,' she protested. "'Take it,' he said grimly. "'Then take another, and inhale, deeply.' "'But they make me dizzy.' "'Better dizzy than dead. And by the way, how's your chest?' "'Better. There's no pain now, but the cough is worse.'

It should be. Why? You never smoked enough to get a cigarette cough, he said. She shook her head dizzily. You're so right, he said. And that's what nearly killed you, he finished triumphantly. Are you sure? I'm certain. Naturally, I can't prove it. Yet. But that's just a matter of time. Your response is just about clinches it. Take a look at the records. Who gets this disease? Youngsters.

with nearly 100% morbidity and 100% mortality. Adults, less than 50% morbidity and again 100% mortality. What makes the other 50% immune? Your crack about leather lungs started me thinking, so I fed the data cards into the computer and keyed them for smoking versus incidents, and I found that not one heavy smoker had died of Thurston's disease. Light smokers and non-smokers, plenty of them, but not one single nicotine addict.

And there were over 10,000 randomized cards in that spot check. And there's the exact reverse of that classic experiment the lung cancer boys used to sell their case. Among certain religious groups which prohibit smoking, there was nearly 100% mortality of all ages.

And so I thought since the disease was just starting in you, perhaps I could stop it if I loaded you with tobacco smoke. And it works. You're not certain yet, Mary said. I might not have had the disease. You had the symptoms, and there's virus in your sputum. Yes, but nothing. I've passed the word, and the boys in the other labs figure that there's merit in it. We're going to call it Barton's therapy in your honor.

It's going to cause a minor social revolution. A lot of laws are going to have to be rewritten. I can see where it's going to be illegal for children not to smoke. Funny, isn't it? I've contacted the maternity ward. They have three babies still alive upstairs. We'll get all the newborn in this town, or didn't you know? Funny, isn't it, how we still try to reproduce? They're rigging a smoke chamber for the kids. The head nurse is screaming like a wounded tiger, but she'll feel better with live babies to care for.

The only bad thing I can see is that I may cut down on her chain-smoking. She's been worried a lot about infant mortality. And speaking of nurseries, that reminds me. I wanted to ask you something. Yes? Will you marry me? I've wanted to ask you before, but I didn't dare. Now I think you owe me something. Your life. And I'd like to take care of it from now on. Of course I will, Mary said. And I have reasons too. If I marry you, you can't possibly do that silly thing you plan.

What thing? Naming the treatment Barton's. It'll have to be Kramer's. End of story one. Story two of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi, volume two. This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. To be or not to be by Kurt Vonnegut.

Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. Population of the United States was stabilized at 40 million souls.

One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, a man named Edward K. Whaling Jr. waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day anymore. Whaling was 56, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was 129. X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.

Young Weyling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths. The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.

A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him not much before the cure for aging was found. The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden.

Men and women in white, doctors and nurses turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash burners. Never, never, never, not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan had a garden been more formal, been better tended,

Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use. A hospital orderly came down the corridor singing under his breath a popular song. You don't like my kisses, honey? Here's what I will do. I'll go see a girl in purple, kiss this sad world to loo. If you don't want my lovin', why should I take up all this space? I'll get off this old planet, let some sweet baby have my place.

The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. "'Looks so real,' he said. "'I can practically imagine I'm standing in the middle of it.' "'What makes you think you're not in it?' said the painter. He gave a satiric smile. "'It's called the happy garden of life, you know.' "'That's good of Dr. Hitz,' said the orderly. He was referring to one of the male figures in white whose head was a portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital's chief obstetrician. Hitz was a blindingly handsome man. "'That of fate is still to fill in,' said the orderly.

He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. Our blanks were to be filled with portraits of important people, on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago office or the Federal Bureau of Termination. Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something, said the orderly, painter's face curled with scorn. You think I'm proud of this daub, he said. You think this is my idea of what life really looks like? What's your idea of what life looks like, said the orderly.

Painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. There's a good picture of it, he said. Frame that and you'll have a picture of Damside Myronist in this one. You're a gloomy old duck, aren't you? said the orderly. Is that a crime? said the painter. The orderly shrugged. If you don't like it here, Grandpa, he said, and he finished the thought with a trick telephone number that people who didn't want to live anymore were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number, he pronounced, not.

The number was 2BR, not 2B. It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful subrokees included Automat, Birdland, Cannery, Catbox, D. Louser, Easy Go, Goodbye Mother, Happy Hooligan, Kiss Me Quick, Lucky Pierre, Sheep Dip, Waring Blender, Weep No More, and Why Worry.

2B-R, not 2B, was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination. Painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. When I do time, when I decide it's time to go, he said, it won't be at the sheep dip. You do it yourself, hooray, said the orderly. Messy business, Grandpa. Why don't you have a little consideration for the people who have to clean up after you?

The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulation of his survivors. The war could do with a good deal more mess if you ask me, he said. He oddly laughed and moved on. Wailing, the waiting father mumbled something without raising his head, and then he fell silent again.

A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple, the purple the painter called the color of grapes on Judgment Day. The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the service division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a turnstile.

The woman had a lot of facial hair, an unmistakable moustache, in fact. A curious thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and feminine they were, when recruited they all sprouted moustaches within five years or so.

"'This is where I'm supposed to come,' she said to the painter. "'Well, that would depend on what your business was,' he said. "'You aren't about to have a baby, are you?' "'They told me I was supposed to pose for some picture,' she said. "'My name is Leora Duncan,' she waited. "'And you dunk people,' he said. "'What?' she said. "'Skip it,' he said. "'It sure is a beautiful picture,' she said.'

Looks just like heaven or something. Or something, said the painter. He took a list of names from his smack pocket. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan, he said, scanning the list. Yes, here you are. You're entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you'd like me to stick your head on? We've got a few choice ones left. He studied the mural bleakly. Gee, he said, they're all the same to me. I don't know anything about art. Body's a body, eh? he said. All righty.

As a matter of fine art, I recommend this buddy here. He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash burner.

"'Well,' said Leora Duncan, "'that's more the disposal people, isn't it? "'I mean, I'm in service. I don't do any disposing.' The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. "'You say you don't know anything about art, "'and then you prove in the next breath "'that you know more about it than I do. "'Of course the sheave carrier is wrong for a hostess, "'a snipper, a pruner. "'That's more your line.' He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. "'How about her?' he said. "'You like her at all?'

"Gosh," she said, she blushed and became humble, "that—that puts me right next to Dr. Hitz." "That upsets you," he said. "Good gravy, no," she said. "It's—it's just such an honor." "Ah, you—you admire him, eh?" he said. "Who doesn't admire him?" she said, worshipping the portrait of Hitz. It was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred and forty years old.

"'Who doesn't admire him?' she said again. "'He was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago.' "'Nothing would please me more,' said the painter. "'Than to put you next to him for all time, sawing off a limb that strikes you as appropriate.' "'It is kind of like what I do,' she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.'

And while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait into the waiting-room bounded Dr. Hitz himself, he was seven feet tall and he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living. "'Well, Miss Duncan, Miss Duncan,' he said, and he made a joke. "'What are you doing here?' he said. "'This isn't where the people live. This is where they come in.'

We're going to be in the same picture together, she said shyly. Good, the doctor hits heartily. And say, isn't that some picture? I'm sure I'm honored to be in it with you, she said. Let me tell you, he said, I'm honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible. He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms.

"'Guess what was just born,' he said. "'I can't,' she said. "'Triplets,' he said. "'Triplets,' she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets. The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die.'

Triplets, if they were all to live, called for three volunteers. "'Do the parents have three volunteers?' said Liara Duncan. "'Last I heard,' said Dr. Hitz. "'They had one, and were trying to scrape another two up.' "'I don't think they made it,' she said. "'Nobody made three appointments with us. "'Nothing but singles going through today, "'unless somebody called in after I left. "'What's the name?'

"'Whaling,' said the waiting father, sitting up red-eyed and frowsy. "'Edward K. Whaling, Jr. is the name of the happy father-to-be.' He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. "'Present,' he said. "'Oh, Mr. Whaling,' said Dr. Hitz. "'I didn't see you.' "'The Invisible Man,' said Whaling. "'They just found me that your triplets have been born,' said Dr. Hitz. "'They're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way to see them now.'

"'Hooray!' said Wailing emptily. "'You don't sound very happy,' said Dr. Hitz. "'One man in my shoes wouldn't be happy,' said Wailing. He gestured with his hands to symbolize carefree simplicity. "'All I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the happy hooligan and come back here with a receipt.' Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wailing towered over him. "'You don't believe in population control, Mr. Wailing?' he said.

"'I think it's perfectly keen,' said Wailing tartly. "'Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the earth was twenty billion, about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drooplet is, Mr. Wailing?' said Hitz. "'No,' said Wailing sulkily. "'A

A drooplet, Mr. Whaling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little poppy grains of a blackberry, said Dr. Hitz. Without population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drooplots on a blackberry. Think of it, Whaling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.

In the year 2000, said Dr. Hitz, before scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but seaweed, and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits, and their right, if possible, to live forever. I want those kids, said Whaling quietly. I want all three of them. Of course you do, said Dr. Hitz. That's only human.

I don't want my grandfather to die either, said Wailing. Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the cat box, said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically. I wish people wouldn't call it that, said Leora Duncan. What? said Dr. Hitz. I wish people wouldn't call it the cat box and things like that, she said. It gives people the wrong impression. You're absolutely right, said Dr. Hitz. Forgive me.

He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. I should have said Ethical Suicide Studios, he said. That sounds so much better, said Leora Duncan.

"'This child of yours, whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Whaling,' said Dr. Hitz. "'He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet thanks to population control, in a garden like that mural there,' he shook his head. "'Two centuries ago when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the imagination cares to travel.' He smiled luminously."

The smile faded as he saw that Wailing had just drawn a revolver. Wailing shot Dr. Hitch dead. "There's room for one. A great big one," he said. And then he shot Leora Duncan. "It's only death," he said to her as she fell. "There, room for two." And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children. Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.

The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene. The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once born, demanding to be fruitful, to multiply and to live as long as possible, to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.

All the answers that the painter could think of were grim, even grimmer surely than a cat-box, a happy hooligan, an easy-go. He thought of war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation. He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop-cloths below. Then he decided he had had about enough of life in the happy garden of life, too, and he came slowly down from the ladder.

He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself, but he didn't have the nerve, and then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dialed the well-remembered number, 2BR, not 2B. "'Federal Bureau of Termination,' said the very warm voice of a hostess. "'How soon can I get an appointment?' he asked, speaking very carefully.

"'He could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir,' she said. "'It might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation.' "'All right,' said the painter. "'Pit me in, if you please.' And he gave her his name, spelling it out. "'Thank you, sir,' said the hostess. "'Your city thanks you. Your country thanks you. Your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations.'"

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Home Depot. Offer valid May 15th through June 4th. U.S. only. See store or online for details. Two. Story three of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Beautiful People by Charles Beaumont. Mary sat quietly and watched the handsome man's legs blown off. Watched further as the great ship began to crumple and break into small pieces in the middle of the blazing night.

She fidgeted slightly as the men and the parts of the men came floating dreamily through the wreckage out into the awful silence. And when the meteorite shower came upon the men, gouging holes through everything, tearing flesh and ripping bones, Mary closed her eyes. "'Mother?' Mrs. Kubel glanced up from her magazine. "'Hmm? Do we have to wait much longer?' "'I don't think so. Why?' Mary said nothing but looked at the moving wall.

"'Oh, that!' Miss Kubor laughed and shook her head. "'That tired old thing. Read a magazine, Mary, like I'm doing. We've all seen that a million times. Does it have to be on, Mother?' "'Well, nobody seems to be watching. I don't think the doctor would mind if I switched it off.' Mrs. Kubor rose from the couch and walked to the wall. She depressed a little button, and the life went from the wall, flickering and glowing.

Mary opened her eyes. "'Honestly,' Mrs. Q. Burrell said to a woman sitting beside her, "'you'd think they'd try to get something else. You might as well go to the museum and watch the first landing on Mars. There may wreck a disaster. Really!' The woman replied without distracting her eyes from the magazine page. "'It's the doctor's idea. Psychological.' Mrs. Q. Burrell opened her mouth and moved her head up and down knowingly.

"'Oh, I should have known there was some reason. Still, who watches it?' "'The children do. Makes them think. Makes them grateful or something.' "'Oh?' "'Psychological.' Mary picked up a magazine and leafed through the pages. All photographs of women and men. Women like mother and like the others in the room. Slander, tanned, shapely, beautiful women. And men with large muscles and shiny hair.'

Women and men, all looking alike, all perfect and beautiful. She folded the magazine and wondered how to answer the questions that would be asked. "'Mother?' "'Gracious, what is it now? Can't we sit still for a minute?' "'But we've been here three hours,' Mrs. Kuberl sniffed. "'Do I really have to?' "'No, don't be silly, Mary. After those terrible things you told me, of course you do.' An olive-skinned woman in a transparent white uniform came into the reception room.

"'Cubo? Messazina Cubo?' "'Yes.' "'Doctor will see you now.' Mrs. Cubo took Mary's hand, and they walked behind the nurse down a long corridor. A man who seemed to be in his middle twenties looked up from a desk. He smiled and gestured toward the two adjoining chairs. "'Well?'

"'Dr. Hartel, I—' The doctor snapped his fingers. "'Of course I know. Your daughter. I certainly do know your trouble. Get so many of them nowadays. Takes up most of my time.' "'You do?' asked Mrs. Kubrow. "'Frankly, has it begun to upset me?' "'Upset? Oh, not good. Not good at all. Ah, but then if people did not get upset, we psychiatrists would be out of a job, eh? Go the way of the early M.D. But I assure you I need hear no more.'

He turned his handsome face to Mary. "'Little girl, how old are you?' "'Eighteen, sir.' "'Oh, a real bit of impatience. It's just about time, of course. What might your name be?' "'Mary.' "'Charming, and so unusual. Well now, Mary, may I say that I understand your problem. Understand it thoroughly.' Mrs. Kubrell smiled and smoothed the sequins on her blouse.

Madam, you have no idea how many there are these days. Sometimes it preys on their minds so that it affects them physically, even mentally. Makes them act strange, say peculiar, unexpected things. One little girl I recall was so distraught she did nothing but brood all day long. Can you imagine?

That's what Mary does. When she finally told me, Doctor, I thought she had gone, you know. That bad, eh? Afraid we'll have to start a re-education program very soon, or they'll all be like this. I believe I'll suggest it to the Senator day after tomorrow. I don't quite understand, Doctor.

Simply, Mrs. Kubo, that the children have got to be thoroughly instructed. Thoroughly. Too much is taken for granted, and childish minds somehow refuse to accept things without definite reason. Children have become far too intellectual, which, as I trust I needn't mind you, is a dangerous thing.

Yes, but what has this to do with Mary? Everything, of course. Mary, like half the 16, 17 and 18 year olds today, has begun to feel acutely self-conscious. She feels that her body has developed sufficiently for the transformation, which of course it has not, not quite yet, and she cannot understand the complex reasons that compel her to wait until some future date.

Mary looks at you, at the women all about her, at the pictures, and then she looks into a mirror. From pure perfection of body, face, limbs, pigmentation, carriage, stance, from Simon, pure perfection, if I may be allowed the expression, she sees herself and is horrified. Isn't that so, my dear child? Of course, of course, she asks herself, why must I be hideous, unbalanced, oversized, undersized, full of revolting skin eruptions, badly schemed organically, in

In short, Mary is tired of being a monster and is overly anxious to achieve what almost everyone else has already achieved. But, said Mrs. Kubrow,

"'Now, Mary, what you object to is that a society offers you and the others like you no convincing logic on the side of waiting until age nineteen. It is all taken for granted, and you want to know why? It is that simple. A non-technical explanation will not suffice. Mercy, no. The modern child wants facts, solid technical data to satisfy her every question, and that, as you can both see, will take a good deal of reorganizing.' "'But,' said Mary, "'what?'

The child is upset, nervous, tense, she acts strange, peculiar, odd, worries you and makes herself ill because it is beyond our meagre powers to put it across. I tell you, what we need is a whole new basis for learning, and that will take doing. It will take doing, Mrs. Q. Burrell. Now, don't you worry about Mary, and don't you worry, child, I'll prescribe some pills. No, no, doctor, you're mixed up.

cried mrs cubirl i beg your pardon madam what i mean is you've got it wrong tell him mary tell the doctor what you told me mary shifted uneasily in the chair it's that i don't want it the doctor's well-proportioned jaw dropped would you please repeat that i said i don't want the transformation

Don't want it? You see, she told me. That's why I came to you. The doctor looked at Mary suspiciously. But that's impossible. I've never heard of such a thing. Little girl, you are playing a joke. Mary nodded negatively. See, doctor, what can be done? Mrs. Q. Burrow rose and began to pace. The doctor clucked his tongue and took from a small cupboard a black box covered with buttons and dials and wires.

Oh no, you don't think, I mean, could it? We shall soon see. The doctor revolved the number of dials and studied the single bulb in the center of the box. It did not flicker. He removed handles from Mary's head. Dear me, the doctor said. Dear me. Your daughter is perfectly sane, Mrs. Kubo. Well, then what is it?

Perhaps she is lying. We haven't completely eliminated that fact as yet. It slips into certain organisms. More tests, more machines, and more negative results. Mary pushed her foot in a circle on the floor. When the doctor put his hands to her shoulders, she looked up pleasantly. Little girl, said the handsome man, do you actually mean to tell us that you prefer that body? Yes, sir. May I ask why? I like it.

It's hard to explain, but it's me, and that's what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the me. You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look well at your mother and be content. Yes, sir. Mary thought of her reasons. Fuzzy, vague, but very definitely there. Maybe she had said the reason. No, only part of it.

"'Mrs. Q. Burrell,' the doctor said, "'I suggest that your husband have a long talk with Mary.' "'My husband is dead. That affair in Aganemede, I believe. Something like that.' "'Oh, splendid. Rocket man, eh? Very interesting organisms. Something always seems to happen to rocket men in one way or another. But I suppose we should do something.' The doctor scratched his jaw. "'When did you first start talking this way?' he asked.'

Oh, for quite some time. I used to think it was because she was such a baby. But lately, the time getting so close and all, I thought I'd better see you. Of course, yes, very wise. Does she always do odd things? Well, I found her in the second level one night. She was lying on the floor, and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to sleep. Mary flinched. She was sorry, in a way, that Mother had found that out. Did you say sleep? That's right. Now, where could she have picked that up?

"'No idea. Mary, don't you know that nobody sleeps any more? That we have an infinitely greater lifespan than our poor ancestors now that the wasteful state of unconsciousness has been conquered? Child, have you actually slept? No one knows how any more.' "'No, sir. But I almost did.' The doctor sighed. "'But it's unheard of. How could you begin to try to do something people have forgotten entirely about?'

The way it was described in the book. It sounded nice, that's all. Mary was feeling very uncomfortable now. Home and no talking men and a foolish white gown. Book? Are there books at your unit, madam? There could be. I haven't cleaned up in a while. That is certainly peculiar. I haven't seen a book for years. Not since seventeen. Mary began to fidget and stare nervously about. But with the tapes, why should you try and read books? Where did you get them?

"'Daddy did. He got them from his father, and so did Grandpa. He said they're better than the tapes, and he was right.' Mrs. Q. Burrell flushed. "'My husband was a little strange, Dr. Hortel. He kept those things despite everything I said. Dear Mimi, I—' "'Excuse me.' The muscular, black-haired doctor walked to another cabinet and selected from the shelf a bottle. From the bottle he took two large pills and swallowed them.'

"Sleep, books, doesn't want the transformation. Mrs. Q. Bell, my dear good woman, this is grave. Doesn't want the transformation. I would appreciate it if you would change psychiatrists. I am very busy and this is somewhat specialized. I suggest Central Dome. Many fine doctors there. Goodbye." The doctor turned and sat down in a large chair and folded his hands.

Mary watched him and wondered why the simple statements should have so changed things. But the doctor did not move from the chair. "'Well,' said Mrs. Q. Burrow, and walked from the room. The man's legs were being blown off again as they left the reception room. Mary considered the reflection in the mirrored wall. She sat on the floor and looked at different angles of herself. Profile. Full face. Full length. Naked. Clothed. Then she took up the magazine and studied it.

She sighed. Mirror, mirror, on the wall. The words came haltingly to her mind and from her lips. She hadn't read them, she recalled. Daddy had said them, quoted them, as he put it. But they too were lines from a book. Who is the fairest of... A picture of Mother sat upon the dresser, and Mary considered this now, looked for a long time at the slender feminine neck, the golden skin, smooth and without blemish, without wrinkles,

and without age, the dark brown eyes and the thin tapers of eyebrows, the long black lashes set evenly so that each half of the face corresponded precisely, the half-parted mouth, a violet tint against the gold, the white white teeth even, sparkling, mother, beautiful, transformed mother, and back again to the mirror of them all.

The image of a rather chubby girl without lines of rhythm or grace, without perfection, splotchy skin full of little holes, puffs in the cheeks, red eruptions on the forehead, perspiration, shapeless hair flowing out of shapeless shoulders down a shapeless body, like all of them, before the transformation.

Did they all look like this before? Did Mother even? Mary thought hard, trying to remember exactly what Daddy and Grandpa had said, why they said the transformation was a bad thing, and why she believed and agreed with them so strongly. It made little sense, but they were right. They were right, and one day he would understand completely.

Mrs. Kuborl slammed the door angrily, and Mary jumped to her feet. She hadn't forgotten about it. "'Who are you upset, Dr. Hortel? You won't even see me any more. And these traumas are getting horrible. I'll have to get that awful Dr. Wagner. Sorry.' Mrs. Kuborl sat on the couch and crossed her legs carefully. "'What in the world were you doing on the floor?'

Trying to sleep. Now I won't hear of it. You've got to stop it. You know you're not insane. Why should you want to do such a silly thing? The books. And Daddy told me about it. And you mustn't read those terrible things. Why? Is there a law against them? Well, no. But people tired of books and the tapes came in. You know that. The house is full of tapes. Anything you want. Mary stuck out her lower lip.

"'They're no fun. Not about the wars and the colonizations.' "'And I suppose books are fun?' "'Yes, they are. And that's where you get this idiotic notion that you don't want the transformation, isn't it? Of course it is. Well, we'll see to that.' Mrs. Cuba rose quickly and took the books from the corner and from the closet and filled her arms with them. She looked everywhere in the room and gathered the old rotten volumes.

These he carried from the room and threw into the elevator. A button guided the door shut. "'I thought you'd do that,' Mary said. "'That's why I hid most of the good ones. Why, you'll never find them.' Mrs. Q. Burrell put a satin handkerchief to her eyes and began to weep. "'Just look at you! Look! I don't know what I ever did to deserve this!'

Deserve what, mother? What am I doing that's so wrong? Mary's mind rippled in a confused dream. What? Mrs. Q. Burrell screamed. What? Do you think I want people to point to you and say I'm the mother of an idiot? That's what they'll say. You'll see, or... She looked up hopefully. Have you changed your mind? No. The vague reasons longing to be put into words.

It doesn't hurt. They just take off a little skin and put some on and give you pills and electronic treatments and things like that. It doesn't take more than a week. The reason. Don't you want to be beautiful like other people? Like me? Look at your friend Shayla. She's getting her transformation next month. And she's almost pretty now. Mother, I don't care. If it's the bones you're worried about, well, that doesn't hurt. They give you a shot and when you wake up everything is molded right. Everything to suit the personality.

I don't care. But why? I like me the way I am. Almost exactly. But not quite. Part of it, however. Part of what Daddy and Grandpa meant. But you're so ugly, dear. Like Dr. Hartel said. And Mr. Velma's at the factory. He told some people he thought you were the ugliest girl he'd ever seen. Says he'll be thankful when you have your transformation. And what if he hears all of this? What'll happen then? Daddy said I was beautiful.

"'Well, really, dear, you do have eyes. Daddy said that real beauty is only skin deep. He said a lot of things like that. And when I read the books, I felt the same way. I guess I don't want to look like everybody else, that's all. No, that's not it. Not at all it. That man had too much to do with you. You'll notice that he had his transformation, though. He was sorry. He told me that if he had to do it over again, he'd never do it. He said for me to be stronger than he was.'

"'Well, I won't have it. You're not going to get away with this, young lady. After all, I am your mother.' A bulb flickered in the bathroom, and Mrs. Q. Burrow walked uncertainly to the cabinet. She took out a little cardboard box. "'Time for lunch,' Mary nodded. That was another thing the books talked about, which the tapes did not.

Lunch seemed to be something special long ago, or at least different. The books talked of strange ways of putting a load of things into the mouth and chewing these things, enjoying them, strange and somehow wonderful. "'And you'd better get ready for work.' "'Yes, mother.' The office was quiet and without shadow. The walls gave off a steady luminescence, distributed their light evenly upon all the desks and tables.

and it was neither hot nor cold. Mary held the ruler firmly and allowed the pen to travel down the metal edge effortlessly. The new black lines were small and accurate. She tipped her head, compared the notes beside her to the plan she was working on. She noticed the beautiful people looking at her more furtively than before, and she wondered about this as she made her lines. Tall Man rose from his desk in the rear of the office and walked down the aisle to Mary's table.

He surveyed her work, allowing his eyes to travel cautiously from her face to the draft. Mary looked around. "'Nice job,' said the man. "'Thank you, Dr. Vilmers.' "'Dralek. Shouldn't have anything to complain about. That crane should hold the whole damn city.' "'It's very good alloy, sir.' "'Yeah. Say, kid, you got a minute?' "'Yes, sir.' "'Let's go into Mullinson's office.' The big handsome man led the way into a small cubbyhole of a room.

He motioned to a chair and sat on the edge of one desk. "'Kid, I never was one to beat around the bush. Somebody called in a little while ago and gave me some crazy story about you not wanting the transformation.' Mary said, "'Oh, Daddy had said it would have to happen some day. This must be what he meant.' "'I would have told them that they were way off the beam, but I wanted to talk to you first, get it straight.' "'Well, so it's true. I don't. I want to stay this way.'

The man looked at Mary and then coughed embarrassedly. What the hell? Excuse me, kid, but I don't exactly get it. You, uh, you saw the psychiatrist? Yes, sir. I'm not insane. Dr. Hartel can tell you. I didn't mean anything like that. Well, the man laughed nervously. I don't know what to say. You're still a cub, but you do swell work. A lot of good results. Lots of comments from the stations. But Mr. Poole won't like it.

"'I know what you mean, Mr. Vilmas, but nothing can change my mind. I want to stay this way, and that's all there is to it.' "'But you'll get old before you're half through life.' "'Yes, you would. Old. Like the elders. Wrinkled and brittle. Unable to move right. Old. It's hard to make you understand, but I don't see why I should make any difference.'

"'Don't go getting me wrong now. It's not me. But you know, I don't own Interplan. I just work here. Mr. Pruel likes things running smoothly, and it's my job to carry it out. And as soon as everybody finds out things won't run smooth, there'll be a big stink. The dames will start asking questions and talk.' "'Will you accept my resignation then, Mr. Vilmers?' "'No, you won't change your mind.'

"'No, sir, I decided that a long time ago, and I'm sorry now that I told Mother or anyone else. No, sir, I won't change my mind.' "'Well, I'm sorry, Mary. You've been doing awful swell work. Couple of years you could be centred on one of the asteroids, the way you've been working. But if you should change your mind, there'll always be a job for you here.' "'Thank you, sir.' "'No hard feelings?' "'No hard feelings.' "'Okay, then. You've got till March, and between you and me I hope by then you've decided the other way.'

Mary walked back down the aisle, past the rows of desks, past the men and women, the handsome model men and the beautiful perfect women. Perfect, all perfect, all looking alike, looking exactly alike. She sat down again and took up her ruler and pen. Mary stepped into the elevator and descended several hundred feet. At the second level she pressed a button and the elevator stopped.

The doors opened with another button, and the doors to her unit with still another. Mrs. Kubo sat on the floor by the TV, disconsolate and red-eyed. Her blonde hair had come slightly askew, and a few strands hung over her forehead. "'Nobody. You don't need to tell me. No one will hire you.' Mary sat beside her mother. "'If you only hadn't told Dr. Wilmers in the first place.' "'Well, I thought he could beat a little sense into you.'

The sounds from the TV grew louder. Mrs. Q-Birl changed channels and finally turned it off. "'What did you do today, Mother?' Mary smiled. "'Do? What can I do now? Nobody will ever come over. I told you what would happen.' "'Mother, they say you should be in the circuses.'

"'Mary went into another room. "'Mrs. Kuberl followed. "'How are we going to live? "'Where does the money come from now? "'Just because you're stubborn on this crazy idea. "'Crazy, crazy, crazy. "'Can I support both of us? "'They'll be firing me next. "'Why is this happening? "'Because of you. "'That's why. "'Nobody else on this planet has ever refused the transformation. "'But you turned it down. "'You want to be ugly.' "'Mary put her arms about her mother's shoulders.'

I wish I could explain. I've tried so hard to. It isn't that I want to bother anyone. Oh, that Daddy wanted me to. I just don't want the transformation. Mrs. Q. Burrell reached into the pockets of her blouse and got a purple pill. She swallowed the pill. When the letter dropped from the chute, Mrs. Q. Burrell ran to snatch it up. She read it once, silently, and smiled.

oh i was afraid they wouldn't answer but we'll see about this now he gave the letter to mary mrs zena kewbell unit four five one d levels two and three city dear madam in we your letter of december third thirty six

We have carefully examined your complaint and consider that it requires stringent measures. Quite frankly, the possibility of such a complaint has never occurred to this department, and we therefore cannot make positive directives at the moment. However, due to the unusual qualities of the matter, we have arranged an audience at Central Dome, 8th Level, 16th Unit, January 3rd, 37, 23 Sharp. Dr. Elf Hortel has been instructed to attend. You will bring the subject in question.

Yours, Department F. Mary let the paper flutter to the floor. She walked quietly to the elevator and set it for level three. When the elevator stopped, she ran from it, crying, into her room. She thought and remembered and tried to sort out and put together. Daddy had said it. Grandpa had. The books did. Yes, the books did. She read until her eyes burned, and her eyes burned until she could read no more.

Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it for the first time. But the sleep was not peaceful.

"'Ladies and gentlemen,' said the young-looking, well-groomed man, "'this problem does not resolve easily. Dr. Hotel here testifies that Mary Gubel is definitely not insane. Drs. Monar, Prynne, and Fedders all verify this judgment. Dr. Prynne asserts that the human organism is no longer so constructed as to create and sustain such an attitude through deliberate falsehood. Further, there is positively nothing in the structure of Mary Gubel which might suggest difficulties in transformation.'

There is evidence for all these statements, and yet we are faced with this refusal. What may I ask is to be done?" Mary looked at a metal table. "We have been in session far too long, holding up far too many other pressing contingencies. The trouble on Mercury, for example. We'll have to straighten that out somehow." Throughout the rows of beautiful people the mumbling increased. Mrs. Q. Burrell sat nervously, tapping her shoe and running a comb through her hair.

"'Mary Cooper, you have been given innumerable chances to reconsider, you know.' Mary said, "'I know, but I don't want to.' The beautiful people looked at Mary and laughed. Some shook their heads. The man threw up his hands. "'Little girl, can you realize what an issue you have caused? "'The unrest, the wasted time. "'You fully understand what you have done.'

"Intergalactic questions hang fire while you sit there saying the same thing over and over. Doesn't the happiness of your mother mean anything to you?" A slender, supple woman in the back row cried, "We want action! Do something!" The man in the high stool raised his hand. "None of that now. We must conform, even though the question is out of the ordinary." He leafed through a number of papers on his desk, leaned down and whispered into the ear of a strong, blond man.

Then he turned to Mary again. "'Charlotte, for the last time, do you reconsider? Will you accept the transformation?' "'No.' The man shrugged his shoulders. "'Very well, then. I have here a petition signed by two thousand individuals and representing all the stations of Earth. They have been made aware of all the facts and have submitted the petition voluntarily. It's all so unusual, and I'd hoped we wouldn't have to, but the petition urges drastic measures.' The mumbling rose.

"'The petition urges that you shall, upon final refusal, "'be forced by law to accept the transformation, "'and that an act of legislature "'shall make this universal and binding in the future.' "'Mary's eyes were open, wide. "'She stood and paused before speaking. "'Why?' she asked loudly.

The man passed a hand through his hair. Another voice from the crowd. Seems there are a lot of questions I answered here. Another. Sign the petition, Senator. Oh, the voices. Sign it. Sign it. But why? Mary began to cry. The voices stilled for a moment. Because... Because...

"'If you'd only tell me that! Tell me!' "'Why, it simply isn't being done, that's all. The greatest gift of all, and one of us should get the same idea. What would happen to us then, little girl? We'd be right back to the ugly, thin, fat, unhealthy-looking race we were ages ago. There can't be any exceptions.' "'Maybe they didn't consider themselves so ugly!' The mumbling began anew. "'That isn't the point,' cried the man. "'You must conform!' And the voices cried yes, loudly, until the man took up a pen and signed the papers on his desk. "'Cheers!'

Applause. Shouts. Mrs. Q. Burrell patted Mary on the top of her head. There now, she said happily. Everything will be all right now. You'll see, Mary. The transformation parlor covered the entire level, sprawling with its departments. It was always filled, and there was nothing to sign and no money to pay, and people were always waiting in line. But today the people stood aside.

and there were still more lurking in through doors, TV cameras placed throughout the tape machines in every corner. It was filled, but not bustling as usual. Mary walked past the people, mother and the men in back of her following. She looked at the people. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw. Oh, the beautiful people. Oh, the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs.

walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms. Harry walked slowly despite the prodding. In her eyes, in her eyes, she was a mounting confusion, a wide, wide wonderment. The reason was becoming less vague. The fuzzed edges were falling away now. Through all the horrible months and all the horrible moments, the edges fell away.

Now it was almost clear. She looked down at her own body, down at the walls which reflected it, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no one, built by herself or someone she did not know, uneven kneecaps, making two grinning cherubs when they bent, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs, fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary.

But Mary. Of course, of course, this was what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant, what they would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, reasonable words, the words that signified more, much more than any of this. The understanding heaped up with each step. Where are these people? Mary asked half to herself.

What has happened to them? And don't they miss themselves? These manufactured things. He stopped suddenly. Yes, that is the reason. They have all forgotten themselves. A curvaceous woman stepped forward and took Mary's hand. The woman's skin was tinted dark. Chipped and sculptured bone into slender rhythmic lines. Electrically created carriage. Stance. Made. Turned out. All right, young lady, we will begin.

They guided Mary to a large curved leather seat. From the top of a long silver pole, a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then redirected into the machine. Wheels turning, buttons ticking. The picture was completed. Would you like to see it?

Mary closed her eyes tight. "'It's really very nice,' the woman turned to the crowd. "'Oh yes, there's a great deal to be salvaged, you'd be surprised. A great deal. We'll keep the nose, and I don't believe the elbows will have to be altered at all.' Mrs. Kuber looked at Mary and smiled. "'Now it isn't so bad as you thought, is it?' she said. The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned. Tapes wound. "'You'll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed.' "'Only the machines?' The people filed out.

Mary saw the rooms in the mirror, saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had been left, the women and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying. Then she looked at the picture in the screen and screamed. A woman of medium height stared back at her.

A woman with a curved body and thin legs, silver hair, pompadoured, cut short, full, sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin. Strange, strange woman no one had ever seen before. The nurse began to take Mary's clothes off. "'Jeff,' the woman said, "'come look at this, will you? Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all.' The handsome man put his hands in his pockets. "'Pity bad, all right.'

"'Be still, Charles. Stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt.' "'But what will you do with me?' "'That was all explained to you.' "'No, no, with me. Me.' "'Oh, you mean the cast-offs. The usual. I don't know exactly. Somebody takes care of it.' "'I want me!' Mary cried. "'Not that!' He pointed at the screen. Her chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the man lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass. Black.

A big machine hung above. Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the women. More women now. Dr. Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head. Mary began to cry above the hum of the mechanical things.

"'Shh, my gracious, such a ragged. Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you'll have, and how nice everything will be. No more trouble now.' The big machine hurtling downward. "'Where will I find me?' Mary screamed. "'When it's all over!' A long needle slid into rough flesh, and the beautiful people gathered around the table. They turned on the big machine." End of story three.

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Story 4 of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2. This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Operation Distress by Lester Del Rey. Bell Adams was halfway back from Mars when he noticed the red rash on his hands. He'd been reaching for one of the few remaining tissues to cover a sneeze, while scratching vigorously at the base of his neck. Then he saw the red spot and his hand halted.

while all desire to sneeze gasped out of him. He sat there, five feet seven inches of lean muscle and bronzed skin, sweating and staring, while the blonde hair on the back of his neck seemed to stand on end. Finally he dropped his hand and pulled himself carefully erect. The cabin in the spaceship was big enough to permit turning around, but not much more.

and with the ship cruising without power there was almost no gravity to keep him from overshooting his goal. He found the polished plate that served as a mirror and studied himself. His eyes were puffy, his nose was red, and there were other red splotches and marks on his face. Whatever it was, he had it bad.

Pictures went through his head, all unpleasant. He'd been only a kid when the men came back from the South Pacific in the last war. But an uncle had spent years dying of some weird disease that the doctors couldn't identify. That had been from something caught on Earth. What would happen when the disease was from another planet? It was ridiculous. Mars had no animal life, and even the thin lichen-like plants were sparse and tiny. A man couldn't catch a disease from a plant.

Even horses didn't communicate their ills to men. Then Bill remembered gangrene and cancer, which could attack any life, apparently. He went back to the tiny gigamolar counter, but there was no sign of radiation from the big atomic motor that powered the ship. He stripped his clothes off, spotting more of the red marks breaking out, but finding no sign of parasites. He hadn't really believed it anyhow.

They wouldn't account for the sneezing and sniffles, or the puffed eyes and burning inside his nose and throat. Dust, maybe. Mars had been dusty, a waste of reddish sand and desert silt that made the Sahara seem like paradise, and it had settled on his spacesuit to come in through the airlocks with him.

But if it contained some irritant, it should have been worse on Mars than now. He could remember nothing annoying, and he turned on the tiny, compact little static dust traps, in any case, before leaving to clear the air. He went back to one of the traps now and ripped the cover off it. The little motor purred briskly. The plastic rods turned against fur brushes, while a wiper cleared off any dust they picked up. There was no dust he could see. The traps had done their work.

"'Some plant irritant, like poison ivy. "'No, it always wore on his suit. "'Mars had an atmosphere, but it wasn't anything a man could breathe long. "'The suit was put on and off with automatic machine grapples, "'so he couldn't have touched it. "'The rash seemed to get worse on his body as he looked at it. "'This time he tore one of the tissues in quarters as he sneezed. "'The little supply was almost gone. "'There was never space enough for much beyond essentials in a spaceship, "'even with the new atomic drive.'

As he looked for spots, the burning in his nose seemed to increase. He dropped back to the pilot seat, cursing. Two months of being cramped up in this cubicle, sweating out the trip to Mars without knowing how the new engine would last, three weeks on Mars mapping frantically to cover all the territory he could, and planting little flags a hundred miles apart, now a week on the trip back at high acceleration most of the way, and this...

It expected adventure of some kind. Mars, though, had proved as interesting as a sandpile, and even the canals had proved to be only mineral striations invisible from the ground. He looked for something to do, but found nothing. He developed his films the day before, after carefully cleaning the static traps and making sure the air was dust-free.

He'd written up the accounts, and he'd been coasting along on the hope of getting home to a bath, a beer, and a few bowl sessions before he began to capitalize on being the first man to reach another planet beyond the moon. He caught on full acceleration again, more certain of his motives than of himself. He'd begun to notice the itching yesterday. Today he was breaking out in the rash. How long would whatever was coming take?

God, he might die from something as humiliating and undramatic as this. It hadn't hit him before, fully. There was no knowing about diseases from other planets. Men had developed immunity to the germs found on Earth, but just a smallpox had proved so fatal to the Indians, and syphilis to Europe, when they first hit. There was no telling how wildly this might progress. It might go away in a day, or it might kill him just as quickly.

He was figuring his new orbit on a tiny calculator. In two days at this acceleration he could reach radar distance of Earth. In four he could land. The tubes might burn out in continuous firing, but the other way he'd be two weeks making a landing, and most diseases he could remember seemed faster than that.

Bill wiped the sweat off his forehead, scratched at other places that were itching, and stared down at the small disk of earth. There were doctors there, and brother, he'd need them fast. Things were a little worse when the first squeals came from the radar two days later. He'd run out of tissues and his nose was a continual drip, while breathing seemed almost impossible. He was running some fever, too, though he had no way of knowing how much.

He cut his receiver in, punched out the code on his key. The receiver pipped again at him, bits of message getting through but unclearly. There was no response to his signals. He checked his chronometer and flipped over the micropages of his Ephemeris. The big radar at Washington was still out of line with him, and the signals had cut through too much air to come clearly. It should be good in another hour, but right now an hour seemed longer than a normal year.

He checked the dust tray again, tried figuring out other orbits, managed to locate the moon and scratched. Fifteen minutes. There was no room for pacing up and down. He pushed the back down from the pilot seat, lowered the table and pulled out his bunk. He remade it, making sure all the corners were perfect. Then he folded it back and lifted the table and seat. That took less than five minutes.

His hands were shaking worse when the automatic radar signals began to come through more clearly. It wasn't an hour, but he could wait no longer. He opened the key and began to send. It would take fifteen seconds for the signal to reach Earth, and another quarter minute for an answer, even if an operator was on duty.

Half a minute later, he found one was. Earth to Mars, Rocket One. Thank God you're ahead of schedule. If your tubes hold out, crowd them. Two other nations have ships out now. The UN has ruled that whoever comes back first with mapping surveys can claim the territory mapped. We're rushing the construction, but we need the ship for the second run if we're to claim our fair territory. Ah, hell, congratulations.

He had started hammering at his key before they finished, giving the facts on the tubes, which were standing up beyond all expectations. "'Get a doctor ready. A bunch of them,' he finished. "'I seem to have picked up something like a disease.' There was a long delay before an answer came this time. More than five minutes. The hand on the key was obviously different. Slower, not as steady. "'What symptoms, Adams? Give all details.'

He began, giving all the information he had, from the first itching through the rash and the fever. Again, longer this time, the main station hesitated. Anything I can do about it now? Bill asked, finally. And how about having those doctors ready?

We're checking with medical, the signals answered. Where? Here's the report. Not enough data. Could be anything. Dozens of diseases like that. Nothing you can do except dry saltwater goggle and spray. You've got stuff for that. Wash off rash with soap and hot water, followed by some of your hypo. We'll get a medical kit up to the moon for you. He let that sink in and clicked back. The moon?

"'You think you can land here with whatever you've got, man? There's no way of knowing how contagious it is. And keep an hourly check with us if you pass out to try to get someone out in a moon rocket to pick you up. But you can't risk danger of infecting the whole planet. You're quarantined on the moon. We'll send up landing instructions later, not even for lunar base, but where there will be no chance of contamination for others. You didn't really expect to come back here, did you, Adams?'

He should have thought of it. He knew that. And he knew that the words from Earth weren't as callous as they sounded. Down there, men would be sweating with him, going crazy trying to do something. But they were right. Earth had to be protected first. Bill Adams was only one out of two and a half billion, even if he had reached a planet before any other man. Yeah, it was fine to be a hero. But heroes shouldn't menace the rest of the world. Logically, he knew they were right. That helped him get his emotions under control.

Where do you want me to put down? Tycho, it isn't hard to spot for radar-controlled delivery of supplies to you, but it's a good seven hundred miles from Lunar Base. Then look, we'll try to get a doctor to you, but keep us informed if anything slips. We need those maps, if we can find a way to sterilize them. Okay, he acknowledged, and tell the cartographers there are no craters, no intelligence, and only plants about half an inch high. Mars stinks.

They'd already been busy, he saw, as he teetered down on his jets for a landing on Tycho. Holding control was the hardest job he'd ever done. A series of itchings cropped out just as the work got tricky, when he could no longer see the surface and had to go by feel. But somehow he made it, and he relaxed, and began an orgy of scratching.

and he thought there was something romantic about being a hero. The supplies that had already been sent up by the superfast unmanned missiles would give him something to do, at least. He moved back the two feet needed to reach his developing tanks, and went through the process of spraying and gargling. It was soothing enough while it went on, but it offered only momentary help. Then his stomach began showing distress signs. He fought against it, tightening up. It did no good.

His hasty breakfast of just black coffee wanted to come up, and did, giving him barely time to make the little booth. He washed his mouth out and grabbed for the radar key, banging out a report on this.

The doctors must have been standing by down at the big station because there was only a slight delay before the answering signal came. Any blood? Another knot added itself to his intestines. I don't know. Don't think so. But I didn't look. Look next time. We're trying to get this related to some of the familiar diseases. It must have some relation. There are only so many ways a man can be sick. We've got a doctor coming over, Adams. Not on the moon, but we're shipping them through.

He'll sit down in about nine hours, and there's some stuff to take on the supply missiles. May not help, but we're trying a mixture of the antibiotics. Also some ACS and anodynes for the itching and rash. Hope they work. Let us know any reaction." Bill cut off. "You'd have to try. They were as much in the dark about this as he was, but they had a better background for guessing and trial and error. And if the bugs in him happened to like tachyomycetin, he wouldn't be too much worse off. Damn it, had there been blood.

he forced his mind off it climbed into his clothes and then into the space suit that hung from the grapples it moved automatically into position the two halves sliding shut and sealing from outside the big gloves on his hands were too clumsy for such operations

Then he went bounding across the moon. Halfway to the supplies, he felt the itching come back, and he slithered and wriggled around, trying to scratch his skin against his clothing. It didn't help much. He was sweating harder, and his eyes were watering. He manipulated the little visor-cleaning gadget, trying to poke his face forward to brush the frustration tears from his eyes. He couldn't quite reach it.

there were three supply missiles each holding about two hundred pounds earth weight he tied them together and slung them over his back heading toward his ship here they weighed only a hundred pounds and with his own weight and the suit added the whole load came to little more than his normal weight on earth

He tried shifting the supplies around on his back, getting them to press against the spots of torment as he walked. It simply unbalanced him without really relieving the itching. Fortunately, though, his eyes were clearing a little. He gritted his teeth and fought back through the powdery pumice surface, kicking up clouds of dust that settled slowly but completely. Though the gravity was low, there was no air to hold them up. Nothing had ever looked better than the airlock of the ship.

He let the grapples hook the suit off him as soon as the outer seal was shut and went into a whirling dervish act. Aches and pains could be stood. Itching. Apparently, though, the spray and gargle had helped a little, since his nose felt somewhat clearer and his eyes were definitely better. He repeated them and then found the medical supplies with a long list of instructions. They were really shooting the pharmacy at him. He injected himself, swallowed things, rubbed himself down with others and waited.

Whatever they'd given him didn't offer any immediate help. He began to feel worse. But on contacting Earth by radar, he was assured that that might be expected. We've got another missile coming, with metal foil for the maps and photos, plus a small copying camera. You can print them right on the metal, seal that in a can, and leave it for the rocket that's bringing the doctor. The pilot will blast over it. That should sterilize it, and pick it up when it cools.

Bill swore, but he was in his suit when the missile landed, heading out across the pumice-covered wastes toward him. The salves had helped to the itching a little, but not much, and his nose had grown worse again. He jockeyed the big supply can out of the torpedo-shaped missile, packed it on his back, and headed for his ship. The itching was acting up as he sweated. This made a real load, about like packing a hundred bulky pounds over his normal earth weight through the soft drift of the pumice.

but his nose was clearing again. It was apparently becoming cyclic. He'd have to relay that information back to the medics, and where were they getting a doctor crazy enough to take a chance with him? He climbed out of the suit and went through the ritual of scratching, noticing that his fever had gone up and that his muscles were shaking. His head seemed light, as if he were in for a spell of dizziness. They'd be interested in that back on Earth, though it wouldn't do much good.

He couldn't work up a clinical attitude about himself. All he wanted was a chance to get over this disease before it killed him. He dragged out the photo and copying equipment under a red light. It filled what little space was left in his cubbyhole cabin. Then he swore, gulping down more of the pills where they were waiting for him. The metal sheets were fine. They were excellent. The only thing wrong was that they didn't fit his developing trays, and they were tough enough to give him no way of cutting them to size.

He stuffed them back in their container and shoved it into the airlock. Then his stomach kicked up again. He couldn't see any blood in the result, but he couldn't be sure. The color of the pills might hide traces. He flushed it down, his head turning in circles, and went to the radar. This time he didn't even wait for a reply. Let them worry about their damned maps. They could send cutting equipment with the doctor and pick up the things later. They could pick up his corpse and cremate it at the same time, for all he cared right now.

He yanked out his bunk and slumped into it, curling up as much as the itching would permit. And finally for the first time in over fifty hours he managed to doze off, though his sleep was full of nightmares. It was the sound of the bull-throated chemical rocket that brought him out of it, the sound travelling along the surface through the rocks and up through the metal ship, even without air to carry it. He could feel the rumble of its take-off later, but he waited long after that for the doctor.

There was no knock on the port. Finally he pulled himself up from the bunk, sweating and shaking, and looked out. The doctor was there, or at least a man in a spacesuit was, but somebody had been in a hurry for volunteers and given the man no basic training at all. The figure would pull itself erect, make a few strides after all bounce and no progress, and then slide down into the pumice. Moonwalking was tricky until you learned how.

Bill sighed, scratching unconsciously, and made his way somehow out to his suit, climbing into it. He paused for a final good scratch, and then the grapples took over. This time he stumbled also as he made his way across the powdery rubble, but the other man was making no real progress at all. Bill reached him and touched howmits long enough to issue simple instructions through metal sound conduction. Then he managed to guide the other's steps.

There had been accounts of the days of learning spent by the first men on the moon, but it wasn't that bad with an instructor to help. The doctor picked up as they went along. Bill's legs were buckling under him by then, and the itches were past endurance. At the end the doctor was helping him, but somehow they made the ship and were getting out of the suits. Bill first, then the doctor using the grapples under Bill's guidance. The doctor was young and obviously scared, but fighting his fear.

He'd been picked for his smallness to lighten the load on the chemical rocket, and his little face was intent, but he managed a weak grin. "'Thanks, Adams. I'm Dr. Ames. Ted to you. Get onto that cot. You're about out on your feet.' The test he made didn't take long, but his head was shaking at the conclusion. "'Your symptoms make no sense,' he summarized. "'I've got a feeling some are due to one thing, some to another. Maybe you will have to wait until I come down with it and compare notes.'

His grin was wry, but Bill was vaguely glad that he wasn't trying any bedside manner. There wasn't much use in thanking the man for volunteering. Ames had known what he was up against, and he might be scared, but his courage was above thanks. "'What about the maps?' Bill asked. "'They tell you?' "'They've left cutters outside. I started to bring them, then the pumice got me. I couldn't quite stand upright in it. I'll pick up the maps later, but they're important. The competing ships will claim our territory if we don't file first.'

He knocked the dust off his instrument and wiped his hands. Bill looked down at the bed to see a fine foam of moonsilt there. They'd been bringing in too much on the suits. It was too fine and the traps weren't getting it fast enough. He got up shakily, moving toward the dust trap that had been running steadily. But now it was out of order, obviously, with the fur brushes worn down, till I could generate almost no static against the rod. He groped into the supplies, hoping there would be replacements.

Ames caught his arm. "'Cut it out, Adams. You're in no shape for this. Hey, how long since you've eaten?' Bill thought it over, his head thick. "'I had coffee before I landed.' Dr. Ames nodded quickly. "'Vomiting, dizziness, tremors? Excess sweating? What did you expect, man? You put yourself under this strain, not knowing what comes next, having to land with an empty stomach, skipping meals and loading your stomach with pills, and probably no sleep. Those symptoms are perfectly normal.'

He was at the tiny galley equipment, fixing quick food as he spoke, but his face was still sober. He was probably thinking of the same thing that worried Bill. An empty stomach didn't make the itching rash, the runny nose and eyes, and the general misery that had begun the whole thing.

He sorted through the stock of replacement parts. A few field sisters, suit wadding, spare gloves, cellophane-wrapped gadgets. Then he had it. Ames was over, urging him to ward the cot, but he shook him off. "'Gotta get the dust out of here. Dust'll make the itching worse. Moondust is sharp, Doc. Just install new brushes.' "'What are those instructions?' "'Yeah, insert the cat's fur brushes under the cat's fur. Is that what they use, Doc?' "'Sure.'

It's cheap and generates static electricity. Do you expect sable? Bill took the can of soup and sipped it without tasting or thinking, his hand going toward a fresh place that itched. His nose began running, but he disregarded it. He still felt lousy, but strength was flowing through him, and life was almost good again.

He tossed the bunk back into its slot, lifted the pilot's stool and motioned Ames forward. You operate a key. Hell, I am getting slow. You can contact Luna Base by phone. Have them relay. There. Now tell them I'm blasting off pronto for Earth, and I'll be down in four hours with their plans. You're crazy. The words were flat, but there was desperation in the little doctor's face.

He glanced about hastily, taking the microphone woodenly. "'Adams, they'll have an atomic bomb-up to blast you out before you're near Earth. They've got to protect themselves. You can't.' Bill scratched, but there was the beginning of a grin on his face. "'No, I'm not delirious now, though I damn near cracked up. You figured out half the symptoms. Take a look at those brushes, cat's fur brushes, and figure what they'll do to a man who is breathing the air and who is allergic to cats.'

All I ever had was some jerk in planning who didn't check my medical record with trip logistics. I never had these symptoms until I unzipped the traps and turned them on. It got better whenever I was in the suit, breathing canned air. We should have known a man can't catch a disease from plants. The doctor looked at him, and at the fur pieces he'd thrown into a waste bin, and the whiteness ran from his face. He was seeing his own salvation. And the chuckle began weakly, gathering strength, as he turned to the microphone.

Cat asthma? Simple allergy? Who figures you get that in deep space? But you're right, Bill. It figures. Bill Adams nodded as he reached for the controls, and the tubes began firing, ready to take them back to Earth. Then he caught himself and swung to the doctor. Doc, he said quickly, just be sure and tell them this isn't to get out. If they'll keep still about it, so will I. He'd make a hell of a hero on Earth if people heard of it, and he could use a little of a hero's reward. No catcalls, thanks.

End of story four. Story five of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two. This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Doctor by Murray Leinster. There were suns which were nearby, and there were stars which were so far away that no way of telling their distance had any meaning. The suns had planets, most of which did not matter, but the ones that did count had seas and continents.

and the continents had cities and highways and spaceports and people. The people paid no attention to their insignificance. They built ships which went through emptiness beyond imagining, and they landed upon planets and rebuilt them to their own liking. Suns flamed terribly, renting their impertinence, and storms swept across the planets they preempted, but the people built more strongly and were secure.

Everything in the universe was bigger or stronger than the people, but they ignored the fact. They went about the businesses they had contrived for themselves. They were not afraid of anything, until somewhere on a certain small planet, an infinitesimal single molecule changed itself.

It was one molecule among unthinkably many, upon one planet, of one solar system, among uncountable star clusters. It was not exactly alive, but it acted as if it were, in which it was like all the important matter of the cosmos. It was actually a combination of two complicated substances not too firmly joined together. When one of the parts changed, it became a new molecule.

but like the original one, it was still capable of a process called autocatalysis. It practiced that process and catalyzed other molecules into existence, which in each case were duplicates of itself. Then mankind had to take notice, though it ignored flaming suns and monstrous storms and emptiness past belief.

Men called the new molecule a virus and gave it a name. They called it and its duplicates chlorophage. And chlorophage was to people the most terrifying thing in the universe.

In a strictly temporary orbit around the planet Alteira, the Star Queen floated while lift ships brought passengers and cargo up to it. The ship was too large to be landed economically at an unimportant spaceport like Alteira. It was a very modern ship and had made the Regulus de Cassim run, which is 500 light-years, in only 50 days of Earth time.

Now the lift ships were busy. There was an unusual number of passengers to board the Star Queen at Alteira, and an unusual number of them were women and children. The children tended to pudginess, and the women had the dieted look of the wives of well-to-do men. Most of them looked red-eyed, as if they had been crying. One by one the lift ships hooked onto the airlock of the Star Queen and delivered passengers and cargo to the ship.

Presently the last of them was hooked on, and the last batch of passengers came through to the liner, and the ship's doctor watched them stream past him. His air was negligent, but he was actually impatient. Like most doctors, Nordenfeld approved of lean children and wiry women. They had fewer things wrong with them, and they responded better to treatment.

Well, he was the doctor of the Star Queen, and he had much authority. It exerted it back on Regulus to insist that a shipment of botanical specimens for Cassim travel in quarantine, to be exact, in a ship's practically unused hospital compartment, and he was prepared to exercise authority over the passengers. He had a sheaf of health slips from the examiners on the ground below. There was one slip for each passenger.

certified that so-and-so had been examined and could safely be admitted to the store queen's air, her four restaurants, her two swimming pools, her recreation areas, and the six levels of passenger cabins the ship contained. He impatiently watched the people go by. Health slips or no health slips, he looked them over. A characteristic gait or a typical complexion tint or even a certain lack of hair luster could tell him things that ground physicians might miss.

In such a case the passenger would go back down again, and it was not desirable to have deaths on a liner in space. Of course, nobody was ever refused passage because of chlorophage. If it were ever discovered, the discovery would already be too late, but the health regulations for space travel were very, very strict. He looked twice at a young woman as she passed. Despite applied complexion there was a trace of waxiness in her skin.

Nordenfels had never actually seen a case of chlorophage. No doctor alive ever had. The best authorities were those who'd been in patrol ships during the quarantine of Cameron, when chlorophage was loose on that planet. They had seen beamed-up pictures of patients, but not patients themselves. The patrol ships stayed in orbit while the planet died.

Most doctors, and Nordenfels was among them, had only seen pictures of the screens which showed the patients.

He looked sharply at the young woman. Then he glanced at her hands. They were normal. The young woman went on, unaware that for the fraction of an instant there had been the possibility of the landing of the Star Queen in Altea, and the destruction of her space drive, and the establishment of a quarantine which, if justified, would mean that nobody could ever leave Altea again but must wait there to die, which would not be a long wait. A fat man puffed past,

The gravity on Altea was some five percent under ship normal, and he felt the difference at once, but the veins at his temples were ungorged. Nordenfeld let him go by. There appeared a white-haired, space-tanned man with a briefcase under his arm. He saw Nordenfeld and lifted a hand in greeting. The doctor knew him. He stepped aside from the passengers and stood there. His name was Jensen, and he represented a fund which invested the surplus money of insurance companies.

He traveled a great deal to check on the business interests of that organization. The doctor grunted. "'What are you doing here? I thought you'd be on the far side of the cluster.' "'Oh, I get about,' said Jensen. His manner was not quite normal. He was tense. "'I got here two weeks ago on a Q&C trump from Regulus. We'd wore a shipload of salt meat. There's romance for you. Salt meat by the spaceship load.' The doctor grunted again. All sorts of things moved through space naturally.'

The Star Queen carried a botanical collection for a museum, and pig beryllium, and furs and enzymes, and a list of items no man could remember. He watched the passengers go by, automatically counting them against the number of health slips in his hand. "Lots of passengers this trip," said Yensen. "Yes," said the doctor, watching a man with a limp. "Why?" Yensen shrugged and did not answer. "It was uneasy," the doctor noted.

He and Jensen were as much unlike as two men could very well be, but Jensen was good company. A ship's doctor does not have much congenial society.

The file of passengers ended abruptly. There was no one in the Star Queen's airlock, but the connected lights still burned and the doctor could look through into the small lift ship from the planet down below. He frowned. He fingered the sheaf of papers. "'Unless I missed count,' he said annoyedly, "'there's supposed to be one more passenger. I don't see—' The door opened far back in the lift ship. A small figure appeared. It was a little girl, perhaps ten years old.

She was very neatly dressed, though not quite the way a mother would have done it. She wore the carefully composed expression of a child with no adult in charge of her. She walked precisely from the lift ship into the Star Queen's lock. The opening closed briskly behind her. There was the rumbling of seals making themselves tight. The lights flickered for disconnect, and then, all clear, they went out, and the lift ship had pulled away from the Star Queen. "'There's my missing passenger,' said the doctor."

The child looked soberly about. She saw him. "'Excuse me,' she said very politely. "'Is this the way I'm supposed to go?' "'Through that door,' said the doctor gruffly. "'Thank you,' said the little girl. She followed his direction. She vanished through the door. It closed.

There came a deep droning sound which was the interplanetary drive of the Star Queen, building up that directional stress in space which had seemed such a triumph when it was first contrived. The ship swung gently. It would be turning out from orbit around Alteira. It swung again. The Doctor knew that its astrogators were frailing for the incredibly exact point of its nose toward the next port which modern commercial ship operation required.

An error of fractional seconds of arc would mean valuable time lost in making port some ten light-years of distance away. The drive droned and droned, building up velocity where the ship's aiming was refined and re-refined. The drive cut off abruptly. Yensen turned white. The doctor said impatiently, There's nothing wrong. Probably a message or a report should have been beamed down to the planet and somebody forgot. We'll go on in a minute. But Yensen stood frozen.

It was very pale. The interplanetary drive stayed off. Thirty seconds. A minute. Jensen swallowed audibly. Two minutes. Three. The steady, monotonous drone began again. It continued interminably, as if, while it was off, the ship's head had swung wide of its destination, and the whole business of lining up for a jump in overdrive had to be done all over again. And then there came that...

and the sensation of spiral fall which meant overdrive. The droning ceased. Jensen breathed again. The ship's doctor looked at him sharply. Jensen had been taught. Now the tensions had left his body, but he looked as if he were going to shiver. Instead he mapped a suddenly streaming forehead. "'I think,' said Jensen in a strange voice, "'that I'll have a drink, or several. Will you join me?'

Nordenfeld searched his face. A ship's doctor has many duties in space. Passengers can have many things wrong with them, and in the absolute isolation of overdrive they can be remarkably affected by each other. "'I'll be at the fourth-level bar in twenty minutes,' said Nordenfeld. "'Can you wait that long?' "'I probably won't wait to have a drink,' said Jensen. "'But I'll be there.'

The doctor nodded curtly. He went away. He made no guesses, though he had just observed the new passengers carefully and was fully aware of the strict health regulations that affect space travel. As a physician, he knew that the most deadly thing in the universe was chlorophage and that the planet Cameron was only one solar system away. It had been a stop for the Star Queen until four years ago.

He puzzled over Jensen's tenseness and the relief he displayed when the overdrive filled came on. But he didn't guess. Chlorophage didn't enter his mind. Not until later. He saw the little girl who had come out of the airlock last of all the passengers. She sat on a sofa as if someone had told her to wait there until something or other was arranged. Dr. Nordenfauld barely glanced at her.

He'd known Jensen for a considerable time. Jensen had been a passenger on the Star Queen half a dozen times, and he shouldn't have been upset by the temporary stoppage of an interplanetary drive. Nordenfeld divided people into two classes, those who were not and those who were worth talking to. There weren't many of the latter. Jensen was.

He filed away the health slips. Then, thinking of Jensen's pallor, he asked what had happened to make the Star Queen interrupt her slow-speed drive away from orbit around Alteira. The purser told him. But the purser was fussily concerned because there were so many extra passengers from Alteira. He might not be able to take on the expected number of passengers at the next stopover point. It would be bad business to have to refuse passengers. It would give the space line a bad name.

Then the air officer stopped Nordenfeld as he was about to join Jensen in the fourth level bar. It was time for medical inspection of a quarter acre of Banthian jungle which purified and renewed the air of the ship. Nordenfeld was expected to check the complex ecological system of the air room. Specifically, he was expected to look for and identify any patches of colorlessness appearing on the foliage of the jungle plants Star Queen carried through space.

The air officer was discreet, and Nordenfeld was silent about the ultimate reason for the inspection. Nobody liked to think about it, but if a particular kind of bleaching appeared, as if the chlorophyll of the leaves were being devoured by something too small to be seen by an optical microscope, why that would be chlorophage. It would also be a death sentence for the Star Queen and everybody in her.

But the jungle passed medical inspection. The plants grew lushly in soil which periodically was flushed with hydroponic solution and then drained away again. The UV lamps were properly distributed, and the different quarters of the air room were alternately lighted and darkened, and there were no colorless patches. A steady wind blew through the air room and had its excess moisture and unpleasing smells wrung out before it recirculated through the ship.

Dr. Nordenfeld authorized the trimming of some liana-like growths which were developing woody tissue at the expense of leaves. The air officer also told him about the reason for the turning off of the interplanetary drive. He considered it a very curious happening.

The doctor left the air room and passed the place where the little girl, the last passenger to board the Star Queen, waited patiently for somebody to arrange something. Dr. Nordenfeld took a lift to the fourth level and went into the bar where Jensen should be waiting. He was. He had an empty glass before him. Nordenfeld sat down and dialed for a drink. He had an indefinite feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

There are always things going wrong for a ship's doctor, though. There are so many demands on his patience that he is usually short of it. Jensen watched him sip at his drink. A bad day? he asked. He had gotten over his own tension. Nordenfeld shrugged, but his scowl deepened. There are a lot of new passengers. He realized that he was trying to explain his feelings to himself.

They'll come to me feeling miserable. I have to tell each one that if they feel heavy and depressed, it may be the gravity constant of the ship, which is greater than their home planet. If they feel lightheaded and giddy, it may be because the gravity constant of the ship is less than they're used to. But it doesn't make them feel better, so they come back for a second to Searance. They'll be overwhelmed with such complaints within two hours.

Jensen waited. Then he said casually, too casually, Does anybody ever suspect chlorophage? No, said Nornfeld shortly. Jensen fidgeted. He sipped. Then he said, What's the news from Cameron, anyhow?

"'There isn't any,' said Nadenfeld. "'Naturally. Why ask?' "'I just wondered,' said Jensen. "'After a moment, what was the last news?' "'There hasn't been a message from Cameron in two years,' said Nadenfeld curtly. "'There's no sign of anything green anywhere on the planet. It's considered to be uninhabited.' Jensen licked his lips. "'That's what I understood, yes.'

Nordenfeld drank half his drink and said unpleasantly, "There were thirty million people in Cameron when the chlorophage appeared. At first it was apparently a virus which fed on the chlorophyll of plants. He died. Then it was discovered that it could also feed on hemoglobin, which is chemically close to chlorophyll. Hemoglobin is the red-colouring matter of the blood. When the virus consumed it, people began to die."

Cameron doctors found that the chlorophage virus was transmitted by contact, by inhalation, by ingestion. It travelled as dust particles and on the feet of insects, and it was in drinking water and the air one breathed. The doctors and Cameron warned spaceships off, and the patrol put a quarantine fleet in orbit around it to keep anybody from leaving. And nobody left. And everybody died.

And so did every living thing that had chlorophyll in its leaves, or hemoglobin in its blood, or that needed plant or animal tissues to feed on. There's not a person left alive on Cameron, nor an animal or beast or insect, nor fish nor tree or plant or weed or blade of grass. There's no longer a quarantine fleet there. Nobody will go there, and there's nobody left to leave.

But there are beacon satellites to record any calls, and to warn any fool against landing. If the chlorophage got loose and it was carried about by spaceships, it could kill the other forty billion humans in the galaxy, together with every green planet or animal with hemoglobin in its blood. That, said Jensen, and tried to smile, sounds final.

"'It isn't,' Nordenfeld told him. "'If there's something in the universe which can kill every living thing except its maker, that something should be killed. There should be research going on about the chlorophage. It would be deadly dangerous work, but it should be done. A quarantine won't stop contagion. It can only hinder it. That's useful, but not enough.' Jensen moistened his lips. Nordenfeld said abruptly,

"'I've answered your questions. Now what's on your mind, and what has it to do with chlorophage?' Jensen started. He went very pale. "'It's too late to do anything about it,' said Nordenfeld. "'It's probably nonsense anyhow. But what is it?' Jensen stammered out his story. It explained why there were so many passengers for the Star Queen. It even explained his departure from Altea. But it was only a rumor, the kind of rumor that starts up untraceably and can never be verified.'

This one was officially denied by the Altea and planetary government, but it was widely believed by the sort of people who usually were well-informed, those who could send their families up to the Star Queen. And that was why Jensen had been tense and worried until the liner had actually left Altea behind. Then he felt safe. Nordenfeld's jaw set as Jensen told his tale.

He made no comment, and when Jensen was through he nodded and went away, leaving his drink unfinished. Jensen couldn't see his face. It was hard as granite. In Nordenfeld the ship's doctor of the Star Queen went into the nearest bathroom and was violently sick. It was a reaction to what he'd just learned. There were stars which were so far away that their distance didn't mean anything.

There were planets beyond counting in a single star cluster, let alone the galaxy. There were comets and gas clouds in space, and worlds where there was life, and other worlds where life was impossible. The quantity of matter which was associated with life was infinitesimal, and the quantity associated with consciousness — animal life — was so much less that the difference couldn't be expressed.

but the amount of animal life which could reason was so minute by comparison that the nearest ratio would be that of a single atom to a sun. Mankind, in fact, was the least impressive fraction of the smallest category of substance in the galaxy. But men did curious things. That was the cutting off of the Star Queen's short-distance drive before she'd gotten well away from Alteva. There had been a lift-ship locked to the liner's passenger airlock.

When the last passenger entered the big ship, a little girl, the airlocks disconnected and the lift ship pulled swiftly away. It was not quite two miles from the Star Queen when its emergency airlocks opened and space-suited figures plunged out of it to emptiness. Simultaneously, the ports of the lift ship glowed, and almost immediately the whole plating turned cherry red, crimson, and then orange from unlimited heat developed within it.

The lift ship went incandescent and ruptured, and there was a spout of white-hot air, and then it turned blue-white and puffed itself to nothing in metallic steam. Where it had been, there was only shining gas, which cooled. Beyond it, there were figures in spacesuits which tried to swim away from it. The Star Queen's control room obviously saw the happening. The lift ship's atomic pile had flared out of control and melted down the ship.

It had developed something like sixty thousand degrees Fahrenheit when it ceased to flare. It did not blow up; it only vaporized. But the process must have begun within seconds after the lift ship broke contact with the Star Queen. In automatic reaction, the man in control of the liner cut to a drive and offered to turn back and pick up the space-suited figures in emptiness. The offer was declined with almost hysterical haste.

in fact it was barely made before the other lift ships moved in on rescue missions they had waited and they were picking up castaways before the star queen resumed its merely interplanetary drive and the process of aiming for a solar system some thirty light-years away

When the liner flicked into overdrive, more than half the floating figures had been recovered, which was remarkable. It was almost as remarkable as the flare-up of the lift ship's atomic pile. One has to know exactly what to do to make a properly designed atomic pile vaporize metal. Somebody had known. Somebody had done it. And the other lift ships were waiting to pick up the destroyed lift ship's crew when it happened. The matter of the lift ship's destruction was fresh in Nordenfeld's mind when Jensen had told his story.

The two items fitted together with an appalling completeness. There left little doubt or hope. Nordenfeld consulted the passenger records and presently was engaged in conversation with the sober-faced, composed little girl on a sofa in one of the cabin levels of the Star Queen. "'You're Cathy Brand, I believe,' he said matter-of-factly. "'I understand you've been having a rather bad time of it.' She seemed to consider.

"'It hasn't been too bad,' she assured him. "'At least I've been seeing new things. I got dreadfully tired of seeing the same things all the time.' "'What things?' asked Nordenfeld. His expression was not stern now, though his inner sensations were not pleasant. He needed to talk to this child, and he had learned how to talk to children. The secret is to talk exactly as to an adult, with respect and interest.'

There weren't any windows, she explained, and my father couldn't play with me, and all the toys and books were ruined by the water. It was dreadfully tedious. There weren't any other children, you see, and presently there weren't any grown-ups but my father. Nordenfeld only looked more interested. He'd been almost sure ever since knowing of the lift ship's destruction and listening to Jensen's account of the rumor the government of Alteira denied. He was horribly sure now.

How long were you in a place that hadn't any windows? Oh, dreadfully long, she said, since I was only six years old, almost half my life. She smiled brightly at him. I remember looking out of windows and even playing out of doors, but my father and mother said I had to live in this place. My father talked to me often and often.

It was very nice, but he had to wear that funny suit and keep the glass over his face because he didn't live in the room. The glass was because he went under the water, you know. Nordenfeld asked carefully conversational-sounding questions. Kathy Brand, now aged ten, had been taken by her father to live in a big room without any windows. It hadn't any doors either.

There were plants in it, and there were bluish lights to shine on the plants. And there was a place in one corner where there was water. When her father came in to talk to her, he came up out of the water wearing the funny suit with glass over his face. He went out the same way. There was a place in the wall where she could look out into another room, and at first her mother used to come in and smile at her through the glass, and she talked into something she held in her hand, and her voice came inside, but later she stopped coming.

There was only one possible kind of place which would answer Cathy's description. When she was six years old, she had been put into some university's aseptic environment room, and she had stayed there. Such rooms were designed for biological research. They were built and then made sterile of all bacterial life and afterward entered through a tank of antiseptic.

Anyone who entered wore a suit which was made germ-free by its passage through the antiseptic, and he did not breathe the air of the aseptic room but air which was supplied him through a hose, the exhaled air hose also passing under the antiseptic outside. No germ or microbe or virus could possibly get into such a room without being bathed in corrosive fluid which would kill it.

so long as there was someone alive outside to take care of it the little girl could live there and defy even chlorophage and kathy brand had done it but on the other hand cameroon was the only planet where it would be necessary and it was the only world from which a father would land his small daughter on another planet's spaceport there was no doubt

Nordenfeld grimly imagined someone—he would have had to be a microbiologist even to attempt it—fighting to survive and defeat the chlorophage while he kept his little girl in an aseptic environment room. She explained quite pleasantly as Nordenfeld asked more questions. There had been other people besides her father, but for a long time there had been only him, and Nordenfeld computed that somehow she had been kept alive on the dead planet Cameron for four long years.

Recently, though, very recently, her father told her that they were leaving. Wearing his funny antiseptic wetted suit, it enclosed her in a plastic bag with a tank attached to it. Air flowed from the tank into the bag, and out there were holes that was all wetted inside. She breathed quite comfortably.

It made sense. An air tank could be heated, and its contents sterilized to supply germ-free or virus-free air. And Cathy's father took an axe and chopped away a wall of the room. He picked her up, still inside the plastic bag, and carried her out. There was nobody about. There was no grass. There were no trees. Nothing moved.

Here Cathy's account was vague, but Nordenfeld could guess at the strangeness of a dead planet, to the child who barely remembered anything but the walls of an aseptic environment room. "'A father carried her to a little ship,' said Cathy, and they talked a lot after the ship took off. He told her that he was taking her to a place where she could run about outdoors and play.'

but he had to go somewhere else which to nordenfeld meant a most scrupulously contamination of a small spaceship's interior and its airlock its outer surface would reach a temperature at which no organic material could remain uncooked

And finally, said Cathy, her father had opened a door and told her to step out and goodbye, and she did, and the ship went away, her father still wearing his funny suit, and people came and asked her questions she did not understand.

Cathy's narrative fitted perfectly into the rumor Jensen said circulated among usually well-informed people on Alteira. They believed, said Jensen, that a small spaceship had appeared in the sky above Alteira's spaceport. It ignored all calls, landed swiftly, opened an airlock and let someone out, and plunged for the sky again. And the story said that radar telescopes immediately searched for and found the ship in space.

They trailed it, calling vainly for it to identify itself. While it drove at top speed for Altea's sun, it reached the sun and dived in.

Nordenfeld reached the skipper on intercom vision foam. Jensen had been called there to repeat his tale to the skipper. "I've talked to the child," said Nordenfeld grimly, "and I'm putting her into isolation quarters in the hospital compartment. She's from Cameroon. She was kept in an aseptic environment room at some university or other. She says her father looked after her. I get an impression of a last-ditch fight by microbiologists against the chlorophage."

They lost it. Apparently her father landed her on Alteira and dived into the sun. From her story he took every possible precaution to keep her from contagion or carry any contagion with her to Alteira. Maybe he succeeded. There's no way to tell. Yet.

The skipper listened in silence. Jensen said thinly, then the story about the landing was true. Yes, the authorities isolated her and then shipped her off on the Star Queen. Your well-informed friends, Jensen, didn't know what their government was going to do.

Nadenfeld paused and said more coldly still, "They didn't handle it right. They should have killed her, painlessly, but at once. Her body should have been immersed, with everything that had touched it, in full-strength nitric acid. The same acid should have saturated the place where the ship landed, and every place she walked, every room she entered, and every hall she passed through, should have been doused with nitric and then burned.

It would still not have been all one could wish. The air she breathed couldn't be recaptured and heated white-hot, but the chances for Altea's population to go on living would be improved. Instead they isolated her and they shipped her off with us, and thought they were accomplishing something by destroying the lift-ship that had her in an airtight compartment until she walked into the Star Queen's lock.

The skipper said heartily, ''Do you think she's brought chlorophage on board?'' ''I've no idea,'' said Noddenfeld. ''If she did, it's too late to do anything but drive the Star Queen into the nearest sun. No. Before that, one should give warning that she was aground on Alteira. No ship should land there. No ship should take off. Alteira should be blocked off from the rest of the galaxy like Cameron was, and to the same end result.''

Jensen said unsteadily, There'll be trouble if this is known on the ship. There'll be some unwilling to sacrifice themselves.

"'Sacrifice?' said Nordenfeld. "'They're dead. But before they lie down they can keep everybody they care about from dying too. Would you want to land and have your wife and family die of it?' The skipper said in the same heavy tone, "'What are the probabilities? You say there was an effort to keep her from contagion. What are the odds?' "'Bad,' said Nordenfeld. The man tried for the child's sake, but I doubt he managed to make a completely aseptic transfer from the room she lived in to the spaceport on Alteira. We are

The authorities on Altea should have known it. They should have killed her and destroyed everything she touched, and still the odds would have been bad. Jensen said, But you can't do that, Nordenfelt. Not now. I shall take every measure that seems likely to be useful. Then Nordenfelt snapped. Damnation, man! Do you realize that this chlorophage can wipe out the human race? If it really gets loose, do you think I'll let sentiment keep me from doing what has to be done? He flicked off the vision foam.

The Star Queen came out of overdrive. The skipper arranged it to be done at the time when the largest possible number of her passengers and crew would be asleep. Those who were awake, of course, felt the peculiar inaudible sensation which one subjectively translated into sound. They felt the momentary giddiness which, having no natural parallel, feels like the sensation of treading on a stair-step that isn't there, combined with a twisting sensation so it is like a spiral fall.

The passengers who were awake were mostly in the bars, and the bartenders explained that the ship had shifted overdrive generators and there was nothing to it. Those who were asleep started awake, but there was nothing in the surroundings to cause alarm. Some blinked in the darkness of their cabins and perhaps turned on the cabin lights, but everything seemed normal. They turned off the lights again. Some babies cried and had to be soothed, but there was nothing except wakening to alarm anybody.

Babies went back to sleep, and mothers returned to their beds, and such awakenings being customary went back to sleep also. It was natural enough. There were vague and commonplace noises, together making an indefinite hum. Fans circulated the ship's purified and reinvigorated air. Service motors turned in remote parts of the hull. Cooks and bakers moved about in the kitchens.

Nobody could tell by any physical sensation that the Star Queen was not in overdrive, except in the control room. There the stars could be seen. They were unthinkably remote. The ship was light years from any place where humans lived. It did not drive. The skipper had a family on Cassim. He would not land a plague ship which might destroy them. The executive officer had a small son. If his return meant that small son's death as well as his own, he would not return.

All through the ship, the officers who had to know the situation recognized that if chlorophage had gotten into the Star Queen, the ship must not land anywhere. Nobody could survive. Nobody must attempt it. So the huge liner hung in the emptiness between the stars, waiting until it could be known definitely that chlorophage was aboard, or that with absolute certainty it was absent. Question was up to Dr. Nordenfeld.

He had isolated himself with Kathy in the ship's hospital compartment. Since the ship was built, it had been used once by a grown man who developed mumps and once by an adolescent boy who developed a raging fever which antibiotics stopped. Health measures for space travel were strict. The hospital compartment had already been used those two times. On this voyage it had been used to contain an assortment of botanical specimens from a planet seventy light-years beyond Regulus.

They were on their way to the botanical research laboratory on Cassim. As a routine precaution they had been placed in the hospital, which could be fumigated when they were taken out. Now the doctor had piled them on one side of the compartment, which he had divided in half with a transparent plastic sheet. He stayed in that side. Cathy occupied the other. She had some flowering plants to look at and admire. They had come from the air room, and she was delighted with their colouring and beauty.

But Dr. Nordenfeld had put them there as a continuing test for chlorophage. If Kathy carried that murderous virus in her person, the flowering plants would die of it, probably even before she did. It was a scrupulously scientific test for the deadly stuff. Completely sealed off, except for a circulator to freshen the air she breathed, Kathy was settled with toys and picture books. It was an improvised but well-designed germ-proof room.

The air for Cathy to breathe was sterilized before it reached her. The air she had breathed was sterilized as it left her plastic-sided residence. It should be the perfection of protection for the ship, if it was not already too late. The vision phone buzzed. Dr. Nadenfeld stood in his chair and flipped the switch. The Star Queen's skipper looked at him out of the screen. "I've cut the overdrive," said the skipper. "The passengers haven't been told?" "Very sensible," said the doctor. "When will we know?"

that we can go on living when the other possibility is exhausted then how will we know asked skipper stonily dr nordenfeld ticked off the possibilities he bent down a finger one her father took great pains maybe he did manage an aseptic transfer from a germ-free womb to altera

"'Catty may not have been exposed to the chlorophage. "'If she hasn't, no bleached spots will show up on the airroom foliage, "'or among the flowering plants in the room with her. "'Nobody in the crew or among the passengers will die.' "'He bent down a second finger. "'It is probably more likely that white spots will appear on the plants in the airroom and here, "'and people will start to die.'

That will mean Cathy brought contagion here the instant she arrived, and almost certainly that our terror will become like Cameron, uninhabited. In such a case we are finished." He bent down a third finger. "Not so likely, but preferable. Wet spots may appear on the foliage inside the plastic with Cathy, but not in the ship's air room. In that case she was exposed, but the virus was incubating when she came on board, and only developed and spread after she was isolated.

"'Possibly, in such a case, we can save the passengers and crew. But the ship will probably have to be melted down in space. It would be tricky, but it might be done.' The skipper hesitated. "'If that last happens, she—' "'I will take whatever measures are necessary,' said Dr. Nordenfeld. "'To save your conscience. We won't discuss them. They should have been taken on our terror.' He reached over and flipped off the phone. Then he looked up and into the other part of the ship's hospital space.'

Kathy came out from behind a screen, where she'd made ready for bed. She was beaming. She had a large picture book under one arm and a doll under the other. "'It's all right for me to have these with me, isn't it, Dr. Nordenfeld?' she asked, hopefully. "'I didn't have any picture books but one, and it got worn out. And my doll, it was dreadful how shabby she was.' The doctor frowned. She smiled at him.

He said, after all, picture books are made to be looked at and dolls to be played with. She skipped to the tiny hospital bed on the far side of the presumably virus-proof partition. She climbed into it and zestfully arranged the doll to share it. She placed the book within easy reach. She said, I think my father would say you were very nice, Dr. Nardenfeld, to look after me so well. No.

"'Oh,' said the doctor in a detached voice, "'I'm just doing what anybody ought to do.' She snuggled down under the covers. He looked at his watch and shrugged. It was very easy to confuse official night with official day in space. Everybody else was asleep. They'd been putting Cathy through tests which began with measurements of pulse and respiration and temperature, and went on from there. Cathy managed them herself under his direction."

He settled down with one of the medical books she'd brought into the isolation section with him. Its title was "Decontamination of Infectious Material from Different Planets." He read it grimly. The time came when the Star Queen should have come out of overdrive, with the sun's circe blazing fiercely nearby, and a green planet with ice caps to be approached on interplanetary drive.

There should have been droning, comforting drive noises to assure the passengers, who naturally could not see beyond the ship's steel walls, that they were within a mere few million miles of a world where sunshine was normal and skies were higher than ships' ceilings, and there were fascinating things to see and do. Some of the passengers packed their luggage and put it outside their cabins to be picked up for landing, but no stewards came for it.

Presently there was an explanation. The ship would run under maximum speed, and the planetfall would be delayed. The passengers were disappointed, but not concerned. The luggage vanished into cabins again. The Star Queen floated in space among a thousand, thousand million stars. Her astrogators had computed a course to the nearest star into which to drive the Star Queen, but it would not be used unless there was mutiny among the crew.

It would be better to go in remote orbit around Circe III and give the news of chlorophage and Altera if Dr. Nordenfeld reported it on the ship. Time passed. One day. Two. Three. Then Jensen called the hospital compartment on vision phone. His expression was dazed. Nordenfeld saw the interior of the control room behind Jensen. He said, You're a passenger, Jensen. How is it you're in the control room? Jensen moistened his lip.

the skipper thought i better not associate with the other passengers i've stayed with the officers the past few days we the ones who know what's in prospect were keeping separate from the others so nobody will let anything out by accident very wise when the skipper comes back on duty ask him to call me i have something interesting to tell him

"He's taking something now," said Yensen. His voice was thin and reedy. "The air officer reports there are white patches on the plants in the air room. They're growing—fast. He told me to tell you. He's gone to make sure." "No need," said Nordenfeld bitterly. He swung the vision screen. It faced that part of the hospital space beyond the plastic sheeting. There were potted flowering plants there. It pleased Cathy. He shared her air.

and there were white patches on their leaves i thought said norton feld with an odd mirthless levity that the skipper'd be interested it is of no importance whatever now but i accomplished something remarkable kathy's father didn't manage any septic transfer she brought the chlorophyte with her but i can find it the plants on the far side of that plastic sheet show the chlorophyte patches plainly

I expect Cathy to show signs of anaemia shortly. I decided that drastic measures would have to be taken, and it looked like they might work because I've confined the virus. It's there where Cathy is, but it isn't where I am. All the botanical specimens on my side of the sheet are untouched. The phage hasn't hit them. It is remarkable, but it doesn't matter a damn if the air is infected, and I was so proud. Jensen did not respond.

Nordenfeld said ironically, "'Look what I accomplished. I protected the air plants on my side. See, they're beautifully green. No sign of infection. It means that a man can work with chlorophage. A laboratory ship could land on Cameron and keep itself the equivalent of an aseptic environment worm while the damned chlorophage was investigated and ultimately whipped, and it doesn't matter.'"

Jensen said numbly, "'We can't ever make port. We ought—we ought to—or take the necessary measures,' Nordenfeld told him, very quietly and efficiently, with neither the crew nor the passengers knowing that Alteira sent the chlorophage on board the Star Queen in the hope of banishing it from there. The passengers won't know that their own officials shipped it off with them as they tried to run away, and I was so proud that I'd improvised an aseptic room to keep Cathy in.'

I sterilized the air that went into her, and I sterilized—' Then he stopped. He stopped quite short. He stared at the air unit, set up, and with two pipes passing through the plastic partition which cut the hospital space in two. He turned utterly white. He went roughly to the air machine. He jerked back its cover. He put his hand inside. Minutes later he faced back to the vision screen from which Jensen looked apathetically at him.

"'Tell the skipper to call me,' he said in a savage tone. "'Tell him to call me instantly he comes back, before he issues any orders at all.' He bent over the sterilizing equipment, and very carefully began to disassemble it. He had it completely apart when Cathy waked. She pared at him through the plastic separation sheet. "'Good morning, Dr. Nordenfeld,' she said cheerfully. The doctor grunted. Cathy smiled at him. She had gotten on very good terms with the doctor, since he had been kept in the ship's hospital. She did not feel that she was isolated.'

in having the doctor where she could talk to him at any time she had much more company than ever before she had read her entire picture-book to him and discussed her doll at length she took it for granted that only did not answer or frown that he was simply busy but he was company because she could see him dr nordenfeld put the air apparatus together with an extremely peculiar expression on his face it had been built for kathy's special isolation by a ship's mechanic

It should sterilize the used air going into Cathy's part of the compartment, and it should sterilize the used air pushed out by the supplied fresh air. The hospital itself was an independent sealed unit with its own chemical air freshener, and it had been divided into two. The air freshener was where Dr. Nordenfeld could attend to it, and the sterilizer pump simply shared the freshening with Cathy.

But the pipe that pumped air to Cathy was brown and discoloured from having been used for sterilising, and the pipe that brought air back was not. It was cold. It had never been heated. So Dr Nordenfeld had been exposed to any contagion Cathy could spread. He hadn't been protected at all. Yet the potted plants on Cathy's side of the barrier were marked with great white splotches, which grew almost as one looked.

while the botanical specimens in the doctor's part of the hospital, as much infected as Cathy's could have been by failure of the ship's mechanic to build the sterilizer to work two ways, the stacked plants, the alien plants, the strange plants from seventy light-years beyond Regulus. They were vividly green. There was no trace of chlorophage on them, yet they had been as thoroughly exposed as Dr. Nordenfels himself. The doctor's hands shook. His eyes burned.

He took out a surgeon's scalpel and ripped the plastic partition from floor to ceiling. Cathy watched interestedly. "'Why did you do that, Dr. Nordenfelt?' she asked. He said in an emotionless, unnatural voice, "'I'm going to do something that it was very stupid of me not to do before. It should have been done when you were six years old, Cathy. It should have been done on Cameron, and after that on Altair. Now we're going to do it here. You can help me.'

The Star Queen had floated out of overdrive long enough to throw all distant computations off, but she swung about and swam back, and presently she was not too far from the world where she was now many days overdue. Lift ships started up from the planet's surface, but the Star Queen ordered them back. "'Get your spaceport health officer on the vision phone,' ordered the Star Queen skipper. "'We've had chlorophage on board.' There was panic.

Even at a distance of a hundred thousand miles chlorophage could strike stark terror into anybody. But presently the image of the spaceport health officer appeared on the Star Queen's screen. "'We're not landing,' said Dr. Nordenfeld. "'There's almost certainly an outbreak of chlorophage on Alteira, and we're going back to do something about it. It got on our ship with passengers from there. We've whipped it, but we may need some help.'

The image of the health officer aground was a mask of horror for seconds after Nordenfeld's last statement. Then his expression became incredulous, though still horrified. "'We came on to here,' said Dr. Nordenfeld, "'to get you to send word by the first other ship to the patrol "'that a quarantine has to be set up on Alteva, "'and we need to be inspected for recovery from chlorophage infection, "'and we need to pass on, officially, "'the discovery that whipped the contagion on the ship.'

We were carrying botanical specimens to Kassim, and we discovered that they were immune to chlorophage. That's absurd, of course. Their green coloring is the same substance as in plants under soil-type suns anywhere. They couldn't be immune to chlorophage. So there had to be something else. Was there? asked the health officer.

There was. Those specimens came from somewhere beyond Regulus. They carried, as normal symbiotes on their foliage, microorganisms unknown both on Cameron and Alteira.

The alien bugs are almost the size of virus particles, feed on virus particles, and are carried by contact, air, and so on, as readily as virus particles themselves. We discovered that those microorganisms devoured chlorophage. We washed them off the leaves of the plants, sprayed them in our airroom jungle, and they multiplied faster than the chlorophage.

Our whole air supply is now loaded with an airborne anti-chlorophage organism which has made our crew and passengers immune. We're heading back to Alteira to turn loose our merry little bugs on that planet. It appears that they grow on certain vegetation, but they'll live anywhere there's phage to eat. By keeping some chlorophage coaches alive so our microorganisms don't die out for lack of food, the medical officer on the ground gasped.

"'Keeping Phase alive?' "'I hope you've recorded this,' said Nordenfeld. "'It's rather important. This trick should have been tried on Cameron and Alteira, and everywhere else new diseases have turned up. And there's a bug on one planet that's deadly to us. There's bound to be a bug on some other planet that's deadly to it. The same goes for any pests or vermin. The principle of natural enemies. All we have to do is find the enemies.'

There was more communication between the Star Queen and the spaceport in Circe 3, which the Star Queen would not make other contact with on this trip, and presently the big liner headed back to Alteira. It was necessary for official as well as humanitarian reasons.

There would need to be a health examination of the Star Queen to certify that it was safe for passengers to breathe her air and eat in her restaurants and swim in her swimming pools and occupy the six levels of passenger cabins she contained. This would have to be done by a patrol ship, which would turn up at Alteira.

The Star Queen's skipper would be praised by his owners for not having driven the liner into a star, and the purser would be forgiven for the confusion in his records due to off-schedule operations of the big ship, and Jensen would find in the ending of all terror of chlorophage an excellent reason to look for appreciation in the value of the investments he was checking up. And Dr. Nordenfeld, he talked very gravely to Cathy.

"'I'm afraid,' he told her, "'that your father isn't coming back. What would you like to do?' She smiled at him, hopefully. "'Could I be your little girl?' she asked. Dr. Nordenfeld grunted. "'Hmm. I'll think about it.' But he smiled at her. He grinned at him, and it was settled. End of Story 5. Story 6 of Fevers and Physicians in Space at Richard Sci-Fi Volume 2

This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. John's Other Practice By Winston Marks I knew that John Cunningham had been warned on graduation day that no man with a romantic nature should specialize in gynecology. John was not only a romanticist, he was also the best-looking intern north of the equator.

The laws of probability functioned. Within three years John Cunningham was married, divorced, disgraced, and flat broke.

And so it was that the winsome, six-foot, blonde-headed nurse's idol of the flashing smile and brilliant mind approached life with three strangely related goals, namely, one, to practice medicine successfully without, two, coming in contact with his patients, and yet, three, make back the family fortune he had squandered mixing potions with poetry.

In a much less interesting way, I too was diverted from an otherwise promising career in the practice of conventional twenty-first century medicine. My final exam before the board revealed an aptitude that landed me a fat offer from the International Medical Association. The job was special investigator on the malpractice board of control. My apparent immunity to emotional disturbances from the other sex ironically was the deciding factor of my appointment.

My first intimation of John Cunningham's vicarious practice came in the form of an order to check on a complaint from the Hotel Kelt in New York. I bussed over to the forty-eight-story hostelry and questioned the manager, a fat bald man of some forty-two years and no arches. "'Lady Doctor,' he mourned, "'has served warning she will sue unless I take out the slot machines from her mezzanine powder rooms.'

"'I know,' I said. "'She followed the complaint that brought me here. "'What I want to know is what does a slot machine violate by being in the ladies' room? "'I meant what violation beyond the usual federal, state, and county restrictions "'whose ineffectual enforcement rendered them anachronisms in this age of device gambling. "'Why does this remotely concern the medical profession?'

Mr. Denathy, the manager, plucked an imperfect petal from his buttonhole carnation and reluctantly pointed out, "'These machines are fending, not gambling devices. They issue medical advice on a limited scale,' he added hurriedly. "'What?' I yelled in his face. "'Let's go see this.'

The tastefully decorated lounge was jammed with females, many of whom were bunched in little chirping bevies along the west wall. Stubby queues of women gave the place the look of a parimutuel stand, but the cheerful tinkly chatter had nothing of the grim spirit of betting. The three women attendants threw up their hands in despair when I told them to clear the room. "'We can hardly get them to leave at nine, so we can clean up the place,' one complained."

Impatiently I barged in, flashed my gold and platinum Serpent and Staff badge, and shouted, "'These machines are illegal! This is a raid! Stand where you are, every last one of you!' That did it. I almost got trampled in the stampede of high heels, score one for my speciality in applied psychology and semantics. I learned later that, compared to one John Cunningham, I was a babe in the maternity ward.'

Of this I got my first inkling when I examined one of the ten machines along the wall. It had a slot for a quarter. It was only two feet across by seven feet high and one foot thick. A circular mirror at eye level drew the female attention, and alongside was the slogan in large orange print. Do you really feel well? Have you pains in your abdomen? Answer correctly the following questions and learn the truth from the appendicitis symptometer.

The next machine was named Kidney Stone Symptometer. The next advised about allergies, the next pulmonary tuberculosis, and so on down to the one on the far end. Before this somewhat larger machine was the densest litter of carmine-tipped cigarette butts, some still smouldering on the carpet.

This evident number one favorite on the Symptometer Hit Parade asked, disturbingly, Could it be you are pregnant? Each machine had a bank of detailed questions to answer, each so couched that it could be satisfied by pressing one of three buttons. The instructions read, Push the red button to answer yes, the white button for no, and the yellow button for sort of. This machine required dollars.

to say that i was intrigued would only be searching for words having no change i demanded a silver dollar from denathy he shifted from one foot to the other and never before have i seen a genuine hotel man blush

"'Really, Mr. Klinghammer?' "'Dr. Klinghammer,' I reminded him. "'Oh, yes, but actually, I haven't realized the exact nature of these devices, the, uh, diseases which they purport to diagnose. I mean, my engineer, Mr. Shifton, merely said, "'We do not prosecute innocently victimized businessmen,' I told him. "'Now, that dollar, please.'

"'But wouldn't one of the quarter-machines?' he troweled off under my best scowl and produced a silver disc from his fawn-coloured vest. I sent him out for more coins, and set about inserting negative symptomatic answers. Upon examination the questions appeared to be remarkably phrased. Several of them seemed unrelated to the condition of pregnancy, and it turned out that Cunningham knew what he was doing.'

When the last button was depressed, a soft melodic chime disguised the click of the mechanism which ejected the cardboard tab. It read, If you have answered these questions honestly, the symptometer observes that it is extremely unlikely that you are not pregnant. You are urged to consult a competent obstetrician. Verify this opinion.

Next, I set into the machine the proper answers to describe an ambiguous condition with contradictory symptoms. Denathy came back with more change, and this time the tab read, "'There is a possibility of pregnancy indicated. A competent physician can determine at once. There is also an indication that your answers might be either insincere or facetious. The inventor of the centometer wishes to point out that it's your dollar you just spent, lady.'

I could imagine the chuckle this would get from the old dowager, wise in the ways of such matters and smugly secure from any such contingency. The woman who would be most likely to feed in such confusing data. I snatched another coin from Denethy and pushed in the buttons which should give symptoms of pregnancy in the last week or the last month. The card read, ''Madame, call an ambulance. You have no business downtown.''

At first I was plain furious. The inventor was selling out not only medical diagnoses, but providing penny arcade entertainment as well. Then the impossibility of reporting the results of my investigation to the board struck me. In what conceivable manner could I phrase my findings and still maintain the dignity of our profession? And worse yet, when you got right down to it, on what grounds could we outlaw and confiscate these machines? Twenty-four quarters later I confirmed this suspicion.

All ten machines were paragons of discretion. Each urged the patient to visit her doctor, or bore some other innocuous medical platitude. They were designed to painlessly accommodate the confirmed hypochondriac without wasting a busy doctor's time. And yet when a truly sick person indicated genuine symptoms, the diagnosis was general but accurate. The instruction to see a physician at once was urgently definite.

I was back before the doll machine, musing at my ugly expression in the mirror, when a light female voice behind me said, "'I believe you have the wrong room, gentlemen.' She had short, bronzed, curly hair. She wore trim flannel slacks of dead white. Across her immaculate blouse was slung a pair of straps, one supporting a small tool-kit, the other a stout leather pouch which rested on one shapely hip.'

She looked to my first embarrassed glance, cute, feminine, intelligent, and quite amused. "'We, uh, we were not intruding, miss,' Danathy spluttered. "'I cleared the room so I could show this equipment to—' I kicked him in the shin. "'To Mr. Klinghammer. He has a hotel on the west coast. He is interested.'

The reason for this evasion was the fact that emblazoned in red over her left breast was the legend J.C. Symptomatosaurus. Clever machines, I fluttered. Well-based in feminine psychology, I added, entirely overlooking that she might reasonably be expected to have the same psychology. I only service them, she said shortly. Please step aside so I can operate.

She gave me a long searching look before she swung open the first top panel. Apparently satisfied I was merely a prospective customer, she let me look on. A swift look inside gave me a virulent case of the quimquim. Here was no simple coin snatcher. The answer buttons were switches. From each one ran leads to a panel which bristled with tiny vacuum tubes.

It was uncomfortably remindful of the latest in electronic calculators which were rapidly gaining the reputation of being man's other brain. "'Tell me, Miss—' "'Dr. Calico,' he prompted me pleasantly as she slipped the tiny test-prods of a miniature meter into the machine's mercenary part. "'Tell me, Dr. Calico, how may I get in touch with the supplier of this equipment?' She handed me a card, and with it a slightly interested look that dropped my stability accordion to at least three points.

The card was less interesting than the expression in her provocative blue eyes. I broke down and asked, "'Doctor of what?' "'Philosophy, electronics, and mathematics.' "'You don't run a hotel,' she said shrewdly. "'Make a liar out of Mr. Denethy if you choose,' I told her. "'But would you be kind enough to take me to—' I glanced at the card. "'To Dr. John Cunningham. "'I'll take you. "'But if you're just a snooper or a patent jumper, it'd be no favor.'

She invited Kanda, so she got it. I showed her my badge, like an oversized pitted cherry. We left Denethy clinking quarters, trying to determine how he might figure into a possible scandal. In the elevator to the basement garage, I commented acidly, you must have known this was inevitable, of course. To the contrary, she parried. I had a notion that a genuine MP sleuth would be ninety-two years old, and wear a white coat with a stethoscope in his side pocket.

He seemed to have youth and a rather charming virility, Doctor. Cut the flattery, I said. Let's find your car. The address was over in New Brooklyn. She slipped the light blue sedan into the proper cross-town tunnel entrance, adjusted the automatics, and turned upon me suddenly. The dim reflection of the headlights from the dull painted walls of the one-way tunnel gave her face a ghostly loveliness.

I had just become sharply aware of this phenomenon when she brushed a light, experimental kiss across my lips. Volume 2 of Dr. Banker-Weir's 21st Century Emotional Reactions to the Love Stimulus, notwithstanding, my socially adjusted, medically trained and professionally restrained instincts, played a rotten trick on me. Instead of staring at her with a cool eye and calming her with a proper chilling remark, I responded like a frog's leg to an electric shock.

My chin jerked out to follow the sweetest sensation I could remember. It didn't have far to go. She had retreated only three inches. The tunnel curved right there and the car lurched. I made a bad connection with only half her mouth, but a slight correction on a part squared us off to what is outrageously described in the texts as a basic or primary wooing gesture.

After the first, delirious second, I knew it was a frame. After the second moment, I didn't care. But it wasn't until several minutes had elapsed that Dr. Calico's cool resolve collapsed, and I learned what a kiss could really mean from a woman who meant it, herself. She tore out of my arms with a little cry. "'Look out!' Then I became aware that the warning light had been flashing unnoticed. We were coming to the tunnel's exit, where manual vehicle control became necessary.'

With trembling hands she gripped the controls until her knuckles were white knobs. As we flashed past the patrol station and two alert faces checked the interior of our car, I said, I think I know what you had in mind. You had me hooked on but good. Why didn't you go through with it?

I referred to the easy possibility of our shooting from the tube in each other's arms and thereby violating the safety code for tube passage. Such a simple frame would have put MP Investigator Klinghammer on the tabloid front page if his feminine companion had chosen to file a complaint with police witnesses to the act. Exit Klinghammer to a hobby of his own, probably less lucrative than building phantom symptom machines.

"'I guess I overdid it,' she said simply. She began to cry. Her white blouse quivered. All I did was pat her gently on the shoulder, and the tears ran like mercury from her retort. "'Let us not assume that we are enemies,' I said, regaining a portion of my composure and all of my stuffiness. "'So you are the frustrated Mata Hari. Perhaps I'm on your side. Were you acting on orders? Was this a set-up?' She shook her head.'

When we went into the tunnel I was in love with John Cunningham. I kissed you to frame you, all right, but it was my own idea. I'm impulsive, I guess. The only part I caught was the past tense of her first sentence. You mean you can change loves in the middle of a tunnel, I blurted. Whereupon I learned one more don't that was never mentioned in lecture.

The car slewed to the curb. She jabbed the emergency stop switch, leaned across me and slapped open my door. "Walk!" she commanded. The remaining tears were fairly steaming from her red cheeks. I was smart enough not to fumble for an apology. I walked. When I found a cab I had no chance to think clearly. The cabbie bored me the whole way with the excited news of the opening of the Brooklyn Centennial Celebration.

Brooklyn in the spring meant baseball, and the bums were celebrating their 100th year in the league. Oh, and we're changing the names from the bums to the boys. The blue boys would have been prettier, but a hockey team got that name first. Brooklyn in the spring, baseball, love out of the blue, blue boys, platitudinous slot machines.

When I stood before the grey, translucent door of Dr. John Cunningham's penthouse apartment, I was something less than the eager, efficient young Dr. Klinghammer of the remarkable stability, from bedrock to quicksand in one easy tunnel. A man answered. He was at least one cut above the most adored idol of video and movie screen, his slacks even more unpressed, and his beach shirt even gaudier. He looked him in the eye for a moment and said, Dr. Sledgehammer, I presumed.

"Clinghammer!" I corrected. "Sorry." Sue seemed a little confused on several of the tails. "Come in, please." "Sue! Sue Calico! Out of the blue! Blue Boy's John Cunningham!" This was a disrupting thought. "So this is the guy she's really in love with. Malpractice without a doubt." I followed him into a spacious skylighted room, a corner of which instantly caught my eye. First, because it contained Sue, and second, because it was the only orderly spot in the whole littered place.

Sue sat in the tiny office space at a small desk, furiously filing a fingernail over a blue wastebasket. She didn't look up. The look of tidiness ended there. The balance of the chamber gave a fair impression of a wholesale video repair shop on moving day. Benches and racks were spaced at random, and each was loaded with electronic gear, meters, cable, and tools. Unassembled units squatted in a semicircle before a large framework at the far end of the laboratory.

"'May we be alone?' I asked. "'Alone?' "'Your girlfriend, there,' I said bitterly. Cunningham tossed his blunt head back and laughed. "'Girlfriend? That little fiend who calls herself my partner. Aha! My girlfriends are in there. Let's go introduce you.' He started through a side door, and the unmistakable revelry of a cocktail party burst into the room. Cunningham himself was not sober. I looked at Dr. Sue Calico. She hissed.

"'If you mention anything about that tunnel, I'll brain you. Anything, do you understand?' I chased after Cunningham, hauled back with one hand and clipped in carefully with the other. I slammed the door and told Sue, "'Help me sober him up,' he whistled softly. "'He's not that drunk. Bring him to and you'll find out.' I walked on his heavy neck for a moment until his eyes flickered. I was in no mood to make him comfortable, so I just propped his back against a packing-case and took off on him. "'What kind of travesty on the practice of medicine to call this?' I began."

Sue yawned and went to join the party. "'Call me when the patty-cake is baked,' she said as she closed the door. The glare of hostility gradually vanished from Cunningham's handsome face. Without it he looked better. He lit a cigarette, thought for a moment, and smiled at me. "'Have you been kissing my partner?' I blurbled in my throat. He went on. "'You're acting as strangely as Sue did. I often have conjectured that if you could bottle Sue's kisses, adrenaline would be obsolete.'

you kiss her often i asked against my will only twice the day she came to work and two weeks later when they took the stitches out of my head the second one was to show there were no hard feelings she loves you i said with inane persistence

He shrugged. "'Could be. But she means matrimony. I flunked that once. Won't take the test again. But now, Doctor, you didn't come here to make a match, surely?' "'To reports that the MP board takes a dim view of my symptomatars. Have you filed a report yet?' He asked warily. "'Not quite yet,' I admitted. Blue Boyd, Sue Calico, Brooklyn in the spring. "'And when your respiration becomes normal again?' Cunningham assured me. "'I think you will realize that such a report will be difficult to file. Am I right?' He hoisted himself from the carpet.'

"'You know,' he went on, "'this investigation was sure to come. I knew it, and I guess it threw me a little more than I thought it would. Now that it's here, I'm relieved. I think they sent the right man, Dr. Klinghammer. He fished a bottle from the debris on one of the benches and offered it to me. He did it in such an enabling manner that in my preoccupation I accepted, and tilted down at least a deciliter before coming to my senses. Then it was too late. A remarkable thing happened when that liquefied plutonium hit bottom.'

I twanged like a sixty-pound bow and I began laughing. I felt sorry for this poor misguided Romeo. The solution to his whole problem spread before me like an atlas. Slowly his smile vanished. Before we discuss this further, I'd like to impress a point or two. Those coin machines are only a means to an end. He pulled heavily at the bottle, took me by the arm and led me over to the huge half-created machine at the end of the lab. This is my life's work, he said solemnly.

Between my ex-wife and this mechanical monster I ran through a rather substantial family fortune. I had to have funds, so I excised a few of the simple circuits from this contraption, threw on some window dressing and turned them loose in a few key locations where women congregate. Yesterday, after three weeks of operation, sixty of those gadgets cuffed up $82,000. Unfortunately I had to borrow almost $100,000 to build them.

In another week I'll show a profit. In another week, I told him, you'll be held for malpractice and indicted for fraud unless— Unless I cut you in, I suppose, he sneered. Unless you give me another drink, I said, after a suitable dramatic pause. Cunningham pulled one eyebrow down, none plussed, but he handed over the liquor. I choked on a swallow as Sue's voice cut over my shoulder. I left you to play patty cake, and now it's been the bottle. You down to business or shall I leave again?

John said, "'Stay here, kid. Dr. Hammerhead has an idea.' She came over and deliberately leaned up against him. He put his arm around her waist in what I tried to believe was a fraternal gesture. "'The name is Clinghammer,' I said. "'Don't antagonize me. I'm trying to help you.' Dr. Calico had recovered any self-composure she may have mislaid in the tunnel. He said sarcastically, "'It couldn't be that you're trying to figure a way out of this for yourself, could it?'

Quit patronizing, both of you, I snapped. You both know this will be embarrassing to the board, but all I face is a big blush and an international horse laugh. I'll grant you we probably can't confiscate the machines, but my testimony could easily damn you for unethical practices, if nothing else. With luck I might get you for fraud, too. A look of synthetic concern passed between them. I took another drink. I would like to know what possible justification you have for retaining the right to call yourself a medical man, Cunningham. What

"'What's wrong with research?' he demanded. "'In your case,' I cracked. "'Nothing that a few scruples wouldn't improve.' Dr. Calico stamped her small feet at me. "'Don't you make fun of us. John has a wonderful idea. His big journal diagnosing correlators and the finest memory and calculating control circuits in it that exist anywhere,' she nodded to herself. "'I built them myself,' Cunningham explained earnestly. "'It will assimilate and coordinate over a thousand separate symptoms, including every known particle of clinical data on a patient.'

why it will reduce position error to practically zero. "'If it works,' I said sourly. "'It will, it will,' he assured me. "'Of course I have probably a year or more to spend in quantitative calibration of the input circuits, and maybe a couple of three years in the qualitative differentiations of the output.' "'I see,' I said. "'And you want to calibrate and differentiate without the necessity of practicing on the side to provide funds. So you invented the one-armed bandit with the Johns Hopkins accent to tide you over, right?'

You've made one mistake in the means to your end, I told him. Now I have a plan. They both leaned forward a little too far, I realized now.

My report caused quite a sensation. The ten-man board read it and called me almost at once to clarify verbally what had hinted to be a likely solution to our dilemma, namely, a desirable alternative to facing a mortifying legal action in restraining the present use of the symptometer. When I entered the rich old mahogany chambers, the chairman pointed to the lecture stand. He was goateed and morbidly curious. Before I could clear my throat, he urged impatiently, "'Get at it, boy! What's this business of skinning a cat you mentioned?'

"'Honorable doctors,' I began self-consciously, "'you all realize the legal difficulties with which we are faced. Before we face them, I give you the suggestion that we prevail upon the inventor of the symptomata to license its manufacture for use only in medical clinics. Having operated the machines, I can testify that the results of the questioning of these devices can be definitely informational, and could assist a physician in more rapid diagnosis and treatment.'

I held up my hand to silence the horrified grunts of disapproval. "Let me continue, please. A few minor changes in the recording mechanism would enable the equipment to produce a coded card. This, without a physician's attention, would direct the clinical staff to perform the necessary laboratory functions to verify or disprove the indicated symptoms. With this card and the results of the clinical examination in his possession,

The physician then meets the patient for the first time. He has been spared the preliminary examination, the redundant lengthy interview in which Madame Hypochondriac recapitulates the history of her hives or biliousness. Naturally the coin operation of the machine will be eliminated, but there is no need for a doctor to adjust his fees downward because he performs his work more efficiently now, is there? And with a symptometer at his disposal, a physician should be able to easily double the number of office calls per hour.

What does this do for the doctor? It frees him from so much of the annoying drudgery of patient interviewing. It eliminates the wait from first interview to final consultation. It keeps the laboratory details in their proper place. In short, it makes a true executive of the physician.

My eloquence was beginning to tell. All these men had long practices behind them. The practical advantages were undeniable. The important point, however, was that my radical suggestion did offer a less distressing alternative to bringing this into court. The gray-fringed bald heads bubbled before me, and I knew from the higher pitch of their grunts and mutters that I was making my point. I was sweating, but then so were they.

That evening I phoned Cunningham. "'You're in luck, Flynn,' I told him. "'Whether you like it or not, get those machines back and the changes made within a week. If you give them too much time to think about it, they might change their minds.' I thought I caught laughter in the background, but I hadn't made a video connection. I did so at once and now as Cunningham with a suspiciously smug smirk on his face. "'Thanks, old man,' he said softly. "'Wait a minute,' I interrupted. "'I thought you were reluctant about the idea.'

A babble of feminine voices and a background blur on the visor distracted him from my words. He turned away, then back to the screen. "Sue is on her way over to your suite to pick you up. Tonight we celebrate. My girlfriends are here. Gotta go now." The idea of a party just then was repugnant, but the thought of another crosstown ride with Sue was not. As I dressed, I achieved an almost gala mood.

It persisted until I was beside Sue again. Same car, same tunnel, same spring in Brooklyn, but the bluebirds went fluttering when I identified the same smug smirk on her face that John Cunningham had betrayed a half hour ago. "'What?' I demanded. "'Have you invented now?' She looked long into my eyes, and the amused look slowly left her. She leaned over to me. With the perversity I was growing to hate, I refused to accept this perfectly good answer.

I sold your symptomata to the board, but I want you to know, I told her loftily, that I'm not subscribing to your fantastic general diagnoser. No, she said softly. She kept looking up into my eyes in a way I'm told that women have of concentrating while pretending to listen.

It's absurd, I pointed out, why he needs five years just to calibrate the thing. It has no possibilities in mass production. And even if it did, the cost would be so outrageous that the average hospital could hire a whole staff of physicians for the price of one machine. And figure one thing more, what medical man would welcome into his heart a gadget that would leave him nothing to do but stand around with a voltmeter and an oil can? Good point, Sue nodded with an exaggerated flounce of her auburn halo. Of course, I conceded,

If John wants to fiddle around with that pile of junk as a hobby, that's his business. Darling, you've been had, she said lazily. That pile of junk we told you was a super gadget was nothing more than an assembly jig and test rack for the cytometer units.

You misled me, I exploded. That is the understatement of the week, she smiled sweetly. But we couldn't have chosen a better symptomatist salesman if we'd had our pick when I phoned in that complaint to the board and the Hotel Celt. You, you, I stammered, my pulse loud in my ears. Yes, darling, and you were so sweet to get the solution so quickly we didn't even have to suggest it to you.

Somehow a harm had crept up behind me and a finger's got inside the back of my overheated collar. Don't you understand? With John's trouble, what chance do you suppose you have had peddling those gadgets directly to any clinic? Anyway, what product ever started out in life with a better endorsement than that of the International Medical Association?

Now shut up. I could have resisted the pressure of her arm, being a strong man. But a bagel vault thought hit me. Hit everything out of me she'd come for. So why did she want to kiss me unless... Anyhow, we hit the tunnel curve just then. Once again, I didn't notice the warning signal light. And this time, you got a ticket. End of story six. Story seven of Fever's Unphysicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two.

This Leibovux recording is in the public domain. Bolden's Pets by F. L. Wallace His hands were shaking as he exhibited the gifts. If he were on Earth he would be certain it was the flu. In a Centaurus system. Prankin'. But this was Vandamas, so Lee Bolden couldn't say what he had. Man hadn't been here long enough to investigate the diseases with any degree of thoroughness. There were always different hazards to overcome as new planets were settled.

But whatever infection he had, Bolden was not greatly concerned as he counted out the gifts. He had felt the onset of illness perhaps an hour before. When he got back to the settlement he'd been taken care of. That was a half-day's flight from here. The base was equipped with the best medical facilities that had been devised. He stacked up the gifts to make an impressive show. Five pairs of radar goggles.

seven high-velocity carbines, seven boxes of ammunition. This was the native's own rule and was never to be disregarded. It had to be an odd number of gifts. The Van Damus native gazed impassively at the heap. He carried a rather strange bow, and a quiver was strapped to his thigh. With one exception the arrows were brightly colored, mostly red and yellow. Bohm supposed this was for easy recovery in case the shot missed, but there was always one arrow that was stained dark blue.

"'Baldin had observed this before. "'No native was ever without that one sombre-looking arrow. "'The man of Vandama stood there in a thin robe "'that was no protection against the elements rippled slightly "'in the chill current of air that flowed down the mountainside. "'I will go talk with the others,' he said in English. "'Go talk?' said Baldin, trying not to shiver. "'He replied in native speech, but a few words exhausted his knowledge, "'and he had to revert to his own language. "'Take the gifts with you.'

"They are yours, no matter what you decide." The native nodded and reached for a pair of goggles. He tried them on, looking out over fog and mist-shrouded slopes. These people of Vandamas needed radar less than any race Bolden knew of. Living by preference in mountains, they had developed a keenness of vision that enabled them to see through the perpetual fog and mist far better than any Earthman. Paradoxically, it was the goggles they appreciated most.

Extending their sight seemed more precious to them than powerful carbines. The native shoved the goggles up on his forehead, smiling with pleasure. Noticing that Bolden was shivering, he took his hands and examined them. "'Handsick,' he queried. "'A little,' said Bolden. "'I'll be all right in the morning.' The native gathered up the gifts. "'Go talk,' he repeated as he went away."

Lee Bolden sat in the copter and waited. He didn't know how much influence this native had with his people. He had come to negotiate, but this might have been because he understood English somewhat better than the others. A council of the natives would make the decision about working for the Earthmen's settlement. If they approved of the gifts, they probably would. There was nothing to do now but wait and shiver. His hands were getting numb, and his feet weren't much better. Presently the native came out of the fog carrying a rectangular wicker basket.

Bolden was depressed when he saw it. One gift in return for Goggles Carbine's ammunition. The rate of exchange was not favorable. Neither would the reply be. The man set the basket down and waited for Bolden to speak. "'The people have talked?' asked Bolden. "'We have talked to come,' said the native, holding out his fingers. "'In five or seven days we come.' It was a surprise, a pleasant one. Did one wicker basket equal so many fine products of superlative technology?'

Apparently it did. The natives had different values. To them one pair of goggles was worth more than three carbines, a package of needles easily the equivalent of a box of ammunition. "'It's good you will come. I will leave at once to tell them at the settlement,' said Bolden. There was something moving in the basket, but the weave was close, and he couldn't see through it. "'Stay,' the man advised. "'A storm blows through the mountains.' "'I will fly around the storm,' said Bolden."

If he hadn't been sick he might have accepted the offer, but he had to get back to the settlement for treatment. On a strange planet he never could tell what might develop from a seemingly minor ailment. Besides, he'd already been gone two days searching for this tribe in the interminable fog that hung over the mountains. Those waiting at the base would want him back as soon as he could get there. "'Fly far around,' said the man. "'It is a big storm.' He took up the basket and hounded level with the cabin, opening the top.

An animal squirmed out and disappeared inside. Bowden looked askance at the eyes that glowed in the dim interior. He hadn't seen clearly what the creature was, and he didn't like the idea of having it loose in the cabin, particularly if he had to fly through a storm. The man should have left it in the basket, but the basket, plus the animal, would have been two gifts, and the natives never considered anything in even numbers. "'It will not hurt,' said the man. "'A gentle pet.'

As far as he knew there were no pets and very few domesticated animals. Bolden snapped on the cabin light. It was one of those mysterious creatures every tribe kept in cages near the outskirts of their camps. What they did with them no one knew, and the natives either found it impossible to explain or did not care to do so. It seemed unlikely that the creatures were used for food and certainly they were not work animals. In spite of what this man said they were not pets either.

No Earthman had ever seen a native touch them, nor had the creatures ever been seen wandering at large in the camp, and until now none had been permitted to pass into Earth's possession. The scientists at the settlement would regard this acquisition with delight. "'Touch it,' said the native. Bolden held out his trembling hand, and the animal came to him with alert and friendly yellow eyes. It was about the size of a rather small dog, but it didn't look much like one."

It resembled more closely a tiny slender bear with a glossy and shaggy cinnamon coat. Bolden ran his hands through the clean-smelling fur, and the touch warmed his fingers. The animal squirmed and licked his fingers. "It is good you diced," said the native. "Be all right now. It is yours." He turned and walked into the mist. Bolden got in and started the motors while the animal climbed into the seat beside him. It was a friendly thing, and he couldn't understand why the natives always kept it caged.

He headed straight up, looking for a way over the mountains to avoid the impending storm. Fog made it difficult to tell where the peaks were, and he had to drop lower, following meandering valleys. He flew as swiftly as limited visibility would allow, but he hadn't gone far when the storm broke. He tried to go over the top of it, but this storm seemed to have no top. The region was incompletely mapped, and even radar wasn't much help in the tremendous electrical display that raged around the ship. His arms ached as he clung to the controls.

His hands weren't actually cold; they were numb. His legs were leaden. The creature crept closer to him, and he had to nudge it away. Momentarily the distraction cleared his head. He couldn't put it off any longer. A canyon wall loomed at one side, and he had to veer away and keep on looking. Eventually he found his refuge. A narrow valley where the force of the winds was not extreme, and he set the land anchor. Unless something drastic happened, it wouldn't hold.

He made the seat into a bed, decided he was too tired to eat, and went directly to sleep. When he awakened the storm was still raging and the little animal was snoozing by his side. He felt well enough to eat. The native hadn't explained what the animal should be fed, but it accepted everything Bolden offered. Apparently it was as omniferous as man. Before lying down again he made the other seat into a bed, although it didn't seem to matter.

The creature preferred being as close to him as it could get, and he didn't object. The warmth was comforting. Ultimately dozing and waking, he waited out the storm. It lasted a day and a half. This was two days since he had first fallen ill, four days after leaving the settlement. Bolin felt much improved. His hands were nearly normal, and his vision wasn't blurred. He looked at the little animal curled in his lap, gazing up at him with solemn yellow eyes.

If he gave it encouragement it would probably be crawling all over him. However, he couldn't have it frisking around while he was flying. "Come, pet," he said. There wasn't anything else to call it. "You're going places, picking it up, half carrying and half dragging it." He took it to the rear of the compartment, improvising a narrow cage back there. He was satisfied it would hold. He should have done this in the beginning. Of course he hadn't felt like it then, and he hadn't had the time, and anyway the native would have resented such treatment of a gift.

Probably it was best he had waited. His pet didn't like confinement. It whined softly for a while. The noise stopped when the motors roared. Bolden headed straight up until he was high enough to establish communication over the peaks. He made a brief report about the natives' agreement and his own illness, then he started home. He flew at top speed for ten hours. He satisfied his hunger by nibbling concentrated rations from time to time.

The animal whined occasionally, but Bolden had learned to identify the sounds it made. It was neither hungry nor thirsty. It merely wanted to be near him, and all he wanted was to reach the base. The raw, sprawling settlement looked good as he sat the copter down. Mechanics came running from the hangars. They opened the door and he stepped out, and fell on his face. There was no feeling in his hands and none in his legs. He hadn't recovered.

Dr. Kessler peered at him through the microscreen. It gave his face a narrow, insubstantial appearance. The microscreen was a hemispherical force field enclosing his head. It originated in a tubular circlet that snapped around his throat at the top of the decontagion suit. The field killed all microlife that passed through it or came in contact with it. The decontagion suit was non-porous and impermeable, covering completely the rest of his body.

The material was thinner over his hands and thicker at the soles. Bolden took in the details at a glance. "'Is it serious?' he asked, his voice cracking with the effort. "'Merely a precaution,' said the doctor hollowly. The microscreen distorted sound as well as sight. "'Merely a precaution. We know what it is, but we're not sure of the best way to treat it.' Bolden grunted to himself. The microscreen and decontagion suit were strong precautions.'

The doctor wheeled a small machine from the wall and placed Bolden's hand in a narrow trough that held it steady. The eyepiece slid into the microscreen, and, starting at the fingertips, Kessler examined the arm, traveling slowly upward. At last he stopped. "'Is this where feeling ends?' "'I think so. Touch it. Yeah, it's dead below there.' "'Good. Now I got it pegged. It's the bubble death.'

Bolden showed concern and the doctor laughed. "'Don't worry, it's caused that because of the way it looks through the X-ray microscope. It's true that it killed the scouting expedition that discovered the planet, but it won't get you. They had antibiotics. Neobiotics, too. Sure, but they only had a few standard kinds. Their knowledge was more limited and they lacked the equipment three and a half.' The doctor made it sound comforting, but Bolden wasn't comforted. Not just yet.

"Sit up and look," said Kessler, bending the eyepiece around so Baldin could use it. "The dark filamented lines are nerves. See what surrounds them?" Baldin watched as the doctor adjusted the focus for him. Each filament was covered with countless tiny spheres that isolated and insulated the nerve from contact. That's why he couldn't feel anything. The spherical microbes did look like bubbles, as yet they didn't seem to have attacked the nerves directly.

while he watched the doctor swiveled out another eyepiece for his own use and turned a knob on the side of the machine from the lens next to his arm an almost invisible needle slid out and entered his flesh bowden could see it come into the field of view it didn't hurt

Slowly it approached the dark branching filament, never quite touching it. The needle was hollow, and as Kessler squeezed the knob it sucked in the spheres. The needle extended a snout which crept along the nerve, vacuuming in microbes as it moved. When a section had been cleansed the snout was retracted. Bowden could feel the needle then.

When the doctor finished he laid Bolden's hand back at his side and wheeled the machine to the wall, extracting a small capsule while he dropped into a slot that led to the outside. He came back and sat down. "'Is that what you're going to do?' asked Bolden. "'Scrape them off?' "'Hardly. There are too many nerves. If we had ten machines and enough people to operate them we might check the advance in one arm.' The doctor leaned back in the chair. "'No, I was collecting a few more samples. We're trying to find out what the microbes react to.'

"'More samples? Then you must have taken others. Suddenly we put you out for a while to let you rest.' The chair came down on four legs. "'You've got a mild case. Either that or you have a strong natural immunity. It's now been three days since you reported the first symptoms, and it isn't very advanced. It killed the entire scouting expedition in less time than that.' Borden looked at the ceiling. Eventually they'd find a cure. But would he be alive that long?'

"'I suspect that you're sinking,' said the doctor. "'Don't overlook our special equipment. We already have specimens in the sonic accelerator. We've been able to speed up the life processes of the microbes about ten times. Before the day's over, we'll know which of our anti- and neobiotics they like the least. Tough little things so far, unbelievably tough, but you can be sure of this, Maxim.' His mind was active, but outwardly Bolton was quiescent as the doctor continued his explanation.

The disease attacked the superficial nervous system, beginning with the extremities. The bodies of the crew of the scouting expedition had been in an advanced state of decomposition when the medical rescue team reached them, and the microbes were no longer active. Nevertheless, it was a reasonable supposition that death had come shortly after the invading bacteria had reached the brain. Until then, though nerves were the route along which the microbes travelled, no irreparable damage had been done.

This much was good news. Either he would recover completely, or he would die. He would not be crippled permanently. Another factor in his favor was the sonic accelerator. By finding the natural resonance of the one-celled creature and gradually increasing the tempo of the sound field, the doctor could grow and test ten generations in the laboratory while one generation was breeding in the body. Bolden was the first patient actually being observed with the disease, but the time element wasn't as bad as he had thought.

"'That's where you are,' concluded Kessler. "'Now, among other things, we've got to find where you've been.' "'The ship has an automatic log,' said Bolden. "'It indicates every place I landed. "'True, but our grid coordinates are not exact. "'It will be a few years before we're able to look at a log "'and locate within ten feet of where a ship has been.' "'The doctor spread out a large photo map. "'There were several marks on it. "'He fastened a stereoscopic viewer over Bolden's eyes "'and handed him a pencil. "'Can you use this?' "'I think so.'

His fingers were stiff and he couldn't feel, but he could mark with the pencil. Kessler moved the map nearer, and the terrain sprang up in detail. In some cases he could see it more clearly than when he had been there, because on the map there was no fog. Bolden made a few corrections and the doctor took the map away and removed the viewer. We'll have to stay away from these places until we get a cure. Did you notice anything peculiar in any of the places you went? It was all mountainous country. Which probably means that we're safe on the plain.

Were there any animals? Nothing that came close. Birds, maybe. More likely it was an insect. What will we worry about the host and how it is transmitted? Try not to be upset. You are as safe as you would be on Earth. Yeah, said Bolden. Where's the pet? The doctor laughed. You did very well on that one. The biologists have been curious about the animal since the day they saw one in a native camp. They can look at it as much as they want, said Bolden. Nothing more on this one, though. It's a personal gift.

"'You're sure it's personal?' the native said it was. The doctor sighed. "'That tells them they won't like it, but we can't argue with the natives if we want their corporation.' Bolden smiled. The animal was safe for at least six months. He could understand the biologist's curiosity, but there was enough to keep him curious for a long time on a new planet. And it was his.

In a remarkably short time he had become attached to it. It was one of those rare things that man happened across occasionally, about once in every five planets. Useless, completely useless, the creature had one virtue. It liked man, and man liked it. It was a pet. "'Okay,' he said, "'but you didn't tell me where it is.'

The doctor shrugged, but the gesture was lost in the shapeless decontagion suit. "'Do you think we'll let these run in the streets? It's in the next room, under observation.' The doctor was more concerned than he was let on. The hospital was small, and animals were never kept in it. "'It's not the carrier. I was sick before it was given to me. You heard something, and not that much. But was it this? Even granting that you're right, it was in contact with you and may now be infected.'

I think life on this planet isn't bothered by the disease. The natives have been every place I went and none of them seem to have it. Didn't they? said the doctor going to the door. Maybe. It's too early to say. He reeled the cord out of the wall and plugged it into the decontagion suit. He spread his legs and held his arms away from his sides. In an instant the suit glowed white hot. Only for an instant. And it was insulated inside.

Even so it must be uncomfortable, and the process would be repeated outside. The doctor wasn't taking any chances. "'Try to sleep,' he said. "'Ring is as the change in your condition, even if you think it's insignificant.' "'I'll ring,' said Bolden. In a short time he fell asleep. It was easy to sleep. The nurse entered as quietly as she could in the decontagion outfit. It awakened Bolden. It was evening. He had slept most of the day. "'Which one are you?' he asked. "'Pretty one.'

"'All nashes are pretty if you get well. Here, swallow this.' It was Peggy. He looked doubtfully at what she held out. "'All of it?' "'Certainly. You get it down, and I'll see that it comes back up. The string won't hurt you.' She passed a small instrument over his body, reading the dial she held in the other hand. The information he knew was being recorded elsewhere in a master chart. Apparently the instrument measured neural currents, and hence indirectly the progress of the disease.'

Already they had evolved new diagnostic techniques. He wished they'd made the same advance in treatment. After expertly reeling out the instrument he had swallowed, the nurse read it and deposited it in a receptacle in the wall. She bought a tray and told him to eat. He wanted to question her, but she was insistent about it. So he ate. Allowance had been made for his partial paralysis. The food was liquid. It was probably nutritious, but he didn't care for the taste. She took the tray away and came back and sat beside him.

"'Now we can talk,' she said. "'What's going on?' he said bluntly. "'When do I start getting shots? "'Nothing's been done for me so far. "'I don't know what the doctor's working out for you. "'I'm just the nurse.'

"'Don't try to tell me that,' she said. "'You're a doctor yourself. In a pinch you could take Kessler's place.' "'Then I get my share of pinches,' she said brightly. "'Okay, so I'm a doctor, but only on Earth. Until I complete my half-planet internship here I'm not allowed to practice. You know as much about Vandamas as anyone does.' "'That may be,' she said. "'Now don't be alarmed, but the truth ought to be obvious. None of our anti-I-neo biotics or combinations of them have a positive effect. We're looking for something new.'

It should have been obvious. He had been hoping against that, though. He looked at the shapeless figure sitting beside him and remembered Peggy as she usually looked. He wondered if they were any longer concerned with him as an individual. Must be working mainly to keep the disease from spreading. What are my chances? Better than you think. We're looking for an additive that'll make the biotics effective. He hadn't thought of that, though it was often used, particularly on newly settled planets.

He had heard of a virus infection common to St. Taurus that could be completely controlled by a shot of neobiotics plus aspirin, though separately neither was of any value. But the discovery of what substance could be added to what antibiotic was largely one of trial and error. That took time, and there wasn't much time. What else? he said.

"'That's about it. We're trying to make you believe this isn't serious. But don't forget we're working ten times as fast as the disease can multiply. We expect to break any moment.' She got up. "'Want a sedative for the night? I've got a sedative inside me. Looks like it'll be permanent.'

"'That's what I like about you. You're so cheerful,' she said, leaning over and clipping something around his throat. "'In case you're wondering, we're going to be busy tonight taking the microbe. We can put someone in with you, but we thought you'd rather have all of us working on it.' "'Sure,' he said. "'This is a body monitor. If you want anything, just call and we'll be here within minutes.' "'Thanks,' he said. "'I won't panic tonight.'

She plugged in the decontagion uniform, flashed it on, and then left the room. After she was gone, the body monitor no longer seemed reassuring. It was going to take something positive to pull him through. They were going to work through the night, but did they actually hope for success? What had Peggy said? None of the anti-or neobiotics had a positive reaction. Unknowingly, she had let it slip.

The reaction was negative. The bubble microbes actually grew faster in the medium that was supposed to stop them. It happened occasionally on Strange Planet. It was his bad luck that it was happening to him. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind and tried to sleep. He did for a time. When he awakened he thought at first it was his arms that had aroused him. They seemed to be on fire, deep inside. To a limited extent he still had control. He could move them, though there was no surface sensation.

Anterior nerves had not been greatly affected until now, but outside the infection had crept up. It was no longer just above the wrists. It had reached his elbows and passed beyond. A few inches below his shoulder he could feel nothing. The illness was accelerating. If they had ever thought of amputation it was too late now. He resisted an impulse to cry out. A nurse would come and sit beside him, but he would be taking her from work that might save his life.

The infection would reach his shoulders and move across his chest and back. It would travel up his throat, and he wouldn't be able to move his lips. It would paralyze his eyelids so that he couldn't blink. Maybe it would blind him, too, and then it would find ingress to his brain. The result would be a metabolic explosion. Carefully, each bodily function would stop altogether or race wildly as the central nervous system was invaded, one regulatory center after the other, blanking out.

his body would be aflame or it would smoulder and flicker out death might be spectacular or it could come very quietly that was one reason he didn't call the nurse the other was the noise it was a low sound half purr half a coaxing growl it was the animal the native had given him confined in the next room

Bolden was not sure why he did what he did next. Instinct or reason may have governed his actions, but instinct and reason are divisive concepts that can't apply to the human mind, which is actually indivisible. He got out of bed. Unable to stand, he rolled to the floor. He couldn't crawl very well because his hands wouldn't support his weight, so he crept along on his knees and elbows. It didn't hurt. Nothing hurt except the fire in his bones.

He reached the door and straightened up on his knees. He raised his hand to the handle but couldn't grasp it. After several trials he abandoned the attempt and hooked his chin on the handle, pulling it down. The door opened and he was in the next room. The animal was whining louder now that he was near. Yellow eyes glowed at him from the corner. He crept to the cage. It was latched. The animal shivered eagerly, pressing against the side, striving to reach him.

His hands were numb and he couldn't work the latch. The animal licked his fingers. It was easier after that. He couldn't feel what he was doing, but somehow he managed to unlatch it. The door swung open and the animal bounded out, knocking him to the floor. He didn't mind at all because now he was sure he was right. The natives had given him the animal for a purpose. Their own existence was meager, near the edge of extinction. He could not afford to keep something that wasn't useful.

And this creature was useful. Tiny blue sparks crackled from the fur as it rubbed against him in the darkness. It was not whining. It rumbled and purred as it licked his hands and arms and rolled against his legs. After a while, he was strong enough to crawl back to bed, leaning against the animal for support. He lifted himself up and fell across the bed in exhaustion. Blood didn't circulate well in his crippled body.

The animal bounded up and tried to melt itself into his body. He couldn't push it away if he wanted. He didn't want to. He stirred and got himself into a more comfortable position. He wasn't going to die. In the morning, Bolden was awake long before the doctor came in. Kessler's face was haggard, and the smile was something he assumed solely for the patient's benefit. If he could have seen what the expression looked like after that filtering through the micro-screen, he would have abandoned it.

"'I see you're holding with your own,' he said with hollow cheerfulness. "'We're doing quite well ourselves.' "'Oh, bet,' said Bolden. "'Maybe you've got to the point where one of the antibiotics doesn't actually stimulate the growth of the microbes. I was afraid you'd find it out,' sighed the doctor. "'We can't keep everything from you. You could have given me a shot of plasma and said it was a powerful new drug.'

"That idea went out of medical treatment a couple of hundred years ago," said the doctor. "You feel worse when you fail to show improvement. Settling a planet isn't easy, and the dangers aren't imaginary. You've got to be able to face the facts as they come." He peered uncertainly at Bolin. The microscreen distorted his vision, too. "Making progress, though it may not seem so to you. When a mixture of calcium salt plus two antihistamines is added to a certain neobiotic, the result is that the microbe grows no faster than it should.

"'Switching the ingredients here and there, maybe it ought to be a potassium salt, and the first thing you know will have it stopped cold.' "'I doubt the effectiveness of those results,' said Bolden. "'In fact, I think you're on the wrong track. Try investigating the effects of neural induction.' "'What are you talking about?' said the doctor, coming closer and glancing suspiciously at the lump beside Bolden. "'Do you feel dizzy? Is there anything else unusual that you notice? Don't shout at the patient!' Bolden waggled his finger reprovingly.

He was proud of the finger. He couldn't feel what he was doing, but he had control over it. "You, Kessler, should face the fact that a doctor can learn from a patient what the patient learned from the natives." But Kessler didn't hear what he said. He was looking at the upraised hand. "I'm moving almost normally," he said. "Your own immunity factor is controlling the disease." "Sure I've got an immunity factor," said Bolden. "The same one the natives have, but it's not inside my body."

He rested his hand on the animal beneath the covers. It never wanted to leave him. It wouldn't have to. I can set your mind at rest on one thing, doctor. Natives are susceptible to the disease, too. That's why they were able to recognize I had it. They gave me the cure and told me what it was, and I was unable to see it until it was nearly too late. Here it is. He turned back the covers, and the exposed animal sleeping peacefully on his legs, which raised its head and licked his fingers. He felt that.

After an explanation the doctor tempered his disapproval. It was an unsanitary practice, but he had to admit that the patient was much improved. Kessler verified the state of Bolden's health by extensive use of the X-ray microscope. Reluctantly he wheeled the machine to the wall and covered it up. "'Infection is definitely receding,' he said. "'There are previously infected areas in which I find it difficult to locate a single microbe. What I can't understand is how it's done.'

"'According to you, the animal doesn't break the skin with its tongue "'and therefore nothing is released into the bloodstream. "'All that seems necessary is that the animal be near you.' "'He shook his head behind the micro-screen. "'I said the first thing I thought of. "'I don't know if that's the way it works, "'but it seems to me like a pretty fair guess.'

"'Microbes do cluster around nerves,' said the doctor. "'It knows that neural activity is partly electrical. "'If the level of that activity can be increased, "'the bacteria might be killed by ionic dissociation.' "'He glanced speculatively at Bolden and the animal. "'Perhaps you do borrow nervous energy from the animal. "'You might also find it possible to control the disease "'with an electrical current.' "'Don't try to find out on me,' said Bolden. "'I've been an experimental specimen long enough.'

"Take somebody who's healthy. I'll stick with the natives' method." "I wasn't thinking of experiments in your condition. It's still not out of danger." Nevertheless, he showed his real opinion when he left the room. He failed to plug in and flash the decontagion suit. Bolden smiled at the doctor's omission and ran his hand through the fur. He was going to get well, but his progress was somewhat slower than he'd anticipated, though it seemed to satisfy the doctor who went on with his experiments.

The offending bacteria could be killed electrically, but the current was dangerously large and there was no practical way to apply the treatment to humans. The animal was the only effective method. Kessler discovered the microbe required an intermediate host. A tick or a mosquito seemed indicated. It would take a protracted search of the mountains to determine just what insect was the carrier. In any event, the elaborate sanitary precautions were unnecessary.

Microscreens came down, and decontagion suits were no longer worn. Bolden could not pass the disease on to anyone else, neither could the animal. It seemed wholly without parasites. It was clean and affectionate, warm to the touch. Bolden was fortunate that there was such a simple cure for the most dreaded disease on Van Damus. It was several days before he was ready to leave the small hospital at the edge of the settlement. At first he sat up in bed, and then he was allowed to walk across the room.

As his activity increased, the animal became more and more content to lie on the bed and follow him with its eyes. It no longer frisked about as it had in the beginning. As Bolden told the nurse, it was becoming housebroken. The time came when the doctor failed to find a single microbe. Bolden's newly returned strength and the sensitivity of his skin, where before there had been numbness, confirmed the diagnosis. He was well. Peggy came to walk him home.

It was pleasant to have her near. "'I see you're ready,' she said, laughing at his eagerness. "'Except for one thing,' he said. "'Come, pet.' The animal raised his head from the bed where it slept. "'Pet?' he said quizzically. "'You ought to give it a name. You've had it long enough to decide on something. Pet's a name,' he said. "'What can I call it? Doc? Hero?' She made a face. "'I can't say I care for either choice, although it did save your life. Yes, but there's an attribute it can't help.'

The important thing is that if you listed what you expect of a pet, you'd find it in this creature. Docile, gentle, lively at times. All it wants is to be near you, to have you touch it. And it's very clean. All right, call it Pet if you want, said Peggy. Come on, Pet. It paid no attention to her. It came when Bolden called, getting slowly off the bed. It stayed as close as it could get to Bolden.

He was still weak, but they didn't walk fast, and at first the animal was able to keep up. It was almost noon when they went out. The sun was brilliant, and Vandamma seemed a wonderful place to be alive in. Yes, with death behind him, it was a very wonderful place. Bolden chatted gaily with Peggy. It was fine company. And then Bolden saw the native who had given him the animal. Five to seven days, and he had arrived on time. The rest of the tribe must be elsewhere in the settlement.

Bolden smiled in recognition while the man was still at some distance. For an answer, the native shifted the bow in his hand and glanced behind the couple in the direction of the hospital. The movement with the bow might have been menacing, but Bolden ignored that gesture. It was the sense that something was missing that caused him to look down. The animal was not at his side. He turned around. The creature was struggling in the dust. It got to its feet and wobbled toward him.

staggering crazily as it tried to reach him. It spun around, saw him, and came out again. The tongue lolled out, and it whined once. Then a native shot it to the heart, pinning it to the ground. The short tail thumped, and then it died. Bolden couldn't move. Peggy clutched his arm. The native walked over to the animal and looked down. He was silent for a moment. "'Die anyway soon,' he said to Bolden. "'Burned out inside.'

He bent over. The bright yellow eyes had faded to nothingness in the sunlight. "'Gave you itself,' said the man of Vandamus respectfully, as he broke off the protruding arrow. It was a dark blue arrow. Now every settlement on the planet has Bolden's pets. They have been given a more scientific name, but nobody remembers what it is. The animals are kept in pens, exactly as is done with the natives, on one side of the town, not too near any habitation.'

For a while there was talk that it was unscientific to use the animal. It was thought that an electrical treatment could be developed to replace it. Perhaps this was true, but settling a planet is a big task. As long as one method works, there isn't time for research. And it works. The percentage of recovery is as high as in any other common ailments.

But in any case the animal can never become a pet, though it may be. In the small but bright spark of consciousness that is all the little yellow-eyed creature wants, quality that makes it so valuable is the final disqualification. Strength can be a weakness. Its nervous system is too powerful for a man in good health, upsetting the delicate balance of the human body in a variety of unusual ways. How the energy transfer takes place has never been determined exactly, but it does occur.

It is only when he is stricken with the bubble of death and needs additional energy to drive the invading microbes from the tissue around his nerves that the patient is allowed to have one of Bolden's pets. In the end, it is the animal that dies. As the natives knew, it is kindness to kill it quickly. It is highly regarded and respectfully spoken of. Children play as close as they can get, but are kept well away from the pens by a high, sturdy fence. Adults walk by and nod kindly to it.

Bolden never goes there, nor will he speak of it. His friends say he's unhappy about being the first Earthman to discover the usefulness of the little animal. They are right. It is a distinction he doesn't care for. He still has the blue arrow. There are local craftsmen who can mend it. He has refused their services. He wants to keep it as it is. End of story seven.

Story 8 of FEVERS AND PHYSICIANS IN SPACE Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2 This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. The Addicts by William Morrison You must understand that Palmer loved his wife as much as ever, or he would never have thought of his simple little scheme at all. It was entirely for her own good, as he had told himself a dozen times in the past day.

and with that he stilled whatever qualms of consciousness he might otherwise have had. He didn't think of himself as being something of a murderer. She was sitting at the artificial fireplace, a cheerful relic of ancient days, reading just as peacefully as if she had been back home on Mars. Instead of on this desolate outpost of space, she had adjusted quickly to the loneliness and the strangeness of this life, the absence of friends, the need for conserving air,

a strange feeling of an artificial gravity that varied slightly at the whim of impurities in the station fuel. To everything, in fact, but her husband. She seemed to sense his eyes on her, for she looked up and smiled. "'Feeling all right, dear?' she asked. "'How about you? As well as can be expected?' "'Not very good, then. Well, I'll fix it so that she needn't any more.'

and he stared through the thick, transparent metal window at the beauty of the stars, their light undimmed by dust or atmosphere. The stories told about the wretchedness of the lighthouse keepers who lived on asteroids didn't apply at all to this particular bit of cosmic rock. Life here had been wonderful, incredibly satisfying. At least it had been that way for him, and now it would be the same way for his wife as well. He would have denied it hotly if he had accused him of finding her repulsive,

But to certain drunks the sober man or woman is an offense, and Palmer was much more than a drunk. He was a Merak addict, and in the eyes of the Merak fiends all things and all people were wonderful, except those who did not share their taste for the drug. The latter were miserable, depraved creatures, practically subhuman. Of course that was not the way most of them put it; certainly it was not the way Palmer did.

He regarded his wife, he told himself, as an unfortunate individual whom he loved very much, one whom it was his duty to make happy. That her new-found happiness would also hasten her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence. She was sure to die anyway before long, so why not have her live out her last days in the peace and contentment that only Marac could bring? Louise herself would have had an answer to that, if he had ever put the question to her.

He was careful never to do so. She laid the book aside and looked up at him again. She said, "Jim, darling, do you think you could get the television set working again?" Not without a Mesotron rectifier. Even the radio would be a comfort. It wouldn't do any good, anyway. Too much static from both Mars and Earth this time of year. That was the beauty of the Merak, he thought. It changed his mood and left him calm and in full command of his faculty, able to handle any problem that came up.

He himself, of course, missed neither the radio nor the television, and he never touched the fine library of micro-books. He didn't need them. A shadow flitted by outside the thick window, blotting out for a moment the blaze of stars. It was the shadow of death, as he knew, and he was able to smile even at that. Even death was wonderful. When it finally came, it would find him happy.

He would not shudder away from it, as he saw Louise doing now at the sight of the ominous shadow. He smiled at his wife again, remembering the six years they had lived together. It had been a short married life, but, again the word suggested itself to him, a wonderful one. There had been only one quarrel of importance in the second year, and after that they had got along perfectly.

And then two years ago he had begun to take Merak, and after that he couldn't have quarreled with anyone. It was a paragon among drugs, and it was one of the mysteries of his existence that anybody should object to his using it. Louise had tried to argue with him after she had found out, but he had turned every exchange of views into a peaceful discussion, which from his side at least was brimming over with good humor. He had even been good-humored when she tried to slip the antidote into his food.

It was this attitude of his that had so often left her baffled and enraged, and he had a good chuckle out of that, too. Imagine a wife getting angry because her husband was too good-natured. But she was never going to get angry again. He would see to that. Not after tonight. A big change was going to take place in her life. She had picked up another book, and for the moment he pitied her. He knew that she wasn't interested in any books. She was merely restless, looking for something to do with herself.

seeking some method of killing time before the shadows outside killed it for her for good and all. She couldn't understand his being so peaceful and contented doing nothing at all. She threw the second book down and snarled. Yes, that was the word. You're such a fool, Jim. You sit there smug and sure of yourself, your mind blank, just waiting, waiting for them to kill you and me, and you seem actually happy when I mention it.

"'I'm happy at anything and everything, dear. At the thought of dying, too. Living or dying, it doesn't make any difference. Whatever happens, I'm incapable of being unhappy. If it weren't for the drug, we'd both live. You'd think of a way to kill them before they killed us. There is no way. There must be. You just can't think of it while the drug has you in its grip.' "'The drug doesn't have you, dear,' he asked without sarcasm. "'Why don't you think of a way?'

"'Because I lack the training you have. "'Because I don't have the scientific knowledge, "'and all the equipment scattered around means nothing to me. "'There's nothing to be done.' "'Her fists clenched. "'If you weren't under the influence of the drug, "'you know that it doesn't affect the ability to think. "'Tests have shown that. "'Tests conducted by addicts themselves. "'The fact that they can conduct the tests "'should be proof enough that there's nothing wrong with their minds. "'But there is!' she shouted. "'I can see it in you!'

Oh, I know that you can still add and subtract, and you can draw lines onto two words which mean the same thing, but that isn't really thinking. Real thinking means the ability to tackle real problems, hard problems that you can't handle merely with paper and pencil. It means having the incentive to use your brain for a long time at a stretch, and that's what the drug has ruined. It has taken away all your incentive. I still go about my duties.

Not as well as you're used to, and even at that, only because they're becoming a habit. Just as you talk to me, because I've become a habit. If you'd let me give you the antidote—' He chuckled at the absurdity of her suggestion. Once an addict had been cured, he could not become addicted again. The antidote acted to produce a permanent immunization against the effects of the drug.

It was the realization of this fact that made addicts fight so hard against any attempt to cure them, and she thought that she could convince him by argument. He said, "'You talk of not being able to think.' "'I know,' she replied hotly. "'I'm the one who blunders. I'm the fool for arguing with you when I realize that it's impossible to convince a Marac addict.' "'That's it.' He nodded and chuckled again, but that wasn't quite it, for he was also chuckling at his plan.'

She had thought him unable to tackle a real problem. Well, he would tackle one tonight. Then she would simply adopt his point of view, and she would no longer be unhappy. After she had accepted the solution he had provided, she would wonder how she could ever have opposed him. He fell into one of his dozes, and hardly noticed her glaring at him. When he came out of it, at last, it was to hear her say, "'We have to stay alive as long as possible, for the sake of the lighthouse.' "'Of course, my dear, I don't dispute that at all.'

And the longer we stay alive, the more chance there is that some ship will pick us up. Oh, no, there's no chance of that, he asserted cheerfully. You know that as well as I do. No use deceiving yourself, my love. That, he observed to himself, was the way of non-addicts. They couldn't look facts in the face. They had to cling to a blind and silly optimism, which no facts justified. He knew that there was no hope.

He was able to review the facts calmly, judiciously, to see the inevitability of their dying, and to take pleasure even in that. He reviewed them for her now. Let us see, sweetheart, whether I've lost my ability to analyze the situation. We're here with our pretty little lighthouse in the middle of a group of asteroids between Mars and Earth. Ships have been wrecked here, and our task is to prevent further wrecks.

The lighthouse sends out a standard high-frequency beam, whose intensity and phase permit astrogators to estimate their distance and direction from us. Ordinarily there's nothing for us to do, but on the rare occasions when the beam fails, that will be the end. On those occasions, he continued, unruffled by her interruption, I am supposed to leave my cozy little shelter, so thoughtfully equipped with all comforts of Earth or Mars, and make repairs as rapidly as possible.

Under the usual conditions, lighthouse keeping is a boring task. In fact, it has been known to drive people insane. That's why it's generally assigned to happily married couples like us, who are accustomed to living quietly, without excitement. And that, she added bitterly, is why even happily married couples are usually relieved after one year.

But darling, he said, his tone cheerful, he mustn't blame anyone. Who would have expected that a maverick meteor would come at us and displace us from our orbit? And who would have expected that the meteor would have collided first with the outer asteroids and picked up a cargo of those? He gestured toward the window, where a shadow had momentarily paused. By the light that shone through, he could see that the creature was relatively harmless-looking.

It had what appeared to be a round, humorous face, whose unhumorous intentions would be revealed only at the moment of the kill. The seeming face was actually featureless, for it was not a face at all. It had neither eyes, nor nose, nor mouth.

The effect of features was given by the odd blend of colors, almost escaping notice because of their unusual position and their dull brown hue with the stomach fangs, in neat rows which could be extended and retracted like those of a snake. He noticed that Louise had shuddered again and said in the manner of a man making conversation, "'Interesting, aren't they? They're rock-breathers, you know.'

They need very little oxygen, and they extract that from the silicates and other oxygen-containing compounds of the rock. Don't talk about them. All right, if you don't want me to. But about us, you see, my dear, no one expected us to be lost. And even if the lighthouse service has started to look for us, it will take a long time to find us. We have food, water, air. If not for those beasts, we'll last until a rescue ship appeared."

but even a rescue ship wouldn't be able to reach us unless we keep the beam going. So far we've been lucky. It's really functioned remarkably well. But sooner or later it'll go out of order, and then I'll have to go out and fix it. You agree to that, don't you, Louise, dear? She nodded. She said quietly, The beam must be kept in order. That's when the creatures will get me. He said almost with satisfaction.

I may kill one or two of them, although the way I feel toward everything, I hate to kill anything at all. But you know, sweetheart, that there are more than a dozen of them altogether, and it's clumsy shooting in a spacesuit at beasts which move as swiftly as they do. And if you don't succeed in fixing what's wrong, if they get you... She broke down suddenly and began to cry. He looked at her with compassion and smoothed her hair, and yet under the influence of the drug he enjoyed even her crying.

It was as he never tired of repeating to himself and to her a wonderful drug, and to expel a man or a woman who really enjoy life. Tonight she would begin to enjoy life along with him. Their chronometer functioned perfectly, and they still regulated their living habits by it, using Greenwich Earth Time. At seven in the evening he sat down to a fine meal.

knowing that tomorrow they might die louise had decided that tonight they would eat and drink as well as they could and she had selected a christmas special she had merely to pull a lever and the food had slid into the oven to be cooked at once by an intense beam of high-frequency radiation jim himself had chosen the wine and the brandy

One of the peculiarities of the marac was that it did not affect the actual enjoyment of alcoholic drinks in the slightest, and one of the sights of the solar system was to see an addict who was also drunk. But it was a rare sight, for the marac itself created such a pervading sensation of well-being that it often acted as a cure for alcoholism. Once an alcoholic had experienced its effect, he had no need to get drunk to forget his troubles. He enjoyed his troubles instead, and drank the alcohol for its own sake.

for its ability to provide a slightly different sensation, and not for its ability to release him from an unhappy world. So tonight Palmer drank moderately, taking just enough, as it seemed to him, to stimulate his brain. And he did what he now realized he should have done long ago. Unobserved, he placed a tablet of Marac in his own wine-glass, and one in Louise's. The slight bitterness of taste would be hardly perceptible, and after that Louise would be an addict too.

That was the way the marac worked. There was nothing mysterious about the craving. It was simply that once you had experienced how delightful it was, you wouldn't do without it. The tablet he had taken that morning was losing its effect, but he felt so pleased at what he was doing that he didn't mind even that. For the next half hour he would enjoy himself simply by looking at Louise and thinking that now at last they would be united again.

no longer kept apart by her silly ideas about doing something to save themselves, and then the drug would take effect, and they would feel themselves lifted to the stars together, never to come down to this substitute for earth again until the beam failed, and they went out together to make the repairs, and the shadows closed in on them. He had made sure that Louise had her back to him when he dropped the tablet into her glass, and he saw that she suspected nothing.

She drank her wine, he noticed, without even commenting on the taste. He felt a sudden impulse to kiss her, and somewhat to her surprise, he did so. Then he sat down again and went on with the dinner. He waited. An hour later he knew that he had made her happy. She was laughing as she hadn't laughed for a long time. She laughed at the humorous things he said, at the flattering way he raised his glass to her, even at what she saw through the window.

Sometimes it seemed to him that she was laughing at nothing at all. He tried to think of how he had reacted the first time he had taken the drug. He hadn't been quite so aggressively cheerful, not quite so hysterical. But then the drug didn't have exactly the same effect on everyone. She wasn't as well balanced as he had been. The important thing was that she was happy. Curiously enough, he himself wasn't happy at all. It took about five seconds for the thought to become clear to him.

five seconds, in which he passed from dull amazement to an enraged and horrified comprehension. He sprang to his feet, overturning the table at which they still sat, and he saw that she wasn't surprised at all, that she still stared at him with a secret satisfaction. "'You've cured me!' he cried. "'You've fed me the antidote!' And he began to curse."

He remembered the other time she had tried it, the time when he had been on the alert and had easily detected the strange metallic taste of the stuff. It spattered out, and under the influence of the drug from which she had hoped to save him, he had laughed at her. Now he was unable to laugh. He had been so intent on feeding the tablet to her that he had forgotten to guard himself, and he had been caught.

It was normal now, her idea of being normal, and he would never again know the wonderful feeling the drug gave. He began to realize his situation on this horrible, lonely asteroid. He cast a glance at the window and at what must be waiting outside, and it was his turn to shudder. He noticed that she was still smiling. He said bitterly, "'You're the addict now, and I'm cured.' She stopped smiling and said quietly, "'Jim.'

"'Listen to me. You're wrong. Completely wrong. I didn't give you the antidote, and you didn't give me the drug. I put it in the wineglass myself!' She shook her head. "'That was a tablet I substituted for yours. It's an antivirus dose from our medicine chest. You took one of the same things. That's why you feel so depressed. You're not under the influence of the drug anymore.' He took a deep breath. "'But I'm not cured!'

No, I knew that I wouldn't be able to slip you the antidote. The taste is too strong. Later you'll be able to start taking the drug again. That is, if you want to. After experiencing for a time what it is to be normal. But not now. You have to keep your head clear. You have to think of something to save us. But there's nothing to think of! he shouted angrily. I told you that the drug doesn't affect the intelligence. I still don't believe you. If you'd only exert yourself. Use your mind.

He said savagely, I'm not going to bother. Give me those Marak tablets. She backed away from him. I thought you might want them. I took no chances. I threw them out. Out there? A horrified and incredulous look was on his face. You mean that I'm stuck here without them? Louise, you fool, there's no help for us. The other way at least. Would have died happy, but now... He stared at the window. The shadows were there in full force.

Not one now, but two, three. He counted half a dozen. It was almost as if they knew that the end had come. They had reason to be happy, he thought with despair. And perhaps he shrank back from the thought, but it forced itself into his mind. Perhaps now that all happiness had gone and wretchedness had taken its place, he might as well end everything. There would be no days to spend torturing himself in anticipation of a horrible death.

Louise exclaimed suddenly. "'Jim, look! They're frolicking!' he looked. The beasts certainly were gay. One of them leaped from the airless surface of the asteroid and sailed over its fellow. He had never seen them do that before. Usually they clung to the rocky surface. Another was spinning around oddly, as if it had lost its sense of balance. Louise said, "'They've swallowed the tablets. Over a hundred doses. Enough to drug every beast on the asteroid.'

For a moment, Palmer stared at the gambling alien drug addicts. Then he put on his spacesuit and took his gun, and without the slightest danger to himself, went out and shot them one by one. He noted, with a kind of grim envy, that they died happy. End of story eight. Story nine of Fevers and Physicians in Space at Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two

The Man Who Made the World by Richard Matheson Dr. Yanishevsky sat in his office. Leaning back in a great leather chair, hands folded, he heard a reflective air in a well-trimmed goatee. He hummed a few bars of, "'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.' He broke off, and looked up with a kindly smile, as the nurse sent it. Her name was Mudd.

"'Doctor, there is a man in the waiting-room who says he made the world.' "'Oh?' "'Shall I let him in?' "'By all means, Nurse Mudd. Show the man in.' Nurse Mudd left. A small man entered. He was five foot five, wearing a suit made for a man six foot five. His hands were near hidden by the sleeve ends. His trouser leg-bottoms creased sharply at the shoe-tops, assuming the function of unattached spats.

The shoes were virtually invisible, as was the gentleman's mouth, lurking behind a moustache of mouse-like proportions. "'Won't you have a seat, mister?' "'Smith!' He sits. "'Now!' They regard each other. "'My nurse tells me you met the word.' "'Yes,' in a confessional tone. "'I did,' settling back in his chair. "'All of it?' "'Yes.' "'And everything in it?' "'Take a little, give a little.' "'You're sure of this?'

With an expression that clearly says, I am telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me. Quite sure. Not once. When did you do this thing? Five years ago. How old are you? Forty-seven. Were you the other forty-two years? I wasn't. You mean you started out? Forty-two years old. That's correct. But the word is millions of years old. Shaking his head. No, it isn't.

It's five years old. That's correct. What about fossils? What about the age of rocks? Uranium into lead? What about diamonds? Not to be bothered. Illusions. You made them up? That's breaking in. Why? To see if I could. I don't. Anyone could make a world. It takes ingenuity to make one, and then make the people on it think that it's existed for millions of years.

How long did all this take you? Three and a half months. World time. What did you mean by that? Before I made the world, I lived beyond time. Where is that? Nowhere. In the cosmos? That's correct. You didn't like it there? No, it was boring. And that's why? I made the world.

"Yes, but how did you make it?" "I had books." "Books?" "Instruction books." "Where did you get them?" "I made them up." "You mean you wrote them?" "I made them up." "How?" Mustache bristling truculently. "I made them up." Lips pursed. "So there you were out in the cosmos with a handful of books."

That's correct. But if you had dropped them? Choose is not to answer this patent absurdity. Mr. Smith? Yes? Who made you? Shakes his head. I don't know. Were you always like this? He points at Mr. Smith's lowly frame. I don't think so. I think that I was punished. For what? For making the world so complicated. I should think so.

It's not my fault. I just made it. I didn't say it would work right. You just started your machine and then walked away. Nets. Then what are you doing here? I told you I think I've been punished. Oh yes, for making it too complicated. I forgot. That's correct. Who punished you? I don't remember. That's convenient. Looks morose. Might it be God? Shrugs. It might.

He might have a few fingers in the rest of the universe. He might. But I made the world. Enough, Mr. Smith. You did not make the world. Insulted. Yes, I did, too. And you created me? Indirectly. Then uncreate me. I can't. Why? I just started things. I don't control them now. Size. Then what are you worried about, Mr. Smith?

I have a premonition.

What about? I'm going to die. So? Someone has to take over, or else. Or else? The whole world will go. Go where? Nowhere. Just disappear. How can it disappear if it works independently of you? It would be taken away to punish me. You? Yes. You mean if you die, the entire world will disappear? That's correct. If I shot you, the instant you died, I would disappear?

"That's—" "I have advice." "Yes, you will help." "Go to see a reputable psychiatrist." "Standing. I should have known. I have no more to say." Shrugs. "As you will." "I'll go, but you'll be sorry about this." "I dare say you are already sorry, Mr. Smith." "Good-bye." Mr. Smith exits. Dr. Yanishevsky calls for his nurse over the interphone. Nurse Mudd enters. "Yes, Doctor?"

Nurse Maud, stand by the window and tell me what you see. What I... What you see. I want you to tell me what Mr. Smith does after he comes out of the building. Yes, Doctor. She goes to the window. Has he come out yet? No.

Keep watching. There he is. He's stepping off the curb. He's walking across the street. Yes? He's stopping now in the middle of the street. He's turning. He's looking up at this window. There's a look of... of... realisation on his face. He's coming back! She screams. He's been hit by a car! He's lying on the street! What is it, Nurse Mott? Reeling. Everything is...

"It's fading! Dr. Yanishevsky, it's fading!" Another scream. "Don't be absurd, Nurse Mott. Look at me. Can you honestly say that?" He stops talking. She cannot honestly say anything. She is not there. Dr. Yanishevsky, who is not really Dr. Yanishevsky, floats alone in the cosmos, in his chair, which is not really a chair. He looks at the chair beside him.

I hope you've learned your lesson. I'm going to put your toy back, but don't you dare go near it. So you're bored, are you? Scallywag! You just behave yourself, or I'll take away your books, too. He snorts. So you made them up, did you? He looks around. How about picking them up? Jack knaps. Who is not really Smith? Yes, father. End of story nine.

Story 10 of Fevers and Physicians in Space Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2 This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Contagion by Catherine McLean It was like an earth forest in the fall, but it was not fall. The forest leaves were green and copper and purple and fiery red, and a wind sent patches of bright greenish sunlight dancing among the leaf shadows.

The hunt party of the explorer filed along the narrow trail, guns ready, walking carefully, listening to the distant, half-familiar cries of strange birds. A faint crackle of static in their earphones indicated that a gun had been fired. "'Got anything?' asked June Walton. The helmet intercom carried her voice to the ears of the others without breaking the stillness of the forest.

"'Took a shot at something,' explained George Barton's cheerful voice in her earphones. She rounded a bend of the trail and came upon Barton standing paring up into the trees, his gun still raised. "'It looked like a duck.' "'This isn't Central Park,' said Hal Burton, his brother, coming into sight. His green space suit struck an incongruous note against the bronze and red forest. "'They won't all look like ducks,' he said soberly. "'Maybe some will look like dragons.'

"Don't get eaten by a dragon, June," came Max's voice, quietly, into her earphones. "Not while I still love you." He came out of the trees carrying the blood sample kit and touched her glove with his. The grin on his ugly, beloved face, barely visible in the mingled light and shade. A patch of sunlight struck a greenish glint from his fishbowl helmet.

They walked on. A quarter of a mile back the spaceship explorer towered over the forest like a tapering skyscraper, and the people of the ship looked out of the viewplates at fresh winds and sunlight and clouds, and they longed to be outside, but their likeness to earth was danger, and the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like earth animals, their diseases might be like earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat.

There was warning enough in the past. Colonies had vanished, and traveled spaceways drifted with the corpses of ships which had touched on some plagued planet. The people of the ship waited while their doctors, in airtight space suits, hunted animals to test them for contagion. The farm medicos — Pajune Walton was also a doctor — filed through the alien, home-like forest, walking softly, watching for motion among the copper and purple shadows.

They saw it suddenly. A lighter, moving copper patch among the darker browns. Reflex action swung June's gun into line, and behind her someone's gun went off with a faint crackle of static and made a hole in the leaves beside the specimen. Then for a while no one moved. This one looked like a man, a magnificently muscled, leanly graceful, human-like animal, but in its calloused bare fur it was a head taller than any of them.

Red-haired, hawk-faced, and darkly tanned, it stood breathing heavily, looking at them with that expression. At its side hung a sheath-knife, and a crossbow was slung across one wide shoulder. They lowered their guns. "'It needs a shave,' Mac said reasonably in their earphones. Henny reached up to his helmet and flipped the switch that let his voice be heard. "'Something we could do for you, Mac?' The friendly drawl was the first voice that had broken the forest sounds.

June smiled suddenly. He was right. The strict logic of evolution did not demand beards. Therefore a non-human would not be wearing a three-day growth of red stubble. Still panting, the tall figure licked dry lips and spoke. "'Welcome to Minos. The mayor sends greetings from Alexandria.' "'English!' gasped June.

We would have fled you would take off again before I could bring word to you. It's three hundred miles. We saw your scout plane pass twice, and we couldn't attract its attention." June looked in stunned silence at the stranger leaning against the tree. Thirty-six light-years, thirty-six times six trillion miles of monotonous space travel, to be told that the planet was already settled. "We didn't know there was a colony here," she said. "It's not in the map.

We would have fled of that, the tall bronze man answered soberly. We have been here three generations, and yet no traders have come. Max shifted the kit strap on his shoulder and offered a hand. My name is Max Stark, M.D. This is June Walton, M.D., Hal Burton, M.D., and George Barton, Hal's brother, also M.D.

"'Patrick Mead is the name,' smiled the man, shaking hands casually. "'Just a hunter and bridge-garpenter myself. Never met any Medigals before.' The grip was effortless, but even through her air-proofed glove June could feel that the fingers that touched hers were as hard as padded steel. "'What—what is the population of Minos?' she asked.

He looked down at her curiously for a moment before answering. "'Only one hundred and fifty,' he smiled. "'Don't worry. This isn't a city planet yet. There's room for a few more people.' He shook hands with the Bartons quickly. "'That is, you are people, aren't you?' he asked startlingly. "'Why not?' said Max, with a poise that June admired. "'Well, you are all so—so—' Patrick Mead's eyes roamed across the faces of the group, so varied.

They could find no meaning in that and stood puzzled. "'I mean,' Patrick said into the silence, "'all these interesting different-air gullies and face-shapes and so forth.' He made a vague wave with one hand, as if he'd run out of words. I was anxious not to insult them. "'Joke?' Max asked, bewildered. June laid a hand on his arm. "'No harm meant,' she said to him over the intercom. "'But just as much of a shock to him as he is to us.'

She addressed a question to the tall colonist on outside sound. "'What should a person look like, Mr. Mead?' He indicated her with a smile. "'Like you.' June stepped closer and stood looking up at him, considering her own description. She was tall and tanned, like him, had a few freckles, like him, and wavy red hair, like his. She ignored the brightly humorous blue eyes. "'In other words,' she said, "'everyone on this planet looks like you and me.'

Patrick Mead took another look at their four faces and began to grin. Like me, I guess, but I haven't thought of it before. I did not think that people could have different coloured hair, or that noses would fit so many ways onto faces. I was judging by my own appearance, but I suppose any fool could walk on his hands and say the world is upside down. He laughed and sobered. But then why wear spacesuits? The air is breathable.

"'To safety,' June told him. "'We can't take any chances on plague. "'Pat Mead was wearing nothing but a loincloth and his weapons, "'and the wind ruffled his hair. "'He looked comfortable, and they longed to take off the stuffy spacesuits "'and feel the wind against their own skins. "'Minos was like home, like Earth, but they were strangers.'

"'Plague,' Pat Mead said thoughtfully. "'We had one here. "'It came two years after the colony arrived "'and killed everyone except the Mead families. "'They were immune. "'I guess we look alike because we're all related, "'and that's why I grew up thinking "'that is the only way people can look.' "'What was the disease?' Hal Burton asked. "'Pretty gruesome, according to my father. "'They called it the melting sickness. "'The doctors died too soon to find out what it was "'or what to do about it.'

you should have trained from our doctors or sent to civilization for some a trace of impatience was in george barton's voice pat meade explained patiently our ship with the power plant and all the books we needed went off into the sky to avoid the contagion and never came back the crew must have died

Long years of hardship were indicated by that statement. A colony with electric power, gun, and machinery stilled, with key technicians dead and no way to replace them. June realized then the full meaning of the primitive sheath-knife and bow. "'Any recurrence of melting sickness?' asked Hal Burton. "'No. Any other diseases? Not the one.'

Max was eyeing the bronze-red-headed figure with something approaching awe. "'Do you think all the meads look like that?' he said to June on the intercom. "'I wouldn't mind being a mead myself. Their job had been made easy by the coming of Pat. They went back to the ship, laughing, exchanging anecdotes with him. There was nothing now to keep Minos from being the home they wanted, except the melting sickness, and forewarned against it. He could take precautions.'

the polished silver and black column of the explorer seemed to rise higher and higher over the trees as they neared it then its symmetry blurred all sense of specific size as they stepped out from among the trees and stood on the edge of the meadow looking up nice said pat beautiful the admiration in his voice was warming

It was a yacht, Max said, still looking up. Secondhand. An old-time beauty without a sign of wear. Synthetic diamond-studded control board. And murals on the walls. It doesn't have the new speed drives, but it brought us thirty-six light-years in one-and-a-half subjective years. Plenty good enough. The tall, tanned man looked faintly wistful, and June realized that he had never had access to a full library, never seen a movie, never experienced luxury.

They'd been born and raised on Minos. May I go aboard? Pat asked, hopefully. Max unslung the specimen kit from his shoulder, laid it on the carpet of plants that covered the ground, and began to open it. Tests first, Al Burton said. We have to find out if you people still carry this so-called melting sickness. We'll have to demicrobe you and take specimens before we let you on board. Once on, you'll be no good as a check for what other meads might have.

Matt was taking out a rack and a stand of preservative bottles and hypodermics. "'Are you going to jab me with those?' Pat asked with interest. "'You're just a specimen animal to me, bud.' Max grinned at Pat Mead, and Pat grinned back. June saw that they were friends already, the tall pantherish colonist and the wry black-haired doctor. He felt a stab of guilt because she loved Max, and yet could pity him for being smaller and frailer than Pat Mead.

"'Lie down,' Max told him, and hold still. We need two spinal fluid samples from the back, a body cavity one in front, and another from the arm. Pat lay down obediently. Max knelt, and as he spoke, expertly swabbed and inserted needles with the smooth speed that had made him a fine nerve surgeon on Earth. High above them the scout helioplane came out of an opening in the ship and angled off toward the west, its buzz diminishing.

Then suddenly it veered and headed back, and Reno Unrich's voice came tinnily from their earphones. "'What's that you've got? Hey, what's your doc's doing down there?' He backed again and came to a stop, hovering fifty feet away. June could see his startled face looking through the glass at Pat. Hal Burton switched to a narrow radio beam, explained rapidly, and pointed in the direction of Alexandria. Reno's plane lifted and flew away over the odd-coloured forest.

The plane will drop a note in your town telling them you got through to us, Hal Burton told Pat. They were sitting up, watching Max dexterously put the blood and spinal fluids into the right bottles without exposing them to air. We won't be free to contact your people until we know if they still carry melting sickness, Max added. You might be immune so it doesn't show on you, but still carry enough germs, if that's what caused it, to wipe out a planet.

If you do carry melting sickness, said Hal Burton, you won't be able to mingle with your people until we've cleared them of the disease. Starting with me? Pat asked. Starting with you? Max told him ruefully. As soon as you step on board. More needles? Yes, and a few little extras thrown in. Rough? It isn't easy.

A few minutes later, standing in the stalls for spacesuit decontamination, being buffeted by jets of hot disinfectant, bathed in glares of sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, June remembered that and compared Pat Mead's treatment to theirs. In the Explorer, stored carefully in sealed tanks and containers, was the ultimate multipurpose curio. It was a solution of enzymes, so like the key catalysts of the human cell nucleus,

that it caused chemical derangement and disintegration in any non-human cell. Nothing could live in contact with it but human cells. Any alien intruder to the body would die. Nucleocat Curio was its trade name. But the Curio alone was not enough for complete safety. Plagues had been known to slay too rapidly and universally to be checked by human treatment. Doctors are not reliable. They die.

Therefore spaceways and interplanetary health law demanded that ship equipment for guarding against disease be totally mechanical in operation, rapid and efficient. Somewhere near them, in a series of stalls which led around and around like a rabbit maze, Pat was being herded from stall to stall by peremptory mechanical voices, directed to soap and shower, ordered to insert his arm into a slot which took a sample of his blood, given solutions to drink.

bathed in germicidal ultraviolet, shaken by sonic blasts, breathing air thick with sprays of germicidal mists, being directed to put his arms into other slots where they were anesthetized and injected with various immunizing solutions. Finally, he would be put in a room of high temperature and extreme dryness and instructed to sit for half an hour while more fluids were dripped into his veins through long thin tubes.

All legal spaceships were built for safety. No chance was taken of allowing a suspected carrier to bring an infection on board with him. June stepped from the last shower stall in the locker room, zipped off her space suit with a sigh of relief, and contemplated herself in a wall mirror. Red hair, dark blue eyes, tall. I've got a good figure, she said thoughtfully. Max turned at the door.

Why this sudden interest in your looks? he asked suspiciously. Do we stand here and admire you? Do we finally get something to eat? Wait a minute. She went to a wall phone and dialed it carefully, using a combination from the ship's directory. How are you doing, Pat? The phone picked up a hissing of water or spray. There was a startled chuckle.

"'Voice is due. Hello, June. How'd you tell a machine to go jump in the lake? Are you hungry? No food since yesterday. We'll have a banquet ready for you when you get out,' she told Pat and hung up, smiling. Pat Mead's voice had a vitality and enjoyment which made shipboard talk sound like sad artificial gaiety in contrast. They looked into the nearby small laboratory where twelve squealing hamsters were protestingly submitting to a small injection, each of Pat's blood.

In most of them the injection was followed by one of antihistamines and adaptives. Otherwise, the hamster defense system would treat all non-hamster cells as enemies, even the harmless human blood cells, and fight back against them, violently. One hamster, the twelfth, was given an extra large dose of adaptive so that if there were a disease he would not fight it or the human cells and thus succumb more rapidly.

How you doing, George? Max asked. Routine, George Barton grunted absently. On the way up the long spiral ramps to the dining hall, they passed a viewplate. It showed a long scene of mountains in the distance on the horizon, and between them, rising step by step as they grew farther away, the low rolling hills, bronze and red, with patches of clear green where there were fields.

Someone was looking out, standing very still, as if she'd been there a long time. Bess St. Clair, a Canadian woman. "'It looks like Winnipeg,' she told them as they paused. "'One of you doctors is going to let us out of this blithering barber pole. Look,' she pointed. "'See that patch of field on the south hillside with the brook winding through it? I've studded that hillside for our house. When do we get out?' Reno Ulrich's tiny scout plane buzzed slowly in from the distance and began circling lazily.

"'Sooner than you think,' Max told her. "'We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done a test for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it. People are minus,' Bess's handsome, ruddy face grew alive with excitement. "'One of them is down in the medical department,' June said. "'He'll be out in twenty minutes. May I go see him?' "'Sure,' said Max. "'Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you.' "'Right.'

She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June, and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices. They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations.

The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools, and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked. They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly to the murmur of conversation.

"New man honest! I saw him for the replayed when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman." The lion drew abreast of the counters, and she and Max chose three heaping trays, starting with hydroponic mushroom steak raised in the growing trays of water and chemicals, sharp salad bowl with rose tomatoes and aromatic peppers, tank-grown fish with special sauce for different desserts and assorted beverages.

Presently they had three tottering trays successfully maneuvered to a table. Brant Sinclair came over. I beg your pardon, Max, but they're saying something about Reno carrying messages to a colony of savages with the medical department. Will he be back soon, do you know? Max smiled up at him, his square face affectionate. Everyone liked the shy Canadian. He's back already. We just saw him come in.

"'Oh, fine,' St. Clair beamed. "'I had an appointment with him to go out and confirm what looks like a nice vein of iron to the northeast. Have you seen Bess? Oh, there she is.' He turned swiftly and hurried away. A very tall man with fiery red hair came in, surrounded by an eagerly talking crowd of ship people. It was Pat Mead. He stood in the doorway, alertly scanning the dining room. His sheer vitality made him seem even larger than he was.

Fighting June, he smiled and began to thread toward the table. "Look!" said someone. "There's a colonist!" Shelia, a pretty jeweled woman, followed and caught his arm. "Did you really swim across a river to come here?" Overflowing with goodwill and curiosity, people approached from all directions. "Did you actually walk three hundred miles? Come eat with us! Let me help choose your tray!" Everyone wanted him to eat at their table. Everyone was a specialist and wanted data about Minos.

They all wanted anecdotes about hunting wild animals with a bow and arrow. "He needs to be rescued," Max said. "He won't have a chance to eat." June and Max got up firmly, edged through the crowd, captured Pat, and escorted him back to their table. June found herself pleased to be claiming the hero of the hour. Pat sat in the simple, subtly designed chair and leaned back, almost voluptuously, testing the way it gave and fitted itself to him.

He ran his eyes over the bright tableware and heaped plates. He looked around at the rich grained walls and soft lights at each table. He said nothing, just looking and feeling and experiencing. When we build our town and leave the ship, June explained, we will turn all the staterooms back into the lounges and ballrooms and cocktail bars that used to be inside. Oh, I'm not complaining, Pat said negligently.

He cocked his head to the music and tried to locate its source. "'That's Bigaview,' said Max, with gentle irony. They fell to, Pat beginning the first meal he had had in more than a day. Most of the other diners finished when they were halfway through, and began walking over, diffidently at first, then in another wave of smiling faces, handshakes, and introductions."

Pat was asked about crops, about farming methods, about rainfall and floods, about farm animals and plant breeding, about the compatibility of imported earth seeds with local ground, about mines and strata. There was no need to protect him. He leaned back in his chair and drawled answers with the lazy ease of a panther. Where he could think of no statistic, he would fill the gap with an anecdote.

It developed that he enjoyed spinning campfire yarns, and especially being the center of interest. Between bouts of questions, he ate with undiminished and glowing relish. June noticed that the female specialists were prolonging the questions more than they needed, clustering around the table, laughing at his jokes, until presently Pat was almost surrounded by pretty faces, eager questions, and chiming laughs. Shelley, the beautiful, laughed most chimingly of all.

June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers, and did not feel her gaze. For some reason, Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized. She had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself.

He was dimly aware of the clear, lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table. "That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness. "Nothing," she said hastily. But she did not turn back to watching Pat Mead. She felt disloyal. Pat was only a superb animal. Max was the man she loved.

Or was he? Of course he was, she told herself angrily. They had gone colonizing together because they wanted to spend their lives together. She had never thought of marrying any other man. Yet the sense of dissatisfaction persisted, and along with it the feeling of guilt.

Len Marlow, a protein tank culture technician responsible for the mushroom steaks, had wormed his way into the group and asked Pat a question. Now he was saying, I don't dig you, Pat. It sounds like you're putting the paper into the tanks instead of the vegetables. He glanced at them, looking puzzled. See if you two can make anything of this. It sounds medical to me. Pat leaned back and smiled, sipping a glass of hydroponic burgundy.

Wonderful stuff. You'll have to show us how to make it. Len turned back to him. You people live off the country, right? You hunt and bring in sticks and eat them, right? Well, say I have one of those sticks right here, and I want to eat it. What happens? Go ahead and eat it. It just wouldn't digest. You'd stay hungry.

"'Why?' Len was aggrieved. "'Chemical differences in the basic protoplasm of aminos, different amino linkages, left-handed instead of right-handed molecules in the carbohydrates, things like that. Nothing would be digestible here until you are adapted chemically by a little test tube evolution. Till then you'd starve to death on a full stomach. Pat's side of the table had been loaded with the dishes from two trays, but it was almost clear now, and the dishes were stacked neatly to one side.'

He started on three desserts, thoughtfully testing each in turn. Test tube evolution, Max repeated. What's that? I thought you people had no doctors. It's a story. Pat leaned back again.

Alexander P. Meade, the head of the Meade clan, was a plant geneticist, a very determined personality, and no man to argue with. He didn't want to go through the struggle of killing off all Minos plants and putting in our own, spoiling the face of the planet and upsetting the balance of its ecology. He decided he would adapt our genes to this planet or kill us trying. He did it all right.

"Did what?" asked June, suddenly feeling a sourceless prickle of fear. "Adapted us to Minos. We took human cells." She listened intently, trying to find a reason for fear in the explanation. It would have taken many human generations to adapt to Minos by ordinary evolution, and that only at a heavy toll of death and hunger which evolution exacts. There was a shorter way.

Human cells have the ability to return to their primeval condition of independence, hunting, eating and reproducing alone. Alexander P. Mead took human cells and made them into phagocytes. He put them through the hard, savage school of evolution. A thousand generations of multiplication, hardship and hunger, with the alien indigestible food always present, offering its reward of plenty to the cell that reluctantly learned to absorb it.

"Lucasites can run through several thousand generations of evolution in six months," Pat Mead finished. When they reached to a point where they would absorb minus food, he planted them back in the people he had taken them from. "What was supposed to happen then?" Max asked, leaning forward. "I don't know exactly how it worked. He never told anybody much about it, and when I was a little boy he had gone loco and was wandering ha-harring around waving a test tube, fell down a ravine and broke his neck at the age of eighty." "A character," Max said.

I was sheerfraid. It worked, then? Yes, he dried it on all the maids the first year. The other settlers didn't want to be experimented on until they saw how it worked out. It worked. The maids could hunt and plant while the other settlers were still eating out of hydroponic tanks. It worked, said Max to Len. You're a plant geneticist and a tank culture expert. There's a job for you.

"Uh-oh," Len backed away. "It sounds like a medical problem to me. Human cell control right up your alley." "It's a one-way street," Pat warned. "Once it is done, you won't be able to just sip food. I'll get no good from this protein. I ate it just for the taste." Harold Barton appeared quietly beside the table. "Three of the twelve test hamsters have died," he reported and turned to Pat.

Your people carry the germs of mouthing sickness, as you call it. The dead hamsters were injected with blood taken from you before you were de-infected. We can't settle here unless we de-infect everybody and minus. Would they object? We wouldn't want to give you folks germs, Pat smiled. Anything for safety. But there'll have to be a vote on it first.

The doctors went to Reno Ulrich's table and walked with him to the hangar, explaining. He was to carry the proposal to Alexandria, mingle with the people, be persuasive and wait for them to vote before returning. He was to give himself shots of curial every two hours on the hour or run the risk of disease. Reno was pleased. He had dabbled in sociology before retraining as mechanic for the expedition.

"'This gives me a chance to study their maws.' He winked wickedly. "'I may not be back for several nights.' They watched through the view-plate as he took off, and then went over to the laboratory for a look at the hamsters. Three were alive and healthy, munching lettuce. One was the control. The other two had been given shots of Pat's blood before he entered the ship, but with no additional treatment. Apparently a hamster could fight off melting sickness easily if left alone.'

Three were still feverish and ruffled, with a low red blood count, but recovering. The three dead ones had been given strong shots of adaptive and counter-histamine, though their bodies had not fought back against the attack. June glanced at the dead animals hastily and looked away again. They lay twisted with a strange semi-fluid limpness, as if ready to dissolve. The last hamster, which had been given the heaviest dose of adaptive, had apparently lost all its hair before death.

It was hairless and pink, like a stillborn baby. "We can find no microorganisms," George Barton said. "None at all. Nothing in the body that should not be there. Leukosis and anemia. Fever only for the ones that fought it off." He handed Max some temperature charts and graphs of blood counts. June wandered out into the hall. Pediatrics and obstetrics were her field. She left the cellular research to Max and just helped him with laboratory routine.

A strange mood followed her out into the hall, then abruptly lightened. Coming toward her, busily telling a tale of adventure to the gorgeous Shirley Davenport, was a tall, red-headed, magnificently handsome man. It was his handsomeness which made Pat such a pleasure to look upon and talk with, she guiltily told herself, and it was his tremendous vitality. It was like meeting a movie hero in the flesh, or a hero to the pages of a book.

"Dearslayer John Clayton, Lord Greystoke." She waited in the doorway to the laboratory and made no move to join them, merely acknowledged the two with a nod and a smile and a casual lift of the hand. They nodded and smiled back. "Allowed June," said Pat and continued telling his tale, but as they passed he lightly touched her arm. "Oh, dear," she said mockingly and softly to his passing profile and knew that he had heard. At night she had a nightmare.

She was running down a long corridor looking for Max, but every man she came to was a big bronze man with red hair and bright blue eyes who grinned at her, the pink hamster. She woke suddenly, feeling as if alarm bells had been ringing, and listened carefully. There was no sound. She had had a nightmare, she told herself, but alarm bells were still ringing in her unconscious. Something was wrong.

Lying still and trying to preserve the images, she grubbed for a meaning. But the mood faded under the cold touch of reason. Damn intuitive thinking. A pink hamster. Why did the unconscious have to be so vague? She fell asleep again and forgot. They had lunch with Pat Mead that day, and after it was over, Pat delayed June with a hand on her shoulder and looked down at her for a moment.

"'I want you, June,' he said, and then turned away, answering the hails of a party at another table as if he had not spoken. She stood shaken, and then walked to the door where Max waited. She was particularly affectionate with Max the rest of the day, and it pleased him. It would not have been if he had known why. She tried to forget Pat's blunt statement."

"'June was in the laboratory with Max, "'watching the growth of a small tank culture "'of the alien protoplasm from a Minos weed, "'and listening to Len Marlow pour out his troubles. "'And Elsie tags around after that big goof all day, "'listening to his stories, and then she tells me "'I'm just jealous, I'm imagining things.' "'He passed his hand across his eyes. "'I came away from Earth to be with Elsie. "'I'm getting a headache. "'Look, can't you persuade Pat to cut it out, June? "'You and Max are his friends.'

"'Here, have an aspirin,' June said. "'We'll see what we can do.' "'Thanks.' Len picked up his tank culture and went out. Not at all. Cheered. Max sat brooding over the dials and meters at his end of the laboratory, apparently sunk in thought. When Len had gone, he spoke almost harshly. "'I encouraged the guy. I let him help.' "'Found out anything about the differences in protoplasm?' She evaded. "'I let him kill himself. What chances has he got against that hunk of muscle and smooth talk?'

"'But Pat isn't after Elsie,' she protested. "'Every scatterbrained woman on this ship is trailing after Pat, with her tongue hanging out. Brant St. Clair is in the bar right now. He doesn't say what he is drinking about. But do you think Pat is resisting all these women crowding down on him?' "'There are other things besides looks and charm,' she said, grimly trying to concentrate on a slide under her binocular microscope. "'Yeah, and whatever they are, Pat has them too.'

"'Who's more competent to support a woman and a family on a frontier planet than a handsome bruiser who was born here?' "'I meant—' June spun around on her stool with unexpected passion. "'There is old friendship, and there is fondness and memories and loyalty—' She was half shouting. "'They're not worth much in the second-hand market,' Max said. He was sitting slumped on his lab stool, looking dully at his dials. "'Now I'm getting a headache!' He smiled ruefully. "'No kidding, a real headache!'

"'And over other people's troubles yet?' "'Other people's troubles?' She got out and wandered out into the long, curving halls. "'I want you, June,' Pat's voice repeated in her mind. "'Why did the man have to be so overpoweringly attractive, "'so glaring a contrast to Max? "'Why couldn't the universe manage to run on "'without generating troublesome love triangles?' She walked up the curving ramps to the dining hall, where they had eaten and drunk and talked yesterday.

It was empty except for one couple talking forehead to forehead over cold coffee. She turned and wandered down the long, easy spiral of corridor to the pharmacy and dispensary. It was empty. George was probably in the test lab next door, where he could hear if he was wanted. The automatic vendor of harmless euphorics, stimulants and opiates stood in the corner, brightly decorated in pastel abstract designs, with an automatic tabulator graph glowing above it.

Max had a headache, she remembered. She recorded her thumbprint in the machine and pushed the plunger for a box of aspirins. Trying to focus her attention on the problem of adapting the people of the ship to the planet Minos, an aquarium tank with a faint solution of histamine would be enough to convert a piece of human skin into a community of voracious active phagocytes, eventually seeking something to devour. But could they eat enough to live away from the rich, sustaining plasma of human blood?

After the aspirins she pushed another plunger for something for herself. Then she stood looking at it. A small box with three pills in her hand, theobromine, a heart-strengthener, and a confidence-giving euphoric all in one, something to steady shaky nerves. She had used it before only in emergency. She extended a hand and looked at it. It was trembling. And triangles.

While she was looking at her hand there was a click from the automatic drug vendor. It summed the morning use of each drug in the vendors throughout the ship, and recorded it in a neat addition to the end of each graph line. For a moment she could not find the green line for anodynes and the red line for stimulants, and then she saw that they went almost straight up. There were too many being used, far too many to be explained by jealousy or psychosomatic peevishness. This was an epidemic, and only one disease was possible.

the disinfecting of pat had not succeeded nuclear catechurial killer of all infections had not cured pat had brought melting sickness into the ship with him who had it the drug's vendor glowed cheerfully and communicative

She opened a panel in its side and looked on in restless interlacing cogs, and on the inside of the door saw printed some directions. To remove or examine records before reaching end of the reel, after a few fumbling minutes she had the answer. In the cafeteria at breakfast and lunch, thirty-eight men out of the forty-eight aboard ship had taken more than his norm of stimulant. Twenty-one had taken aspirin as well.

The only woman who had made an unusual purchase was herself. He remembered the hamsters that had thrown off the infection with a short, sharp fever, and checked back in the records to the day before. There was a short rise in aspirin sales to women at late afternoon. The women were safe. It was the men who had melting sickness. Melting sickness killed in hours, according to Pat Mead. How long had the men been sick?

As she was leaving, Jerry came into the pharmacy, recorded his thumbprint, and took a box of aspirin from the machine. She felt all right. Self-control was working well, and it was pleasant still to walk down the corridor smiling at the people who passed. She took the emergency elevator to the control room and showed her credentials to the technician on watch. "'Matical emergency!'

At a small control panel in the corner was a large red button, precisely labeled. She considered it and picked up the control room phone. This was the hard part, telling someone, especially someone who had it, Max. She dialed, and when the click on the end of the line showed he had picked the phone up, she told Max what she had seen. "'No women, just the men,' he repeated. "'That right?' "'Yes.' "'Probably it's chemically alien, inhibited by one of the female sex hormones.'

We'll try sex hormone shots if we have to. Where are you calling from? She told him. That's right. Give Nuclear Cat Curiel another chance. It might work this time. Push that button. She went to the panel and pushed the large red button. Through the long height of the Explorer, bells walked to life and began to ring in a frightened clangor. Emergency doors thumped shut. Mechanical apparatus hummed into life, and canned voices began to give rapid, urgent directions.

a plague had come she obeyed the mechanical orders went out into the hall and walked in line with the others the captain walked ahead of her and the gorgeous shirley davenport fell in step beside her i look like a positive ag this morning does that mean i'm sick are we all sick june shrugged unwilling to say what she knew

others came out of the rooms into the corridor thickening the line they could hear each room lock as the last person left it and then faintly the hiss of disinfectant spray behind them on the heels of the last person in line segments of the ship slammed off and began to hiss

They wound down the spiral corridor until they reached the medical treatment section again, and there they waited in line. It won't scar my arms, will it? Hush, asked Sheila apprehensively, glancing at her smooth, lovely arms. The mechanical voice said, Next, step inside, please, and stand clear of the door. Not a bit, June reassured Shelly and stepped into the cubicle.

Inside she was directed from cubicle to cubicle and given the usual buffeting by sprays and radiation, had lead samples taken and was injected with nuclear cat and a series of other protectives. At last she was directed through another door into a tiny cubicle with a chair.

to wait here, commanded the recorded voice, italically. In twenty minutes the door will unlock and you may then leave. All people now treated may visit all parts of the ship which have been protected. It is forbidden to visit any quarantined or unsterile part of the ship without permission from the medical officers. Presently the door unlocked and she emerged into bright lights again, feeling slightly battered.

she was in the clinic a few men sat on the edge of beds and looked sick one was lying down brant and beth sinclair sat near each other not speaking approaching her was george barton reading a thermometer with a puzzled expression what is it george she asked anxiously some of the women have slight fever but it's going down none of the fellows have any but their white count is way up their red count is way down and they look sick to me

She approached Sinclair. His usual ruddy cheeks were pale, his pulse was light and too fast, and his skin felt clammy. How's the headache? Does the nuclear cat treatment help? We feel worse, if anything. Better set up beds, she told George. Get everyone back into the clinic. We're doing that, George assured her. That's what Hal is doing. She went back to the laboratory. Max was pacing up and down, absently running his hands through his black hair until it stood straight up.

He stopped when he saw her face and scowled thoughtfully. They're still sick? It was more a statement than a question. She nodded. The cure-all didn't cure this time, he muttered. That leaves it up to us. We have melting sickness, and according to patterned hamsters, that leaves us less than a day to find out what it is and learn how to stop it. Suddenly an idea for another test struck him, and he moved to the work table to set it up.

He worked rapidly, with an occasional uncoordinated movement betraying his usual efficiency. It was strange to see Max troubled and afraid. She put on a laboratory smock and began to work. She worked in silence. The mechanicals had failed. Hal and George Barton were busy staving off death from the weaker cases and trying to gain time for Max and her to work. The problem of the plague had to be solved by the two of them alone. It was in their hands.

Another test. No results. Max's hands were shaking, and he stopped a moment to take stimulants. She went into the ward for a moment, found Bess, and warned her quietly to tell the other women to be ready to take over if the men became too sick to go on. But tell them calmly. They don't want to frighten the men. She lingered in the ward long enough to see the word spread among the women in a widening wave of paler faces and compressed lips. Then she went back to the laboratory. Another test.

There was no sign of a microorganism in anyone's blood, merely a growing horde of leucocytes and phagocytes, prowling as if mobilized to repel invasion. Len Marlow was wheeled in unconscious, with Hal Barton's written comments and conclusions pinned to the blanket. I don't feel so well myself, the assistant complained. The air feels thick. I can't breathe. June saw that his lips were blue. Oxygen shot, she told Max.

"'Low red corpuscle count,' Max answered. "'Look into a drop and see what's going on. "'It was mine. I feel the same way he does.' She took two drops of Max's blood. The count was low, falling too fast. Breathing is useless without the proper minimum of red corpuscles in the blood. People below that minimum die of asphyxiation, although their lungs are full of pure air. The red corpuscle count was falling too fast. The time she and Max had to work in was too short.

"'Pump some more CO2 into the air system,' Max said urgently over the phone. "'Get some into the men's end of the ward.' She looked through the microscope at the live sample of blood. It was a dark, clear field, and bright, moving things spun and swirled through it, but she could see nothing that did not belong there. "'How?' Max called over the general speaker system. "'Cut the other treatments. Check for accelerating anemia. Treat it like monoxide poisoning. CO2 and oxygen.'

He reached into a cupboard under the work table, located two cylinders of oxygen, cracked the valves and handed one to Max and one to the assistant. Some of the bluish tint left the assistant's face as he breathed, and he went over to the patient with reawakened concern. "Not breathing! Doc!" Max was working at the desk, muttering equations of hemoglobin catalysis. "Lens gone, Doc," the assistant said more loudly.

"'Artificial respiration and get him into a regeneration tank,' said June, not moving from the microscope. "'Hurry! Hal will show you how. The oxidation and mechanical heart action in the tank will keep him going. Put anyone in a tank who seems to be dying. Get some women to help you. Give them Hal's instructions.' The tanks were ordinarily used to suspend animation in a nutrient bath during the regrowth of any diseased organ.'

It could preserve life in an almost totally destroyed body during the usual disintegration and regrowth treatments for cancer and old age, and it could encourage healing as destruction continued, but they could not prevent ultimate death as long as the disease was not conquered. The drop of blood in June's microscope was a great dark field, and in the foreground, brought to gargantuan solidity by the stereo effect, drifted neat saucer shapes of red blood cells.

They turned end for end, floating by the humped, misty mass of a leucocyte which was crawling on the cover glass. There were not enough red corpuscles, and she felt that they grew fewer as she watched. She fixed her eye on one, not blinking, in fear that she would miss what might happen. It was a tidy red button, and it spun as it drifted, the current moving it aside in a curve as it passed by the leucocyte. Then abruptly the cell vanished.

June stared numbly at the place where it had been. Behind her, Max was calling over the speaker system again.

"'Dr. Stark speaking. Any technician who knows anything about the life-tanks, start bringing more out of storage and set them up. Emergency!' "'We may need forty-seven,' June said quietly. "'We may need forty-seven!' Max repeated to the ship and general. His voice did not falter. "'Set them up along the corridor. Hook them in on extension lines.' His voice filtered back from the empty floors above in a series of dim echoes."

What he had said meant that every man on board might be on the point of heart stoppage. June looked blindly through the binocular microscope, trying to think, and at the corner of her eyes she could see that Max was wavering and breathing more and more frequently of the pure, cold, burning oxygen of the cylinders. In the microscope she could see that there were fewer red cells left alive in the drop of his blood. The rate of fall was accelerating.

She didn't have to glance at Max to know how he would look. Skin pale, black eyebrows and keen brown eyes slightly squinted in thought, a faint ironical grin twisting the bluing lips. Intelligent, thin, sensitive. His face was part of her mind. It was inconceivable that Max could die. He couldn't die. He couldn't leave her alone.

She forced her mind back to the problem. All the men of the Explorer were at the same point, wherever they were. Moving to Max's desk, he spoke into the intercom system. "'Bess, send a couple of women to look through the ship, room by room with a stretcher. Make sure all the men are down here,' she remembered Reno. "'Sparks, heard anything from Reno? Is he back?' Sparks replied weakly after a lag.

"'The last I heard from Reno was a call this morning. He was raving about mirrors, and Pat Mead's folks are not being real people, just carbon copies and claiming he was crazy, and I should send him the psychiatrist. I thought he was kidding. He didn't call back.' "'Thanks, Sparks.' Reno was lost. Max dialed and spoke to the bridge over the phone. "'Are you okay up there? Forget about engineering controls. Drop everything and head for the tanks where you can still walk.'

June went back to the work table and whispered into her own phone, "'Bess, send up a stretcher for Max. He looks pretty bad. There had to be a solution. The life-tanks could sustain life in a damaged body, encouraging it to regrow more rapidly. But they merely slowed death. As long as the disease was not checked, the postponement could not last long.'

if a destruction could go on steadily in the tanks until the nutritive solution would hold no life except the triumphant microscopic killers that caused melting sickness. There were very few red blood corpuscles in the microscope field now, incredibly few. She tipped the microscope and they began to drift, spinning slowly. A lone corpuscle floated through the center,

she watched it as the current swept it in an arc past the dim off-focus bulk of the locus site there was a sweep of motion and it vanished for a moment it meant nothing to her then she lifted her head from the microscope and looked around

Max sat at his desk, head in hand, his rumpled short black hair sticking out beneath his fingers at odd angles. A pencil and a pad, scrawled with formulas, lay on the desk before him. She could see his concentration in the rigid set of his shoulders. He was still thinking. He had not given up.

"'Max, I just saw a leukocyte grab a red blood corpuscle. It was unbelievably fast.' "'Leukemia?' muttered Max without moving. "'Galloping leukemia yet. It comes under the heading of cancer. Well, that's part of the answer. It might be all we need.' He grinned feebly and reached for the speaker set. "'Anybody still on his feet in there?' he muttered into it, and the question was amplified to a booming voice throughout the ship. "'Hal, he's still going.'

Look, Hal. Change the dials. Set them to deep melt regeneration. One week. This is like leukemia. Got it? This is like leukemia. June rolls. It was time for her to take over the job. She leaned across his desk and spoke into the speaker system. Dr. Walton talking, she said. This is to the women. Don't let any of the men work anymore. They'll kill themselves. So that they all go into the tanks right away. Set the tank dial for deep regeneration. You can see Hal from the ones that are set.

Two exhausted and frightened women clattered in the doorway with the stretcher. Their hands were scratched and oily from helping to set up tanks. "'That order includes you,' she told Max sternly, and caught him as he swayed. Max saw the stretcher-bearers and struggled upright. "'Ten more minutes,' he said clearly. "'I think of an idea, but I'm not right in this setup. I have to figure out how to prevent a relapse. How the thing started—' He knew more bacteriology than she did. She had to help him think.

She motioned the bearers to wait, fixed a breathing mask for Max from a cylinder of CO2 and the open one of oxygen. Max went back to his desk. She walked up and down, trying to think, remembering the hamsters. The melting sickness, it was called. Melting. She struggled with an impulse to open a tank which held one of the men. She wanted to look in, see if that would explain the name. Melting sickness.

Footsteps came and Pat Mead stood uncertainly in the doorway. Tall, handsome, rugged, a pioneer. "'Anything I can do?' he asked. She barely looked at him. "'You stay out of the way, we're busy. I'd like to help,' he said. Very funny, she was vicious, enjoying the whip of her words. "'Every man is dying because you're a carrier and you want to help?'

He stood nervously, clenching and unclenching his hands. "'A guinea pig, maybe. I'm immune, all the meads are. Go away!' "'God, why couldn't she think? What makes a mead immune? I'll let him alone,' Max muttered. "'Pat doesn't tell anything.' He went waveringly to the microscope, took a tiny sliver from his finger, suspended it in a slide, and slipped it under the lens with detached, habitual dexterity. "'Something funny going on,' he said to June. "'Symptoms don't feel right.'

After a moment he straightened and motioned for her to look. "Vegasites! Vegasites!" He was bewildered. "My own!" She looked in and then looked back at Pat in a growing wave of horror. "They're not your own, Max!" she whispered. Max rested a hand on the table to brace himself, put his eye to the microscope, and looked again. June knew what he saw.

Phaedrocytes, Leucocytes, attacking and devouring his tissues in a growing, incredible horde, multiplying insanely.

Not his phagocytes, Pat Mead's. The Mead's evolved cells had learned too much. They were contagious. But not Pat Mead's. How much alike were the Mead's? Mead cells, contagious from one to another. Not disease attacking or being fought, but acting as normal leucocytes in whatever body they were in. The leucocytes of tall red-headed people, finding no strangeness in the bloodstream of any of the tall red-headed people. No strangeness.

A totipotent leukocyte finding its way into cellular wombs, the womb-like life tanks. For the men of the Explorer, a week's cure with deep melting to de-differentiate the leukocytes and turn them back to normal tissue, then regrowth and reforming from the cells that were there, from the cells that were there, from the cells that were there. Pat! Pat!

"'I know.' Pat began to laugh, his face twisted with sudden understanding. "'Understand. I get it. I'm a contagious personality. It's funny, isn't it?' Max rose suddenly from the microscope and lurched toward him, fists clenched. Pat caught him as he fell, and the bewildered stretcher-bearers carried him out to the tanks. For a week June tended the tanks. The other women volunteered to help, but she refused. She said nothing, hoping her guess would not be true.

"Is everything all right?" Elsie asked her anxiously. "How is Jerry coming along?" Elsie looked haggard and worn, like all the women, from doing the work that the men had always done. "He's fine," June said tonelessly, shutting tight the door of the tank room. "They're all fine." "That's good," Elsie said, but she looked more frightened than before. June firmly locked the tank room door and the girl went away.

The other women had been listening, and now they wandered back to their jobs, unsatisfied by June's answer, but not daring to ask for the actual truth. They were there whenever June went into the tank room, and they were still there, or relieved by others. June was not sure when she came out, and always some of them asked the unvarying question for all the others, and June gave the unvarying answer. But she kept the key. Then the day of completion came. June told no one of the hour.

She went into the room, as on the other days, locked the door behind her, and there was the nightmare again. This time it was reality, and she wandered down a path between long rows of coffin-like tanks, calling, "'Max! Max!' silently, and looking into each one as it opened. But each face she looked at was the same, watching them dissolve and regrow in the nutrient solution. She had only been able to guess the horror of what was happening. Now she knew."

They were all the same lean-boned, blond-skinned face, with a pin-feather growth of reddish down on cheeks and scalp, all horribly and handsomely the same. A medical kit lay carelessly on the floor beside Max's tank. She stood near the bag. "'Max!' she said, and found her throat closing. The canned voice of the mechanical mocked her, speaking glibly about waking and sitting up. "'Sorry, Max!'

The tall man with rugged features and bright blue eyes sat up sleepily and lifted an eyebrow at her and ran his hand over his red-fuzzed head in a gesture of bewilderment. "'What's the matter, June?' he asked drowsily. She gripped his arm. "'Max!' He compared the relative size of his arm and her hand and said wonderingly, "'You shrank.' "'I know, Max, I know.'

He turned his head and looked at his arms and legs, pale blonde arms and legs with a down of red hair. He touched the thick left arm, squeezed a pinch of hard flesh. It isn't mine, he said, surprised, but I can feel it. Watching his face was like watching a stranger mimicking and distorting Max's expressions. Max in fear, Max trying to understand what had happened to him, looking around at the other men sitting up in their tanks.

Max, feeling the terror that was in herself and all the men as they stared at themselves and their friends and saw what they had become. "'We were all patmead,' he said harshly. "'All the meads are patmead. That's why he was surprised to see people who didn't look like himself. Yes, Max. Max,' he repeated. "'It's me all right. The nervous system didn't change. His new blue eyes held hers. My love didn't either. Did yours? Did it, June? No, Max.'

But she couldn't know yet. She had loved Max with a thin, ironic face, the rumpled black hair, and the twisted smile that never really hid his quick sympathy. Now he was Pat Mead. Could he also be Max? Of course I still love you, darling, he grinned. It was still the wry smile of Max, though fitting strangely on the handsome new, blonde face.

Then it isn't so bad. It might even be pretty good. I envied him, this big muscular body. If Pat or any of these meads so much as looks at you, I'm going to knock his block off. Understand? She laughed and couldn't stop. It wasn't that funny. But it was still Max, trying to be unafraid, drawing on humour. Maybe the rest of the men would also be their old selves, enough so the women would not feel that the men were strangers. Behind her, male voices spoke characteristically.

She didn't have to turn to know which was which. "'This is one way to keep a guy from stealing your girl.' That was Len Marlow. "'I've got to write down all my reactions.' "'Hell, Britain. Now I can really work that hillside vein of metal.' St. Clair. Then others complaining, swearing, laughing bitterly at the trick that had been played on them, and their flirting, tempted women. She knew who they were. Their women would know them apart, too. "'We'll go outside,' Max said. "'You and I.'

Maybe the shock won't be so bad to the women after they see me, he paused. You didn't tell them, did you? I couldn't. I wasn't sure. I was hoping I was wrong. She opened the door and closed it quickly. There was a small crowd on the other side. Oh, Pat, Elsie said uncertainly, trying to look past them into the tank room before the door shut. I'm not Pat. I'm Max, said the tall man with the blue eyes and the fuzz-reddened skull. Listen. Listen.

Good heavens, Pat, what happened to your hair? Shalia asked. I'm Max, insisted the man with the handsome face and the sharp blue eyes. Don't you get it? I'm Max Stark. The melting sickness is mead cells. We caught them from Pat. They adapted us to Minos. They also changed us all into bad mead. Women stared at him, at each other. They shook their heads. They don't understand, June said. I couldn't have. I couldn't have if I hadn't seen it happening, Max. It's Pat.

said Shelly, dazedly stubborn. "'He shaved off his hair. It's some kind of joke.' Max shook her shoulders, glaring down at her face. "'I'm Max. Max Stark. They all look like me. Do you hear? It's funny, but it's not a joke. Laugh for us, for God's sake.' "'It's too much,' said June. "'They'll have to see.' She opened the door and let them in. They hurried past her to the tanks, looking at forty-six identical blonde faces beginning to call in frightened voices.

"'Jerry! Hurry! Lee, where are you, sweetheart?' June shut the door on the voices that were growing hysterical, the women terrified and helpless, the men shouting to let the women know who they were. "'It isn't easy,' said Max, looking down at his own thick muscles. "'But you aren't changed and the girls aren't. That helps.' Through the muffled noise and hysteria a bell was ringing. "'It's the airlock,' June said. Peering in the viewplate were nine meads from Alexandria.

To all appearances, eight of them were Pat Mead at various ages, from fifteen to fifty, and the other was a handsome, leggy, red-headed girl who could have been his sister. Regretfully, they explained to the voice tube that they had walked over from Alexandria to bring news that the plane pilot had contracted melting sickness there and had died. They wanted to come in.

June and Max told them to wait and returned to the tank room. The men were enjoying their new height and strength, and the women were bewilderedly learning that they could tell one patmead from another by voice, by gesture of face or hand. Panic was gone. In its place was a dull acceptance of the fantastic situation. Max called for attention. "'There are nine meads outside who want to come in. They have different names, but they're all patmead.' They frowned or looked blank.

George Barton asked, "'Why didn't you let them in? I don't see any problem.' "'One of them,' said Max soberly, "'is a girl, Patricia Mead. The girl wants to come in.' There was a long silence, while the implication settled to the fear-centre of the women's minds. Shelly, the beautiful, felt it first. She cried, "'No, please don't let her in!' There was real fright in her tone, and the women caught it quickly."

Elsie clung to Jerry, begging. "You don't mean to change, do you, Jerry? You like me the way I am. Tell me you do." The other girls backed away. It was illogical, but it was human. June felt terror rising in herself. She held up her hand for quiet and presented the necessity to the group. "Only half of us can leave Minos," she said. "The men cannot eat ship food. They've been conditioned to this planet. We women can go, but we would have to go without our men.

We can't go outside without a contagion, and we can't spend the rest of our lives in quarantine inside the ship. George Barton is right. There is no problem. But we'd be changed. Chellier shrilled. I don't want to become a mead. I don't want to be somebody else.

She ran to the inner wall of the corridor. There was a brief hesitation, and then one by one the women fled to that side, until there were only Bess, June, and four others left. "'See!' cried Chellier. "'Avon! We can't let the girl in!' No one spoke. To change, to be someone else, the idea was strange and horrifying. The men stared uneasily glancing at each other, as if looking into mirrors.

and against the wall of the corridor the women watched in fear and hurled together, staring at the men. One man in forty-seven poses, one of them made a beseeching move toward Elsie, as she shrank away. "'No, Jerry, I won't let you change me!' Max stirred restlessly, the ironic smile that made his new face his own, unconsciously twisting into a grimace of pity.

"'We men can't leave, and you women can't stay,' he said bluntly. "'Why not let Patricia Mead in? Get it over with.' June took a small mirror from her belt pouch and studied her own face, aware of Max talking forcefully, the men standing silent, the women pleading, her face, her own face, with its dark blue eyes, small nose, long mobile lips, the mind and the body are inseparable.'

The shape of her face is part of the mind. He put the mirror back. I'll kill myself, Shalia said. Shalia was sobbing. I'd rather die. You won't die, Max was saying. Can't you see there's only one solution? They were looking at Max. June stepped silently out of the tank room and then turned and went to the airlock. She opened the valves that would let in Pat Mead's sister. End of story ten.

Story 11 of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2. This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Breeder Reaction by Winston Marks. The advertising game is not as cut and dried as many people think. Sometimes you spend a million dollars and get no results, and then some little low-budget campaign will catch the public's fancy and walk away with merchandising honors of the year.

Let me sound a warning, however. When this happens, watch out. There's always a reason for it. And it isn't always just a matter of bright slogans and semantic genius. Sometimes the product itself does the trick. And when this happens, people in the industry lose their heads trying to capitalize on the freak good fortune. This can lead to disaster. May I cite one example?

I was on loan to Elaine Templeton, Inc., the big cosmetics firm, when one of those prairie fires took off, and as product engineer from the firm of Bailey Hazlitt & Persons, advertising agency, I figured I'd struck pure gold. My assay was wrong. It was fool's gold on a pool of quicksand.

Madame Elaine herself had called me in for consultation on a huge lipstick campaign she was planning. You know, now at last a truly kiss-proof lipstick. The sort of thing they pull every so often to get the ladies to chuck their old lip goo and invest in the current dream of non-smearability. It's an old gimmick, and the new product is never actually kiss-proof, but they come closer each year, and the gals tumble for it every time.

Well, they wanted my advice on a lot of details such as optimum shades, a new name, size, shape, and design of container, and they were ready to spend a hunk of moolah on the build-up. You see, when they give a product a first-class advertising ride, they don't figure on necessarily showing a profit on that particular item. If they break even, they figure they're ahead of the game, because the true purpose is to build up the brand name. You get enough women raving over the new Elaine Templeton lipstick, and the first thing you know, sales start climbing on the whole line of assorted age to seduction.

Since E.T. Inc. was one of a better account, the old man told me to take as long as was needed, so I moved into my assigned office in the twelve-story E.T. building, secretary, scotch supply, ice bags, ulcer pills and all, and went to work setting up my survey staff.

This product engineering is a matter of cut and try. You get some ideas, knock together some samples, try them on the public with a staff of interviewers, tabulate the results, draw your conclusions and hand them over to production with a prayer. If your ad budget is large enough, your prayer is usually answered, because the American public buys principally on the "we know what we like and we like what we know" principle. Make them know it and they'll buy it. Maybe in love, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in this business familiarity breeds nothing.

but sales madam elaine had a fair staff of idea boys herself in fact every other department head had some gimmick he was trying to push to get personal recognition the old hag liked this spirit of initiative and made it plain to me i was to give everyone a thorough hearing

This is one of the crosses you have to bear. Everyone but the janitor was swarming into my office with suggestions, and more than half of them had nothing to do with the lipstick campaign at all. So I dutifully listened to each one, had my girl take impressive notes, and then lifted my left or right eyebrow at her. My left eyebrow meant to file them in the wastebasket. This is how the atomic after-bath dusting powder got lost in the shuffle, and later I was credited with launching a new item of which I didn't even have a record. It came about this way.

Just before lunch one day, one of the old hag's promotion-minded pixies flounced her fanny into my interview chair, crossed her knees up to her navel, and began selling me her pet project. She was a relative of the madame, as well as a department head, so I had to listen. Her idea was corny. A new dusting powder with Atomian added to it, called Atomic Afterbirth Dusting Powder.

Atomic, of course, being a far-fetched play on the word atomic. What delighted her especially was that the intimate, meaningful word tummy occurred in her coined trade name, and this was supposed to do wonders in stimulating the imaginations of the young females of the man-catching age. As I said, the idea was corny, but the little hazel-eyed pixie was not. She was about twenty-four, black-haired, small-waisted, and bubbling with hormones.

With her shapely knees and low-cut neckline, she was a pleasant change of scenery from the procession of self-seeking middle-aged as I had been interviewing. Not that her motive was any different. I stalled a little to feast my eye. This Atomian added item, I said. Just what is Atomian? That's my secret, she said, squinting her eyes at me like a fun-loving little cobra.

My brother is assistant head chemist, and he's worked up a formula of fission products we got from the Atomic Energy Commission for experimentation. Fission products, I said. That stuff's dangerous. Not this formula, she assured me. Bob says there's hardly any radiation in it at all. Perfectly harmless. Then what's it supposed to do, I inquired naively. She stood up, placed one hand on her stomach and the other behind her head, wiggled and stretched.

Atomic bath powder will give Milady that wonderful, vibrant, atomic feeling, she announced in a voice dripping with innuendo. All right, I said, that's what it's supposed to do. Now what does it really do? Smells good and makes her slippery dry, like any other talcum. She admitted quite honestly, it's the name and the idea that will put it across.

"'And half a million dollars,' I reminded her. "'I'm afraid the whole thing is a little too far off the track to consider at this time. "'I'm here to make a new lipstick go, maybe later.' "'I appreciate that, but honestly, don't you think it's a terrific idea?' "'I think you're terrific,' I told her, raising my left eyebrow at my secretary. "'And we'll get around to you one of these days.' "'Oh, Mr. Sanders,' she said, exploding those big eyes at me and shoving a half-folded sheet of paper at me, "'would you please sign my interview voucher?'

In Madame Elaine's organisation you had to have a written excuse for absenting yourself from your department during working hours. I supposed that the paper I signed was no different from the others. Anyway, I was still blinded by the atomic blast of those hazel eyes. After she left I got to thinking it was strange that she had me sign the interview receipt. I can remember having done that for any other department heads. I didn't tumble to the pixies' gimmick for a whole month. Then I picked up the phone one day and the old man spilled the news.

"I thought you were making lipstick over there. What's this call for ad copy and a new bath powder?" The incident flashed back in my mind, and rather than admit I had been bypassed, I lied. "You know the madame, she always gets all she can for her money," the old man muttered. "I don't see taking funds from the lipstick campaign and spreading them off into little projects like this," he said.

Twenty-five thousand bucks would get you one nice spread in the post, but what kind of a one-shot campaign would that be?' My mumbled excuses hung up and screamed for the pixie. My secretary said, "'Who?' "'Little Sexy Eyes, the atomic bath powder girl.' Without a name, it took an hour to dig her up, but she finally popped in, plumped down, and began giggling. "'You found out?' "'How?' I demanded. "'Did you arrange it?' "'Easy. Madame Elaine's in Paris. She gave you a free hand, didn't she?' I nodded.

Well, when you signed you okay on the Atomic. That was an interview voucher. Not exactly, she said, ducking her head. The damage was done. You don't get ahead in this game by admitting mistakes, and the production department was already packaging and labelling samples of Atomic bath powder to send out to the distributors. I had to carve the $25,000 out of my lipstick budget and keep my mouth shut.

When the ad copy came over from my firm, I looked it over, shuddered at the quickie treatment I'd given it, and turned it loose. Things were beginning to develop fast in my lipstick department, and I didn't have time to chase the powder thing like I should have, since it was my name on the whole damned project. So I wrote off the money and turned to other things. We were just hitting the market with Madame Elaine Templeton's Kissmet when the first smell of smoke came my way. The pixie came into my office one morning and congratulated me.

"'You're a genius,' she said. "'Like the Kismet campaign, do you?' I said, pleased. "'It stinks,' she said, holding her nose. "'But atomic bath powder will pull you out of the hole.' "'Oh, that,' I said. "'When does it go to market?' "'Done, went. A month ago.' "'What? Well, you haven't had time to get it out to the lab yet. Using a found substance, you should have had an exhaustive series of allergy skin tests on a thousand women before—' "'I've been using it for two months myself,' she said. "'And look at me. See any rashes?'

I focused my eyes for the first time, and what I saw made me wonder if I were losing my memory. The pixie had been a pretty little French pastry from the first, but now she positively glowed. Her skin even had that radiant atomic look, right out of her corny, low-budget ad copy. What have you done to yourself? Fallen in love? With atomic after-birth powder, she said smugly. And so have the ladies. The distributors are still reordering.

Well, these drug-suntry's houses have some sharp salesmen out, and I figured the bath powder must have caught them needing something to promote. It was a break. If we got the $25,000 back, it wouldn't hurt my alibi a bit, in case the Kismet production failed to click.

"'Three days later the old man called me from the New York branch of our agency. "'Big distributor here is hollering about the low budget we've given to this atomic bath powder thing,' he said. "'He tells me his men have punched it hard and he thinks it's catching on pretty big. "'Maybe you'd better talk the madam out of a few extra dollars.'

"'The old hag's in Europe,' I told him, "'and I'm downed if I rub the Kissmet lipstick deal any more. It's mostly spent anyway.' The old man didn't like it. "'When you get the distributors on your side, it pays to back them up, but I was too nervous about the wobbly first returns we were getting on the Kissmet campaign to consider taking away any of the unspent budget and throwing it into the bat powder deal.'

The next day I stared at an order from a Westcote wholesale and began to sweat. The pixie fluttered it under my nose. Two more carloads of atomic bath powder, she gloated. Two more carloads? Certainly. All the orders are reading carloads, she said. The thing has busted wide open.

And it had. Everybody, like I said earlier, lost their head. The bath-powder plant was running three shifts and had back orders chin-high. The general manager, a joker name of Jennings, got excited, cabled Madame Elaine to get back here pronto, which she did, and then the panic was on. The miracle ingredient was this Atomian, and if Atomian sold bath-powder, why wouldn't itself-paste cream, rouge, mud-packed shampoos, fingernail polish, and eye-shadow? For that matter, the old hag wanted to know, why wouldn't itself kiss my lipstick?

The answer was, of course, that the magic legend contains the exclusive new beauty aid Atomian did sell these other products. Everything began going out in callow lots as soon as we had the new labels printed, and to be truthful, I breathed a wondrous sigh of relief, because up to that moment my kissmat campaign had promised to fall flat on its lying crimson face.

The staggering truth about Atomian seeped in slowly. Item 1, although we put only a pinch of it in a whole barrel of talcum powder, it did give the female users a terrific complexion. Pimples, blackheads, warts, freckles, and even minor scars disappeared after a few weeks, and from the very first application users mailed us testimonials swearing to the atomic feeling of loveliness.

Item 2: About one grain of Atomian, to the pound of lipstick, brought out the natural color of a woman's lips and maintained it there, even after the lipstick was removed. Item 3: There never was such a shampoo, for once the ad copywriters failed to exceed the merits of their product. Atomian-tinted hair took on a sparkling look, a soft texture, and a natural-appearing wave that sent beauty operators screaming for protection.

These beauticians timed their complaint nicely. It got results on the morning that the whole thing began to fall to pieces. About ten a.m. Jennings called a meeting of all people concerned in the Atomic Powder Project, and they included me as well as the pixie and her brother, the assistant chemist. Everyone was too flushed with success to take Jennings' opening remark too seriously. "'It looks like we've got a winner that's about to lose us our shirts,' he said."

He shuffled some papers and found the one he wanted to hit us with first. The beauticians claim we are dispensing a dangerous drug without prescription. They have brought suits to restrain our use. Madame Elaine, in her mannishly tailored suit, was standing by a window, staring out. She said, The beauticians never gave us any break anyway. Hell with them. What next? Jennings lifted another paper. I agree, but they sect the pure food and drug people on us. They tend to concur.

"'Let them prove it first,' the old hag said, turning to the pixie's brother. "'Eh, Bob?' "'It's harmless,' he protested. But I noticed that the pixie herself, for all her radiance, had a troubled look on her face. The general manager lifted another paper. "'Well, there seems to be enough doubt to have caused trouble. The pure food and drug labs have bypassed the courts and put in a word to the Atomic Energy Commission. The A.C. has cut off our supply of the fission salts that go into Atomian, pending tests.'

That brought us all to our feet. Madame Elaine stalked back to the huge conference table and stared at Bob, the chemist. How much of the gunk do we have on hand? About a week's supply at present production rates. He was pale, and he swallowed his Adam's apple three times.

The worst was yet to come. The pixie looked around the table, peculiarly unchanged by the news. She had trouble in her face, but it had been there from the start of the conference. I wasn't going to bring this up just yet, she said, but since we're here to have a good cry, I might as well let you kick this one around at the same time. Maybe you won't mind shutting down production after all. The way she said it froze all of us, except the madam. The madam said, Well, speak up. What is it?

I've been to twelve different doctors, including eight specialists. I've thought and thought until I'm half crazy, and there just isn't any other answer. The pixie said. She stared at us and clenched her fists and beat on the shiny table. You've got to believe me. There just isn't any other answer. A Tumian is responsible for my condition, and all twelve doctors agreed on my condition. Still standing, Madame Elaine Templeton grabbed the back of her chair until her knuckles turned white.

"'Don't tell me the stuff brings on hives or something.' The pixie threw back her head, and a near hysterical laugh dropped from her lovely throat. "'Hives. Hell, I'm pregnant.'

Well, we were all very sorry for her, because she was unmarried, and that sort of thing is always clumsy. At any moment, however, none of us believed the connection between her condition and a Tumian. Being a distant relative of the madame, she was humoured to the extent that we had the great lab get some guinea-pigs and douse them with Elaine Templeton's after-birth powder, and they eventually professed to make a daily check on them. Meanwhile, production ground to a halt, and all a Tumian labelled products—which was everything, I think, but the eyebrow-pencils—

With every drug store and department store in the country screaming to have their orders filled, it was a delicate matter, and it took a lot of string-pulling to keep the thing off the front pages. It wasn't the beauticians' open charges that bothered us, because everyone knew they were just disgruntled, but if it leaked out as the AEC was disturbed enough to cut off our fishing products, every radio, newspaper, and TV commentator in the business would soon make mincemeat out of us over the fact that Atomian had not been adequately tested before marketing. And this was so right.

we took our chances and submitted honest samples to the bureau of weights and measures in the pure food and drug labs and held our breath the morning the first report came back in our favor there was a great rejoicing but that afternoon our own testing lab sent up a man to see jennings and he called me instantly damnfo get up here at once the guinea-pigs just threw five litters of babies

"Congratulations," I told him. "That happens with guinea pigs, I understand." "You don't understand!" He thundered at me. "This was test group F6, all females, and every one has reached maturity since we bought and segregated them." "There must be some mistake," I said. "There better be," he told me. I went to his office and together we picked up the Madame from her penthouse suite. She followed us into the elevator reluctantly. "Absurd, absurd!" was all she could say.

We watched the lab men check the ten adult pigs one by one. Even as inexpert as I am in such matters, it was evident that all ten were female, and the five which had not yet participated in blessed events were but hours from becoming mothers. We went our separate ways, stunned. Back in my office I pulled out a list of our big wholesale accounts, where the Atemian products had been shipped by the carloads. The warehouses were distributed in every state of the Union.

Then I ran my eye down the list of products which contained the devilish etymium. There were thirty-eight in all, including a complete line of men's toiletries, shaving lotion, shampoo, deodorant, and body-dusting powder. I thanked God that men didn't have ovaries. Dolores Dunne, that was the pixie's name, opened my door and deposited herself gingerly in a chair opposite me. I said, You look radiant. She said, Don't rub it in, and I'll have a shot of that. I shared my hague and hague with her, and we drank to the newly departed bottom of the world.

My secretary tried to give me the list of people who had phoned, and a stack of angry telegrams about back orders. But I waved her away. "'Dolores,' I said, "'there must have been a boy guinea pig loose in that pen. It's just too fantastic.' "'Are you accusing me of turning one loose just to get off the hook myself?' she snapped. "'What you've got, excuses, won't cure,' I told her. "'But we've got to get facts, my God, if you're right.'

We're sworn everyone to secrecy, she said, as a ten-thousand-dollar bonus posted for each employee who knows about this, payable when the statute of limitations runs out on possible litigation. You can't swear the public to secrecy, I said. Think a minute, she said coldly. The married women don't need excuses, and the single girls, who will believe them, half of them or better, have guilty consciences anyway. The rest, they're in the same boat I was, without a lap full of guinea pigs to back them up.

But how did it happen in the first place? Bob has been consulting the biologist we retained. He keeps asking the same question. He says parthenogenesis and higher life forms is virtually impossible. Bob keeps pointing at the little pigs, and they're going round and round. They're examining the other eleven test pens now. But there's no question in my mind. I have a personal stake in this experiment, and I was very careful to supervise the segregation of males and females.

My sanity returned in one glorious rush. There was a bugger factor, Dolores herself. In her eagerness to clean her own skirts, Dolores had tampered with the integrity of the experiment. Probably she'd arranged for artificial insemination, just to be sure. The tip-off was the hundred percent pregnancy of one whole test batch. Ten out of ten. Even if one bucket slipped in inadvertently and someone was covering up the mistake, why, you wouldn't expect anything like a one hundred percent take.

"Dolores," I said, "you are a naughty girl in more ways than one." She got up and refilled her glass, shaking her head.

The ever-suspicious male, she said. Don't you understand? I'm not trying to dodge my responsibility for my condition. The whole mess is my fault. I'm beginning to end. But what kind of a heel will I be if we get clearance from the AEC and start shipping out atomic products again, knowing what I do? What's more, if we let the stuff float around indefinitely, someone is going to run comprehensive tests on it, not just allergy test patches like they're doing at the government labs right now.

yeah i said so we owe berry the hottest promotion that ever hit the cosmetics industry and live happily ever after she hit the deck and threw her whisky glass at me which did nothing to convince me that she wasn't telling the tallest tale of the century to be conservative we sat and glared at each other for a few minutes finally she said

You're going to get proof, and damned good proof, any minute now. How so? Nothing this experiment revealed would be valid to me, I figured, now that I was convinced she had deliberately fouled it up. Bob and the biologists should be up here any minute. I told them I'd wait in your office. I know something you don't. I'm just waiting for them to verify it.

She was much too confident and I began to get worried again. We waited for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. I picked up the phone and dialed the lab. The woman assistant answered and said that the two men were on the way up right now. I asked, what have they been doing down there? She said, they've been doing caesarean sections on the animals in test pen M4.

"'Caesarean sections,' I repeated. She affirmed it, and Dolores Donnet got a tight little humorless smile on her face. I hung up and said, "'They're on the way up, and what's so funny?' She said, "'You know what I think? I think you've been using atomic products on you.' "'So what?' I demanded. "'I was responsible for this campaign, too. I've been waiting for a rash to develop almost as long as you have.'

She said. When Bob comes in, look at his complexion. All three of us have been guinea pigs, I guess. I still don't see what's so damned amusing. He said. You still don't tumble, eh? All right, I'll spell it out. Caesareans performed on Test Batch M4. So, the M stands for male, she said.

She timed it just right. The hall door opened and Bob trailed in with a dazed look. The biologist was half holding him up. His white lab smock was freshly bloodstained, and his eyes were blank and unseeing. But for all his distress, he was still a good-looking young fellow. His skin had that lovely, radiant, atomic look. Just like mine. End of story eleven.

Story 12 of Fevers and Physicians In Space Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2 This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. The Disembodied Man by Larry Maddock This, he thought, is a crazy way to die. You're not dying, George. You're just beginning to live. He started, tried to see her. I didn't say anything. Yes, you did, she insisted in that same low voice.

You said, this is a crazy way to die. George tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but suddenly he realized that he had no elbows. Don't worry, George, just rest. You'll be all right. How? Where am I? Just rest, she repeated, and then she was gone. George thought about her for a long time before dropping off to sleep.

It was a cold night, and lonely for George Jamieson. He paced the floor of his apartment, back and forth, into the kitchen, into the hall, through the bedroom, back and forth. "'God!' he said, although there was no one there to hear him. "'Two years! Where am I?' Angrily he reached for his coat. Maybe some fresh air would do him good. He buttoned the coat, fumbled for his overcoat. Then he walked outdoors.

It was snowing, the clean white slippery kind of snow that stays for a while, then quickly turns into Chicago slush. Instinctively he turned his collar up against the cold and headed for the L, a sentimental relic of the twentieth century just past. The snow was coming down in big lazy flakes that caught themselves in the wind and buffeted against his overcoat.

Streetlights cast weird shadows across the white. George could hear the faint crunch-crunch his shoes made. Half turning, he looked at his tracks behind him. "Damn white stuff!" he hunched his shoulders more, pulled his neck down into the folds of his collar. "Puts a pure clean blanket over the whole world, but all you have to do is walk on it and you can see the dirt underneath." George climbed the steps to the elevated, bought a ticket to anywhere, and he sat down and waited for a train.

There was a girl waiting with him. She was pretty. George watched her until the train pulled in, wondering what she was doing wandering around Chicago at this time of night. She got on the train with him, sat down in the seat across from him. The train whined into motion. "'Hello,' she said after a while. "'Hello,' he replied, startled by her voice. People on elevated trains don't go around saying hello to each other. "'Mind awfully much if I talk to you.'

Go ahead, no, he thought, till they ask such questions of strange men. Do you ever get lonely here in Chicago? George smiled. Sometimes, he said. You lonely, kid? Awfully. I like to talk to strangers. Then I don't feel quite so lonely. Oh, she was quiet for a minute, her eyes friendly, but her trim body stiff against the city. Don't let the town get you down, kid. He was giving her advice. She looked at him wistfully.

Maybe it's not so bad. Only the people who are fitted to live in a world like this keep on living. There are a lot of people who don't see it the way we do. Could be. She was a strange girl, he thought, to be talking this way. Young, pretty, and fed up already. Why do you ride the L at night? he asked. She smiled. I can meet people. Other lonely people, who don't know me, and don't want to pry. I can talk to people, and learn things, and then I never see them again.

I can't talk to people in a crowd. Through the windows he could see the lights of a sleeping city flash by like speeding firefly. Never thought of it that way, he said. Suddenly, without warning, a hurtling elevated car leaped under him. He was thrown to the floor as the car jumped the tracks and twisted upon itself. George saw the lights go off and heard the girl scream, and then her scream was cut off sharply by the grinding, tearing crunch of impact. Blackness. Good morning, George. Did sleep well?

There she was again, that soft, quiet voice. Sleep? I don't know if I did or not. Is it morning? Yes, a beautiful morning. Her voice was like lilacs, George thought. Sweet, soft lilacs. Lilacs. Thank you, George. Go away. I don't want you to hear my thinking. Then don't sub-vocalize. Don't worry. You'll soon get the hang of it. Just think without trying to move your tongue and your lips. And I can't hear you. Where am I?

"'I'm in a hospital.' Her voice was gentle, soft. "'And you?' "'I'm Karen, your nurse, George.' "'How bad am I? I mean, I remember being on an elevated train when it crashed.' "'You're going to be all right. The doctors will have you all put back together again. You just need some new parts. It was that bad, huh? You almost died. But you're alive now. Please get well, George.' "'What kind of shape am I in?' She didn't answer immediately.'

How do you feel? I... I don't feel. What's the matter? I can't feel my body. Where is my body? Lord, please try to understand. You're safe. You're alive. You're not crazy. And this isn't a nightmare. Where is my body? He tried to scream it, but no sound came. Please listen to me. You're in a hospital. You're being kept alive by the best doctors we have, and by machines made by those doctors. Physically, there isn't much left of you, but we're going to give you a new body.

Please be patient, and please cooperate." The thought was staggering. "New body, then all that's left of me is—" She finished it for him. "A brain in a jar, kept alive by pumps and blood conditioners and electronic impulses. I'm here to try to keep you sane." George was silent, thinking now in visual images instead of words. "A brain in a glass jar, surrounded by fantastic machinery to perform the functions of the human body.

and a woman's voice being piped into him to keep him from going mad he'd read about it somewhere that it had been tried and was successful up to a point but the patient had died he didn't want it to die i'll try he thought loudly i'll try like hell judge jameson or the part of him that was in the jar learned quickly

It was two days before he had thoroughly mastered the knack of thinking to himself and sub-vocalizing only to others. On the third day he asked Karen for a description of his surroundings. "You're in a glass jar, about the size and shape of a normal human skull-case. Leading in through the sides of the glass are several plastic tubes, a jumble of wires, and a thermometer. Attached to all this is about a hundred pounds of machinery, gauges, and such. There must be quite a handsome cuss."

oh yes she laughed quite colourful in fact with those chrome plated fixtures you've got quite a figure you're talking to me karen and you can't hear me tell me is this being broadcast all over the place or is it strictly a personal conversation

"George," she said, "you're somewhat of a novelty. The electrodes that pick up your tiny nerve impulses, the sub-vocalization, feed the signal into a computer translator sort of thing that changes it into words. Your voice is purely mechanical. It comes through earphones from the translator. Of course everything we say is automatically recorded. It's what I think to myself, that is, is that recorded too?" "No," the voice had that same gentle, understanding quality.

We respect your privacy. Thanks. I don't guess there would be much I could do about it if you didn't, though. I'm proud of you, George. You're taking all this quite calmly. What have I got to gain by getting excited? He could almost hear her smile. Nothing. Karen? What? You said something the other day that made me wonder. You said, please get well. What did you mean by that? She hesitated for perhaps a fraction of a second. Professional pride, I guess. And maybe it was just the thing to say.

Oh, he was silent for a while. Then these experiments haven't worked out too well in the past. It was more of a statement than a question. He thought he detected a tightness in her voice. George, you might as well know. You're the first man to have ever progressed this far without going hopelessly insane. It's nice to know I'm not hopeless. Silence. I'm sorry, Karen, maybe I talk too much. Would you like to hear some music? Her voice was normal again, soothing.

That'll be nice. As long as it's relaxing. Something by Debussy or Beethoven, maybe. And please, Karen, accept my apologies for mouthing off like that. She laughed softly. We seem to be forgetting. You're supposed to be the patient. Will you settle for Gershwin while I go hunt up some classical stuff? Gladly, sweetheart. Play it softly, huh? Karen. Yes, George. You know more than I do what is best for a patient to learn. Can you tell me all about the setup here?

"'Just what is it you want to know?' "'My body. I mean my new body. How do they build a human body?' She laughed softly. "'They don't,' she said. "'Medical science can do many things, George, but they can't really build a body.' "'But,' she said, "'it can grow one to order, almost. You know what cancer is, don't you?' "'Yes.' "'Well, the doctors here use what they sometimes call controlled cancer to grow the human body.'

That way they can do in months what it takes nature years to accomplish. George puzzled over this for a moment. If he had had eyebrows there would have been a frown on his face. If he had a face. You mean some other human being gives up his brain to make room for me? No, George. It doesn't have a brain. It's just a body, with a small lump at the top of the spinal cord that controls the muscle. Her voice was patient, yet urgent. He had to understand. You see, she continued.

Because of the enormous rate of growth of the rest of the body, the brain, or the mind, doesn't have a chance to develop. The body has no personality, no being of its own. It's your body, George, yours alone. He was silent for a long time, thinking, considering the possibilities of a new body. It'll be mine, he told himself, all mine, to taste and hear and feel and smell, to get cold or warm, to sweat.

To walk, to swim, to touch her hand, to see her, to see Karen, who was just a voice, to take her dancing. How soon can I be in this body? It'll be six months anyway, George, her voice seemed to be saying. Please be patient, just by the tone of it. Six months, cooped up in this, this fishbowl, for six months more. I'm sorry, George. You won't be alone, though. I'll stay with you. That is, if you want me. He began to laugh. He laughed uproariously.

He didn't care that the translator made his laugh into a horrible thing that grated in her ears. Part of the time his laugh was a sob, but it was all the same to the translator. You mind if I call you Mom? There was a catch in his voice. When I was a kid, I used to rely on my mother like this. I've never been so dependent upon another woman in all my life. If I want you, I need you, Karen. Don't leave me. I won't leave you, George. He had the feeling there was something else she wanted to say, but she didn't.

He could hear her voice faintly now. She wasn't talking to him, and he had the strain to catch her words. "'He's all right, Doctor. For the past few days, all he's wanted to talk about is his body. I've been telling him anything he wants to know.' George could barely make out a mumbled answer. It was too far away to hear the words. "'Play the tape, Doctor. You see what I mean. He mustn't let her know he had overheard. He'd forgotten all about this being put on tape. He'd have to watch his words from now on.'

She must have thought she had turned the microphone off when the doctor came in. Mentally, George smiled. Karen, no answer. Karen! Silence. Karen, can you hear me?

Where in the name of heaven did that woman go? Has she left me? Maybe they gave me up for dead. Karen! I've been sleeping or daydreaming. Or maybe it's the middle of the night. Maybe she's asleep. Maybe she's gone. Karen! She must be asleep. Or maybe she's dead. Or maybe there's a loose connection in the wiring. Karen! No answer. Nothing but that deep, dead silence. Karen! Testing! Testing! One, two, three! Testing! Karen! Where are you? Can you hear me, Karen? Karen! It seemed like several eternities before she answered. George?

He would have breathed a sigh of relief if he could. I thought you deserted me while you were asleep. She laughed that soft, vibrant laugh. I'm sorry, I just stepped out. That's okay, sweetheart. I'm all right. Forget it. But tell me about these things next time, huh? I worry about you when you're gone. You shouldn't. I'm a big girl now. Hey, is this being recorded?

Of course. Who listens to it? Oh, a bunch of doctors and medical students. Any prudes in the audience? Not me, he laughed. But there's bound to be at least one, anyway. Okay, he said. He spent the next two hours telling bawdy stories. A month later, George knew he had grown to rely on Karen more and more. In fact, he knew he was falling in love with her.

Hi, she announced. Her voice sounded excited. George, I just had a look at your body. It's coming along fine. In fact, it's beautiful. I'll be with you in about ten minutes. Enjoy some music while I'm gone. Bye. Then the music lanced into his brain at a tremendous volume. George quivered in real pain as each note blared forth. It was the loudest version of the Warsaw Concerto he ever hoped to hear.

As the music progressed, blatting its way through painful crescendos and screaming treble notes, he tried to shut out the sound of it. It was impossible. It was a tearing, screeching nightmare of sound, put him back on a hurtling elevated train with the sound of a young girl screaming in his ears and the pain of a body crushed beyond recognition with a convulsive shudder. George was unconscious. "'Had Ike gone yet?' she was concerned. "'Yeah, sweetheart. I'd like to ring your lovely neck, though.'

"'I'm sorry about the music, George. I didn't have the volume adjusted. I won't leave you alone again.' There was a note in her voice that George hoped was more than just a professional concern. "'Karen, you don't have to do that. You'll be tying yourself down, and I don't want that.' "'I don't mind, George. I just don't want anything to happen to you. There's something—someone special. Maybe I don't want it that way, although I will admit I enjoy our company, but this around-the-clock business isn't necessary. I want to do it, okay?'

Okay, I guess I can't stop you. Only don't you ever get tired? Sometimes. Maybe you should let me worry about your welfare for a change. I think you need some sleep. Lie down a little while. Sure, boss. Is that an order? It's an order. I guess I am a little sleepy. Want some music? George shuddered. No, no more records for a long, long time. But leave your microphone on. I'd like to know that you're there.

While she slept, he carefully kept his thoughts to himself. She's sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. The little nut. She probably didn't go to bed at all while I was out. She deserves all the rest she can get. He listened a long time to her quiet breathing. I wonder what she looks like. Is the rest of her as beautiful as her voice? I can't help it. I'm in love with her. I wish I was more than a brain in a bottle. I wish I could touch her. Hold her hand, silly thought, like a kid on his first date.

He pictured her in his mind, lovely, vibrant, beautiful. How, he thought savagely, could she ever fall in love with me? Simple, she couldn't. No woman could love a freak, and I wouldn't want it that way. She'd be throwing her happiness away. But damn it, I can't help it if I want her. I'm neck deep, if I may be permitted to use such an expression in world affairs. The good doctor read six newspapers to me while you were gone.

Karen laughed. I thought she sounded a bit hoarse. Well out with it, woman. Did you enjoy your first day off in almost three weeks? Her voice was happier than you'd heard it in days. I went shopping, George. For the first time in months. And really splurged. Got a new outfit. You should see me. I wish I could. You will soon enough. What do you mean by that?

"'Your body's ready. You move in tomorrow.' "'Thank God! Tomorrow! It is rather hard to believe, after all this time. I'm going to have a body!' He could almost feel a lump form in his throat. Only, of course, he didn't have a throat. Yet. "'I don't know if I'm going to like having to put up with the pains of the flesh again.' She laughed. Then her voice turned wistful. Or maybe it was just his imagination. "'Not only the pains, George, but the pleasures, too. Yeah.'

He was silent for a moment. Then he forced his voice to be light. I can't wait for those eyes, Karen. Tell me about the outfit. What color is it? How does the cloth feel? Tell me all about it, Karen. The next day, Karen warned him, just before Dr. Chase released the sedative into his blood supply. George peacefully went into a deep, dreamless sleep. In his mind, he could still hear Karen's voice speaking gently to him, assuringly.

Almost instantly it seemed he was awake, though it took hours. The first thing he was conscious of was a dull, throbbing pain in his head. And then he realized it was in his head, vaguely at first. Then sharply his nerves clicked into actions. He could sense his arms and legs. He tried moving them experimentally. It was a painful process. There was sound, he realized suddenly. A low, subdued noise level. But there was no light. "'Karen! Karen!' he thought sharply.

Still just that low noise level, an electric fan going somewhere. Karen! This time he felt the muscles of his throat contract. His breath came out in a sigh of satisfaction. He had been sub-vocalizing through lung habit. Karen! He said it. He heard his voice. George, you made it! Karen was there. Karen! He said again. A little quavering, but it was a voice. Karen! He sobbed.

"'I can't see.' "'Silly,' she laughed. "'Of course not. There's a bandage over your eyes. The optic nerve is very delicate. The doctors have to give the nerve endings, the nerve graft, more time to heal. Another three days and you'll be able to see.' A low moan from his throat. "'Then,' he said haltingly, "'you're still only a voice.' "'Not quite,' she said. She touched his cheek. Cool, soft fingers.'

"That better? Now you're the one who needs some sleep. Karen," he said. Silently she took his hand in hers. At noon on the fourth day they removed the bandages from his eyes. The blinds were drawn on the windows, but still the light was staggering. George squinted until his eyes became accustomed to the brightness. Then he focused them on various items in the room. He had just flipped the sheets back from his body and was commenting proudly to himself,

I'm more of a man than I thought when the door opened. George looked up, startled. The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen was in the doorway. Hi, she said, her voice as soft and vibrant as ever. Karen, she was staring, unashamed at the body George had just fully uncovered, she said. George scrabbled for the sheets, pulled them over him. You should knock, he said, starting to laugh. She came over to the foot of the bed and slowly turned around for him.

Well, how about me? Are you disappointed? Her voice had an intimate, challenging quality. Sweetheart, he said slowly, looking at her for what it seemed to George was the first time. You are lovely. You're more than I ever dreamed. I don't care what you say or think of me for saying this.

But I love you. I have loved you since I first heard your voice. And now it's impossible. No woman could ever knowingly fall in love with me, a freak, a brain in a bottle. But that can't stop me from loving you. Maybe it's just that I'm so happy to have a body again after so long that makes me say this. She had come around the corner of the bed and was sitting on the edge of it now. There were tears in her eyes, and her hands were clasped over his. I know, George, she said slowly, and he had stopped.

I felt the same way as you when I got my new body, but I didn't have anyone to say it to. His eyes widened in disbelief. His mouth worked for several seconds before the words would come. You... She nodded slowly. George, don't you remember many months ago, the night of your accident on the L? There was a girl on the train with you. He stared at her, a sudden amazement in his eyes. Of course I remember, but you... You mean...

You are— Yes, George, I'm the same girl. Different body, of course. My case wasn't as tough as yours. Her brain was close to death for quite a while before you regained conscious thought. You looked at her incredulously. But you said I was the first to ever go this far. Her face was close to his, her lips smiling. I said you were the first man to pull through. I was praying for you, George. I needed you. As much as you thought you needed me. As his arms closed about her—

There wasn't much else for either to say. Understory 12. Story 13 of Fevers and Physicians in Space at Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Advanced Chemistry by Jack G. Heuchels. Professor Karbonik was diligently at work in his spacious laboratory, analyzing, mixing, and experimenting.

he had been employed for more than fifteen years in the same pursuit of happiness in the same house same laboratory and attended by the same servant-woman who in her long period of service had attained the plumpness and respectability of two hundred and ninety pounds

"'Magnesia!' called the professor. The servant's name was Maggie Nesia. Professor Carbine had contracted the title to save time, for in fifteen years he had not mounted the heights of greatness. He must work harder and faster as life is short, and eliminate such shameful waste of time as putting the G in Maggie. "'Magnesia!' the professor repeated.

The old woman rolled slowly into the room. Get rid of these and bring the one the boy brought today. He handed her a tray containing three dead rats whose brains had been subjected to analysis. Yes, ma'am, answered Magnesia in a tone like citrate.

The professor buried himself with a new preparation of zinc oxide and copper sulfate and sal-ammoniac, his latest concoction, which was about to be used and, like its predecessors, to be abandoned. Magnesia appeared bringing another rat, dead. The professor made no experiments on live animals. He had hired a boy in the neighborhood to bring him fresh dead rats at twenty-five cents per head. Taking the tray he prepared a hypodermic filled with the new preparation.

Carefully he made an incision above the right eye of the carcass, through the bone. He lifted the hypodermic, half hopelessly, half expectantly. The old woman watched him, as she had done many times before, with always the same pitiful expression. Pitiful either for the man himself or for the dead rat. Magnesia seldom expressed her views. Inserting the hypodermic needle and injecting the contents of the syringe, Professor Karbanek stepped back.

"Prof Karbonik makes a great discovery!" "Great Saints!" his voice could have been heard a mile. Slowly the rat's tail began to point skyward, and as slowly Magnesia began to turn white, Professor Karbonik stood as paralysed. The rat trembled and moved his feet. The man of sixty years made one jump with the alacrity of a boy of sixteen. He grabbed the enlivened animal and held it above his head as he jumped about the room.

Spying the servant, who until now had seemed unable to move, he threw both arms around her, bringing the rat close to her face. Around the laboratory they danced to the tune of the woman's shrieks. The professor held on, and the woman yelled. Up and down, spasmodically, on the laboratory floor came the two hundred and ninety pounds with the professor thrown in. Bottles tumbled from the shelves.

Furniture was upset, precious liquids flowed unrestrained and unnoticed. Finally the professor dropped with exhaustion, and the rat in magnesia made a dash for freedom. Early in the morning pedestrians on Arlington Avenue were attracted by a sign and brilliant letters. Professor Karbanek early in the morning partook himself to the nearest hardware store and purchased the tools necessary for his new profession.

He was an M.D., and his recently acquired knowledge put him in a position to startle the world. Having procured what he needed, he returned home.

Things were developing fast. Magnesia met him at the door and told him that Sally Soder, who was known to the neighborhood as Sal or Sal Soder generally, had fallen down two flights of stairs and to use her own words was "putty bad." Sal Soder's mother, in sending for a doctor, had read the elaborate sign of the new enemy of death and begged that he come to see Sal as soon as he returned. Bidding Magnesia to accompany him, he went to the laboratory and secured his precious preparation.

Professor Karbonik and the unwilling Magnesia started out to put new life into a little Sal Soda, who lived in the same block. Reaching the house, they met the family physician then attendant on little Sal. Dr. X. Ray had also read the sign of the professor, and his greeting was very chilly. "'How is the child?' asked the professor. "'Fatally hurt and can live but an hour.' Then he added, "'I have done all that can be done, all that you can do.'

directed the professor. With a withering glance Dr. X. Ray left the room and the house. His reputation was such as to admit of no intrusion. "I am sorry she is not dead. It would be easier to work, and also a more reasonable charge." Giving Magnesia his instruments, he administered a local anesthetic. This done, he selected a brace and bit that he had procured that morning.

With these instruments he bored a small hole into the child's head. Inserting his hypodermic needle, injected the immortal fluid, then cutting the end off a dowel, which he had also procured that morning. He hammered it into the hole until it wedged itself tight. Professor Carbonic seated himself comfortably and awaited the action of his injection, while the plump magnesia paced, or rather waddled the floor with a bag of carpenter's tools under her arm.

The fluid worked. The child came to and sat up. Sal Soda had regained her pep. It will be one dollar and twenty-five cents, Mrs. Soda, apologized the professor. I have to make that charge, as it is so inconvenient to work on them when they are still alive. Having collected his fee, the professor and Magnesia departed, amid the ever-rising blessings of the Soda family. At three-thirty p.m. Magnesia sought her employer, who was asleep in the sitting-room.

"'Mast Paul, a gentleman to see you.' The professor awoke and had her send the man in. The man entered hurriedly, hat in hand. "'Are you Professor Kalbanik?' "'I am. What can I do for you?' "'Can you?' The man hesitated. "'My friend has just been killed in an accident.' "'You couldn't—' He hesitated again. "'I know that is unbelievable,' answered the professor. "'But I can.'

Professor Karbanek for some years had suffered from the effects of a weak heart. His fears on the score had recently been entirely relieved. He now had the prescription. Death no more! The startling discovery, and the happenings of the last twenty-four hours, had begun to take effect on him, and he did not wish to make another call until he was feeling better. I'll go, said the professor, after a period of musing.

"My discoveries are for the benefit of the human race. I must not consider myself." He satisfied himself that he had all his tools. He had just sufficient of the preparation for one injection. This, he thought, would be enough. However, he placed in his case two vials of different solutions which were the basis of his discovery. These fluids had but to be mixed, and after the chemical reaction had taken place the preparation was ready for use.

He searched the house for Magnesia, and the old servant had made it certain that she did not intend to act as nurse to dead men on their journey back to life. Reluctantly, he decided to go without her. "'How is it possible?' exclaimed the stranger as they climbed into the waiting machine.

"I have worked for fifteen years before I found the solution," answered the professor slowly. "I cannot understand on what you could have based a theory for an experimenting on something that has been universally accepted as impossible of solution." "With electricity all is possible, as I have proved." Seeing the skeptical look, his companion assumed, he continued: "Electricity is the basis of every motive power we have. It is the base of every formation that we know.

The professor was warming to the subject.

"'Go on,' said the stranger. "'I am extremely interested. "'Every sort of heat that is known, whether dormant or active, "'has only one arm of the gigantic force electricity. "'The most of our knowledge of electricity "'has been gained through its offspring, magnetism. "'A body entirely devoid of electricity is a body dead. "'Magnetism is apparent in many things, including the human race, "'and its presence in many people is prominent.'

But how did this lead to your experiments? If magnetism or motive force is the offspring of electricity, the human body must and does contain electricity. That we use more electricity than the human body will induce is a fact. It is apparent, therefore, that a certain amount of electricity must be generated within the human body and without aid of any outside forces. Science has known for years that the body's power is brought into action through the brain.

The brain is our generator, the little cells and the fluid that separate them, have the same actions, the liquid of a wet battery. Like a wet battery, this fluid wears out, and we must replace the fluid or the salamoniac, or we lose the use of the battery or body. I have discovered what fluid to use that will produce the electricity in the brain cells which the human body is unable to induce. We are here, said the stranger, as he brought the car to stop at the curb.

You are still a skeptic, noting the voice of the man. But you shall see shortly. The man led him into the house and introduced him to Miss Murray Attick, who conducted him to the room where the deceased Murray Attick was laid. Without a word, the professor began his preparations. He was ill and would have preferred to have been at rest in his own comfortable house. He would do the work quickly and get away.

"'Selecting a gimlet, he bored a hole through the skull of the dead man. "'Inserting his hypodermic, he injected all the fluid he had mixed. "'He had not calculated on the size of the gimlet, "'and the dowels he carried would not fit the hole. "'As a last resource, he drove in his lead pencil, "'broke it off close, and carefully cut the splinters smooth with the head. "'It'll be seventy-five cents, madam,' said the professor as he finished the work. "'Mrs. Murray Attick paid the money unconsciously,

She did not know whether he was embalming her husband or just trying the keenness of his new tools. Death had been too much for her. The minutes passed, and still the dead man showed no signs of reviving. Professor Karbonik paced the floor in an agitated manner. He began to be doubtful of his ability to bring the man back. Worried, he continued his tramp up and down the room.

His heart was affecting him. He was tempted to return the seventy-five cents to the prostrate wife when the dead man moved. The professor clasped his hands to his throat and with his head drawn back dropped to the floor. A fatal attack of the heart. He became conscious quickly. The bottle's there, he whispered. Mix, make injection. He became unconscious again.

The stranger found the gimlet and bored a hole in the professor's head. Hastily seizing one of the vials, he poured the contents into the deeply made hole. He then realized that there was another bottle. "'Mix them!' shrieked the almost hysterical woman. It was too late. The one vial was empty, and the professor's body lay lifeless. In mental agony, the stranger grasped the second vial and emptied its contents also into the professor's head.

and stopped the hole with the cork. Miraculously, Professor Karbanek opened his eyes and rose to his feet. His eyes were like balls of fire, his lips moved inaudibly, and as they moved little blue sparks were seen to pass from one to another. His hair stood out from his head. The chemical reaction was going on in the professor's brain, with a dose powerful enough to restore ten men. He tottered slightly.

Maui Attick, now thoroughly alive, sat up straight in bed. He grasped the brass bedpost with one hand and stretched out the other to aid the staggering man. He caught his hand. Both bodies stiffened. A slight crackling sound was audible. A blue flash shot from where Attick's had made contact with the bedpost. Then a dull thud as both bodies struck the floor.

Both men were electrocuted, and the formula is still a secret. End of story thirteen. Story fourteen of Fevers and Physicians in Space. Edward Short Sci-Fi, Volume Two. This Sleepervox recording is in the public domain. Bad Medicine by Robert Sheckley On May 2nd, 2103, Elwood Castle walked rapidly down Broadway with a loaded revolver hidden in his coat pocket.

He didn't want to use the weapon, but feared he might anyhow. This was a justifiable assumption, for Caswell was a homicidal maniac. It was a gentle, misty spring day, and the air held the smell of rain and blossoming dugwood. Caswell grabbed the revolver in his sweaty right hand and tried to think of a single valid reason why he should not kill a man named Magnusson, who, the other day, had commented on how well Caswell looked.

What business was it of Magnusson's how he looked? Damned busybodies, always spoiling things for everybody.

Casswell was a choleric little man with fierce red eyes, bulldog jowls, and ginger-red hair. He was a sort you would expect to find perched on a detergent box, orating to a group of lunching businessmen and amused students shouting, Mars for the Martians! Venus for the Venusians! But in truth, Casswell was uninterested in the deplorable social conditions of extraterrestrials. He was a jet-bus conductor for the New York Rapid Transit Corporation. He minded his own business.

and he was quite mad fortunately he knew this at least part of the time with at least half of his mind perspiring freely caswell continued down broadway toward the forty-third street branch of home therapy appliances inc his friend magnusson would be finishing work soon returning to his little apartment less than a block from caswell's

How easy it would be, how pleasant, to saunter in. Extend your few words and— No! Casserole took a deep gulp of air and reminded himself that he didn't really want to kill anyone. It was not right to kill people. The authorities would lock him up. His friends wouldn't understand. His mother would never have approved.

But these arguments seemed pallid, over-intellectual, and entirely without force. Simple fact remained. He wanted to kill Magnusson. Could so strong a desire be wrong? Or even unhealthy? Yes, it could. With an agonized groan, Caswell sprinted the last few steps into the home therapy appliances store.

Just being within such a place gave him an immediate sense of relief. The lighting was discreet, the draperies were neutral, the displays of glittering therapy machines were neither too bland nor obstreperous. It was the kind of place where a man could happily lie down on the carpet in the shadow of the therapy machines, secure in the knowledge that help for any sort of trouble was at hand.

A clerk with fair hair and a long supercilious nose glided up softly, but not too softly, and murmured, "'May one help?' "'Therapy,' said Caswell. "'Of course, sir,' the clerk answered, smoothing his lapels and smiling winningly. "'This is what we're here for.' He gave Caswell a searching look, performed an instant mental diagnosis, and tapped a gleaming white-and-copper machine.

"'Now this,' the clerk said, "'is the new alcoholic reliever, built by IBM and advertised in the leading magazines. A handsome piece of furniture, I think you will agree, and not out of place in any home. It opens into a television set.'

With a flick of his narrow wrist, the clerk opened the alcoholic reliever, revealing a fifty-two-inch screen. "I need," Casswell began. "Therapy," the clerk finished. "Of course, I just wanted to point out that this model need never cause embarrassment for yourself, your friends, or loved ones. Notice, if you will, the recessed dial which controls the desired degree of drinking. See, if you do not wish total abstinence, you

You can set it to heavy, moderate, social, or light. That is a new feature unique in mechanotherapy." "I'm not an alcoholic," Caspar said with considerable dignity. "The New York Rapid Transport Corporation does not hire alcoholics.

"'Oh,' said the clerk, glancing distrustfully at Caswell's bloodshot eyes, "'you seem a little nervous,' perhaps the portable Bendix anxiety reducer. "'Anxiety's not my ticket either. What have you got for homicidal mania?' The clerk pursed his lips. "'Schizophrenic or manic-depressive origins?'

"'I don't know,' Cassrell admitted, somewhat taken aback. "'It really doesn't matter,' Clerke told him. "'Just a private theory of my own. "'From my experience in the store, "'redheads and blondes are prone to schizophrenia, "'while brunettes incline toward the manic-depressive. "'That's interesting. Have you worked here long?' "'A week.' "'Now then, here is just what you need, sir.'

He put his hand affectionately on a squat black machine with chrome trim. "What's that?" "That, sir, is the Rex Regenerator, built by General Motors. Isn't it handsome? It can go with any decor and opens up a well-stocked box so friends, family, loved ones need never know." "Will it cure a homicidal urge?" Kessel asked. "A strong one."

Absolutely. Don't confuse this with the little ten-amp neurosis models. This is a hefty, heavy-duty, twenty-five-amp machine for a really deep-rooted major condition. That's what I've got, said Castle, with pardonable pride. This baby'll jot it out of you. Big, heavy-duty thrust bearings. Oversized heat absorbers. Completely insulated. Sensitivity range of over— I'll take it, Cassie.

Caswell said. "'Right now I'll pay cash.' "'Fine. I'll just telephone storage and this one'll do,' Caswell said, pulling out his billfold. "'I'm in a hurry to use it. I want to kill my friend Magnusson, you know.' The clerk clucked sympathetically. "'You wouldn't want to do that. Plus five percent sales tax. Thank you, sir. Full instructions are inside.' Caswell thanked him, lifted the regenerator in both arms and hurried out.

After figuring his commission, the clerk smiled to himself and lighted a cigarette. His enjoyment was spoiled when the manager, a large man impressively equipped with pince-nez, marched out of his office. "'Haskins,' the manager said, "'I thought I asked you to rid yourself of that filthy habit.' "'Yes, Mr. Follansby, sorry, sir,' Haskins apologized, snubbing out the cigarette.

I'll use the display denicotinizer at once. Made rather a good sale, Mr. Follensbee. One of the big Rex regenerators. Really? said the manager, impressed. It isn't often we... Wait a minute. You didn't sell the floor model, did you? Why...

"'Why, I'm afraid I did, Mr. Follensbee. The customer was in such a terrible hurry. Was there any reason?' Mr. Follensbee gripped his prominent white forehead in both hands, as though he wished to rip it off. "'Haskins, I told you, I must have told you, that display regenerator was a Martian model, for giving mechanotherapy to Martians.' "'Oh,' Haskins said. He thought for a moment. "'Oh!' Mr. Follensbee stared at his clerk in grim silence.

But does it really matter? Haskins asked quickly. Surely the machine won't discriminate. I should think it will treat a homicidal tendency even if the patient were not a Martian. The Martian race never had the slightest tendency toward homicide. A Martian regenerator doesn't even process a concept. Of course the regenerator will treat him, it has to. But what will it treat? Oh, said Haskins.

That poor devil must be stopped before you say he was homicidal. I don't know what'll happen. Quick, what is his address? Well, Mr. Follingsby, he was in such a terrible hurry. The manager gave him a long, unbelieving look. Get the police. Tell the General Motor Security Division. Find him. Haskins raced for the door. Wait, yelled the manager, struggling into a raincoat. I'm coming too.

Elwood Caswell returned to his apartment by a tachycopter. He lugged the Regenerator into his living room, put it down near the couch and studied it thoughtfully. "Your clock was right," he said after a while. "It does go with the room." Aesthetically, the Regenerator was a success. Caswell admired it for a few more moments. Then he went into the kitchen and fixed himself a chicken sandwich. He ate slowly, staring fixedly at a point just above and to the left of his kitchen clock.

"Damn you, Magnusson, dirty, no-good, lying, shifty-eyed enemy of all that's decent and clean in the world!" Taking the revolver from his pocket he laid it on the table. With a stiffened forefinger he poked it into different positions. It was time to begin therapy. Except that Catwell realized worriedly that he didn't want to lose the desire to kill Magnusson. What would become of him if he lost that urge? His life would lose all purpose, all coherence, all flavor and zest.

It'd be quite dull, really. Moreover, he had a great and genuine grievance against Magnusson, one he didn't like to think about. Irene, his poor sister, debauched by the subtle and insidious Magnusson, ruined by him and cast aside. What better reason could a man have to take his revolver and—Casswell finally remembered—that he did not have a sister. Now was really the time to begin therapy.

He went into the living room and found the operating instructions tucked into a ventilation louver of the machine. He opened them and read: "To operate all Rex model regenerators: 1. Place the regenerator near a comfortable couch. A comfortable couch can be purchased as an additional accessory from any General Motors dealer. 2. Plug in the machine. 3. Affix the adjustable contact band to the forehead. And that's all. Your regenerator will do the rest.

There will be no language bar or dialect problem, since the Regenerator communicates by direct sense-contact . All you must do is cooperate. Try not to feel any embarrassment or shame. Everyone has problems, and many are worse than yours. Your Regenerator has no interest in your morals or ethical standards, so don't feel it is judging you. It desires only to aid you in becoming well and happy.

As soon as it has collected and processed enough data, your regenerator will begin treatment. You make the sessions as short or as long as you like. You are the boss. And of course, you can end a session at any time. That's all there is to it. Simple, isn't it? Now plug in your General Motors regenerator and get sane. Nothing hard about that, Casswell said to himself. He pushed the regenerator closer to the couch and plugged it in.

He lifted the headband, started to slip it on, stopped. "Feels so silly," he giggled. Abruptly he closed his mouth and stared pugnaciously at the black-and-comb machine. "Do you think you can make me sane, huh?" The Regenerator didn't answer. "Oh, well, go ahead and try." He slipped the headband over his forehead, crossed his arms on his chest, and leaned back. Nothing happened. Caswell settled himself more comfortably on the couch.

He scratched his shoulder and put the headband at a more comfortable angle. Still nothing. His thoughts began to wander. Magnusson, you noisy overbearing elf, you disgusting— Good afternoon, the vice murmured in his head. I am your mechanotherapist, Catworld twitched guiltily. Well, all I was just, you know, just sort of— Of course, the machine said soothingly. Don't we all?

I am now scanning the material in your preconscious with the intent of synthesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. I find... Yes? Just one moment. The regenerator was silent for several minutes, then hesitantly it said, This is beyond doubt a most unusual case. Really? Casswell asked, please. Yes. The coefficients seem...

"I'm not sure." The machine's robotic voice grew feeble. The pilot light began to flicker and fade. "Hey, what's the matter?" "Confusion," said the machine. "Of course," it went on in a stronger voice, "the unusual nature of the symptoms need not prove entirely baffling to a competent therapeutic machine. A symptom, no matter how bizarre, is no more than a signpost, an indication of inner difficulty,

"'and all symptoms can be related to the broad mainstream of proven theory. "'Since the theory is effective, the symptoms must relate. "'We will proceed on that assumption.' "'You sure you know what you're doing?' asked Caswell, feeling light-headed. "'The machine snapped back, its pilot light blazing. "'The canal therapy today is an exact science and admits no significant errors. "'We will proceed with a word association test.' "'Fire away,' said Caswell. "'House. Home. Dog. Cat. Flea-ful.'

"'Castwell hesitated, trying to figure out the word. "'It sounded vaguely Martian, but it might be Venusian or even—' "'Fleeful!' Regenerator repeated. "'More foosh!' Castwell replied, making up the word on the spur of the moment. "'Loud, sweet, green, mother, thanagoyas, paramathonga,

Arides, Nexnothesmadrastica, Jethisnahogonoptikas, Wigmaru Ladocentricpropiatra, Kassor shot back. It was a collection of sounds he was particularly proud of. The average man would not have been able to pronounce them.

"Hmm," said the Regenerator. "The pattern fits. It always does." "What pattern?" "You have," the Machine informed him, "a classic case of theme desire, complicated by strong, Dworkish intentions." "I do? I thought I was homicidal." "That term is no referent," the Machine said severely. "Therefore I must reject it as nonsense syllabification. Now consider these points. The theme desire is perfectly normal. Never forget that. But it is usually replaced at an early age by the Hovindish revulsion.

"'Individuals lacking in this basic environmental response. "'I'm not absolutely sure I know what you're talking about,' "'Caswell confessed. "'Please, sir, we must establish one thing at once. "'You are the patient, I am the mechanotherapist. "'You have brought your troubles to me for treatment, "'but you can't expect help unless you cooperate.' "'All right,' Caswell said. "'I'll try.' "'Up to now he had been bathed in a warm glow of superiority.'

Everything the machine said seemed mildly humorous. As a matter of fact, he had felt capable of pointing out a few things wrong with the mechanotherapist. Now that sense of well-being evaporated, as it always did, and Caswell was alone, terribly alone and lost, a creature of his compulsions. In search of a little peace and contentment, he would undergo anything to find them.

Sternly he reminded himself that he had no right to comment on the mechanotherapist. These machines knew what they were doing, and had been doing it for a long time. He would cooperate, no matter how outlandish the treatment seemed, from his layman's viewpoint. But it was obvious, Casswell thought, settling himself grimly on the couch, that mechanotherapy was going to be far more difficult than he had imagined.

The search for the missing customer had been brief and useless. He was nowhere to be found on the teeming New York streets, and no one could remember seeing a red-haired, red-eyed little man lugging a black therapeutic machine. It was all too common a sight. In answer to an urgent telephone call, the police came immediately. Four of them, led by a harassed young lieutenant of detectives named Smith,

Smith just had time to ask, "'Say, why don't you people put tags on things?' When there was an interruption, a man pushed his way past the policeman at the door. He was tall and gnarled and ugly, and his eyes were deep-set and bleakly blue. His clothes, unpressed and uncaring, hung on him like corrugated iron. "'What do you want?' Lieutenant Smith asked. The ugly man flipped back his lapel, showing a small silver badge beneath.

I'm John Rath, General Motor Security Division. Oh, sorry, sir, Lieutenant Smith said, saluting. I didn't think you people would move in so fast. Rath made a noncommittal noise. I rechecked for prints, Lieutenant. The customer might have touched some other therapy machine. I'll get right on it, sir, Smith said.

It wasn't often that one of the operatives from GM, GE, or IBM came down to take a personal hand. If a local cop showed he was really clicking, there just might be the possibility of an industrial transfer. Rath turned to Hollinsby and Haskins and transfixed them with a gaze as piercing and as impersonal as a radar beam. "'It says a full story,' he said, taking a notebook and pencil from a shapeless pocket. He listened to the tale in ominous silence.

Finally, he closed his notebook, thrust it back into his pocket, and said, The therapeutic machines are a sacred trust. To give a customer the wrong machine is a betrayal of their trust, a violation of the public interest, and a defamation of the company's good reputation. The manager nodded in agreement, glaring at his unhappy clerk.

A Martian model, Rath continued. She'd never have been on the floor in the first place. I can explain that, Follensby said hastily. We needed a demonstrator model and I wrote to the company telling them this might, Rath broke in inexorably, be considered a case of gross criminal negligence.

Both the manager and the clerk exchanged horrified looks. They were thinking of the General Motors reformatory outside of Detroit, where company offenders passed their days in sullen silence, monotonously drawing micro-circuits for pocket television sets. However, this is out of my jurisdiction, Rath said. He turned his baleful gaze furl upon Haskins. You are certain that the customer never mentioned his name?

"'No, sir. I mean—' "'Yes, I'm sure,' Haskins replied rattledly. "'Do you mention any names at all?' Haskins plunged his face into his hands. He looked up and said eagerly, "'Yes. He wanted to kill someone. A friend of his.' "'Oh,' Rath asked with terrible patience. "'The friend's name was—let me think—Magneton. That was it. Magneton. Oh, was in Morrison. Oh, dear.'

Mr. Rath's iron face registered a rather corrugated disgust. People were useless as witnesses, worse than useless, since they were frequently misleading. For reliability, give him a robot every time. Didn't he mention anything significant? Let me think, Haskins said, his face twisting into a fit of concentration. Rath waited. Mr. Follensbee cleared his throat.

I was just thinking, Mr. Rath, about that Martian machine. It won't treat a Terran homicidal case as homicidal, will it? Cause not. Homicide is unknown on Mars. Yes, but what will it do? Might it not reject the entire case as unsuitable? Then the customer would merely return the regenerator with a complaint and we would... Mr. Rath shook his head.

The Rex Regenerator must treat if it finds evidence of psychosis. By Martian standards, the customer is a very sick man, a psychotic, no matter what is wrong with him. Hollensby removed his pincers and polished them rapidly.

What will the machine do, then? It will treat him for the Martian illness, most analogous to his case. Fiend desire, I should imagine, with various complications. As for what will happen once treatment begins, I don't know. I doubt whether anyone knows, since it's never happened before. Offhand, I would say there are two major alternatives. The patient may reject the therapy out of hand, in which case he is left with his homicidal mania unabated. Or he may accept the Martian therapy and reach a cure.

Mr. Fallensby's face brightened. Oh, a cure is possible. You don't understand, Rath said. He may effect a cure of his non-existent Martian psychosis, but to cure something that is not there is, in effect, to erect a gratuitous delusional system. He might say that the machine would work in reverse, producing psychosis instead of removing it. Mr. Fallensby groaned and leaned against a bell psychosomatica.

The result, Rath summed up, would be to convince the customer that he was a Martian. A sane Martian, naturally. Haskins suddenly shouted, I remember, I remember now. He said he worked for the New York Rapid Transit Corporation. I remember distinctly. That's a break, Rath said, reaching for the telephone. Haskins wiped his perspiring face in relief.

I just remembered something else that should make it easier still. What? The customer said he'd been an alcoholic at one time. I'm sure of it, because he was interested at first in the IBM alcoholic reliever until I talked him out of it. He had red hair, you know, and I've heard a theory for some time about redheadiness and alcoholism. It seems excellent, Rath said. Alcoholism will be on his records. It narrows the search considerably.

As he dialed the NYRT corporation, the expression on his crag-like face was almost pleasant. It was good for a change to find a human could retain some significant facts. "'But surely you remember your Gorik, eh?' the Regenerator was saying. "'No,' Gasol answered warily. "'Tell me, then, about your juvenile experiences with the Thorastrian fleet. Never had any.'

"'Hmm. Blockage,' muttered the machine. "'Resentment. Repression. Are you sure you don't remember your gorokei and what it meant to you? The experience is universal.' "'Not for me,' Castle said, swallowing a yawn. He had been undergoing mechanotherapy for close to four hours, and it struck him as futile.

For a while he had talked voluntarily about his childhood, his mother and father, his older brother, but the regenerator had asked him to put aside those fantasies. The patient's relationship to an imaginary parent or sibling, it explained, were unworkable and of minor importance psychologically. The important thing was the patient's feelings, both revealed and repressed, toward his garakay. "'Oh, look,' Castorle complained. "'I don't even know what a garakay is.'

"'Of course you do. You just won't let yourself know.' "'I don't know. Tell me. It would be better if you told me.' "'How can I?' Caswell raged. "'I don't know.'

"'What do you imagine a gorokai would be?' "'A forest fire,' Caswell said. "'A salt tablet. "'A jar of denated alcohol. "'A small screwdriver. "'Am I getting warm? "'A notebook? "'A revolver? "'Those associations are meaningful,' the Regenerator assured him. "'Your attempt at randomness shows a clearly underlying pattern. "'Do you begin to recognize it?' "'What in hell is a gorokai?' Caswell roared. "'The tree that nourished you during infancy, "'and well into puberty, if my theory about you is correct.'

Inadvertently, the Gorokai stifled your necessary rejection of the fiend desire. This in turn gave rise to your present urge to dwork someone in a vlendish manner. "No tree nourished me!" "You cannot recall the experience?" "Of course not. It never happened." "You are sure of that?" "Positive." "Not even the tiniest bit of doubt?" "No. No Gorokai ever nourished me. Look, I can break off these sessions at any time, right?"

"'Of course,' the regenerator said. "'But it would not be advisable at this moment. You are expressing anger, resentment, fear. By your rigidly summary rejection—' "'Nuts!' said Caswell, and pulled off the headband. The silence was wonderful. Caswell stood up, yawned, stretched and massaged the back of his neck. He stood in front of the humming black machine and gave it a long leer. "'You couldn't kill me of a common cold,' he told it.

Stiffly he walked the length of the living room and returned to the regenerator. "How's he fake?" he shouted. Caswall went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of beer. His revolver was still on the table, gleaming dully.

Magnuson, you unspeakable, treacherous filth! You fiend incarnate! You inhuman, hideous monster! Someone must destroy you, Magnuson! Someone! Someone! He himself would have to do it. Only he knew better the bottomless depths of Magnuson's depravity, his viciousness, his disgusting lust for power. Yes, it was his duty, Casswell thought. But strangely, the knowledge brought him no pleasure. After all, Magnuson was his friend.

He stood up, ready for action. He tucked the revolver into his right-hand coat pocket and glanced at the kitchen clock. Nearly six-thirty. Magnusson would be home now, gulping his dinner, grinning over his plans. This was the perfect time to take him. Kessel stole to the door, opened it, started through, and stopped. A thought had crossed his mind, a thought so tremendously involved.

so meaningful, so far-reaching in its implications, that he was stirred to his depths. Casswell tried desperately to shake off the knowledge it brought, but the thought permanently etched upon his memory would not depart. Under the circumstances he could do only one thing. He returned to the living room, sat down on the couch, and slipped on the headband. The Regenerator said, "'Yes, it's the damnedest thing,' Casswell said. "'But do you know—'

i think i do remember my garrakay john rath contacted the new york rapid transit corporation by televideo and was put into immediate contact with mr bemis a plump tanned man with watchful eyes alcoholism mr bemis repeated after the problem was explained

unobtrusively he turned on his tape recorder and will gaw him please pressing a button beneath his feet bemis alerted transit security publicity and company relations and the psychoanalysis division this done he looked earnestly at rath not a chance of it my dear sir if between us why does general motors really want to know

Rath smiled bitterly. He should have anticipated this. N.A.R.T. and G.M. had had their differences in the past. Officially, there was cooperation between the two giant corporations, but for all practical purposes. The question is in terms of the public interest, Rath said. Oh, certainly, Mr. Bemis replied, with a subtle smile. Glancing at his tattleboard, he noticed that several company executives had tapped in on his line. This might mean a promotion if handled properly.

"Public interest of the DM," Mr. Bemis added with polite nastiness, "the insinuation is, I suppose, that drunken conductors who are operating are jet-bosses and helis." "Cast not. They are searching for a single alcoholic predilection—an individual latency." "There's no possibility of it. We at Rapid Transit do not hire people with even the merest tendency in that direction. I may suggest, sir, that you clean your own house before making implications about others." And with that Mr. Bemis broke the connection.

No one was going to put anything over on him. Dead end, Rath said heavily. He turned and shouted. Smith, did you find any prints? Lieutenant Smith, his coat off and sleeves rolled up, bounded over. Nothing usable, sir. Rath's thin lips tightened. It had been close to seven hours since the customer had taken the Martian machine. There was no telling what harm had been done by now.

The customer would be justified in bringing suit against the company. Not that the money meant it much. It was the bad publicity that was to be avoided at all costs. Pardon, sir, Haskins said. Wrath ignored him. What next? Rapid Transit was not going to cooperate with the armed services make their records available for scansion by somatotype and pigmentation. Sir, Haskins said again. What is it? He just remembered the customer's friend's name. It was Magnusson.

"'You sure of that?' "'Absolutely,' Askins said with the first confidence he had shown in hours. "'I've taken the liberty of looking him up in the telephone book, sir. There's only one Manhattan listing under that name.' Wrath glowered at him from under shaggy eyebrows. "'Askins, I hope you're not wrong about this. I sincerely hope that.' "'I do too, sir,' Askins admitted, feeling his knees begin to shake. "'Because if you are,' Wrath said, "'I will.' "'Never mind. Let's go.'

By police escort they arrived at the address in fifteen minutes. It was an ancient brownstone and Magnusson's name was on a second-floor door. They knocked. The door opened, and a stocky, crop-headed, shirt-sleeved man in his thirties stood before them. He turned slightly pale at the sight of so many uniforms that held his ground.

"'What is this?' he demanded. "'You Magnusson?' returned Smith, barked. "'Yeah, what's the beef? If it's about my hi-fi playing too loud, I can tell you that old hag downstairs—' "'May we come in?' Wrath asked. "'It's important.' Magnusson seemed about to refuse, so Wrath pushed past him, followed by Smith, Fallonsby, Haskins, and a small army of policemen. Magnusson turned to face them, bewildered, defiant, and more than a little awed.

Mr. Magnusson, Rath said, in the pleasantest voice he could muster. I hope you'll forgive the intrusion. Let me assure you, it is in the public interest, as well as your own. Do you know a short, angry-looking, red-haired, red-eyed man? Yes, Magnusson said slowly and warily. Askins lit out a sigh of relief. Would you tell us his name and address? asked Rath.

i suppose you mean hold it what's he done nothing and what do you want him for there's no time for explanations rath said believe me it's in his own best interest too what is his name magnuson studied rath's ugly honest face trying to make up his mind

Lieutenant Smith said, Come on, talk, Magnuson. If you know what's good for you, you want the name and you want it quick. It was the wrong approach. Magnuson lighted a cigarette, blew smoke in Smith's direction and inquired, You got a warrant, buddy? You better have, Smith said, striding forward. Oh, won't you, wise guy? Stop it, Rath thought. Lieutenant Smith, thank you for your assistance. I won't need you any longer. Smith left, sulkily, taking his platoon with him. Rath said,

I apologize for Smith's over-eagerness. You had better hear the problem. Briefly but fully, he told the story of the customer and the Martian therapeutic machine. When he was finished, Magson looked more suspicious than ever.

"'You say he wants to kill me?' "'Definitely.' "'It's a lie. I don't know what your game is, mister, but you'll never make me believe that. I was my best friend. We've been best friends since we was kids. We've been in service together. Elwood would cut off his arm for me, and I'd do the same for him.' "'Yes, yes,' Rath said impatiently. "'In the same frame of mind he would. But your friend Elwood, is that his first name or last?' "'First,' Magnusson said, taunting me. "'Your friend Elwood is psychotic.'

"'You don't know him. That guy loves me like a brother. Look, what's Elwood really done? Defaulted on some payments or something I can help out?' "'You thick-headed imbecile,' Rath shouted. "'I'm trying to save your life, and the life and sanity of your friend.' "'But how do I know?' Magnuson pleaded. "'You guys come busting in here?' "'You can trust me,' Rath said. Magnuson studied Rath's face and nodded sourly. "'His name's Elwood Caswell. He lives just down the block at number 341.'

The man who came to the door was short, with red hair and red-rimmed eyes. His right hand was thrust into his coat pocket. He seemed very calm. Are you Elwood Caswell? Beth asked. The Elwood Caswell who bought a regenerator early this afternoon at the home therapy appliances store. Yeah, said Caswell. Won't you come in? Inside Caswell's small living room they saw the regenerator, glistening black and chrome, standing near the couch. It was unplugged.

Have you used it? Rath asked anxiously. Yes. Fogginsby stepped forward. Mr. Caswell, I don't know how to explain this, but we made a terrible mistake. The regenerator you took was a Martian model for giving therapy to Martians. I know, said Caswell. You do? Of course. It became pretty obvious after a while. It was a dangerous situation, Rath said. Especially for a man with your, uh, troubles. He studied Caswell covertly.

The man seemed fine, but appearances were frequently deceiving, especially with psychotics. Casswell had been homicidal. There was no reason why he should not still be. And Wrath began to wish he had not dismissed Smith and his policemen so summarily. Sometimes an armed squad was a comforting thing to have around. Casswell walked across the room to the therapeutic machine. One hand was still in his jacket pocket. The other he laid affectionately upon the regenerator. "'The poor thing tried its best,' he said.

Of course it couldn't cure what wasn't there, he laughed. But it came very near succeeding. Wrath studied Caswell's face and said in a trained, casual tone, Glad there was no harm, sir. The company will, of course, reimburse you for your lost time and for your mental anguish. Naturally, Caswell said. And we will substitute a proper Terran regenerator at once. It won't be necessary. It won't? No. Caswell's voice was decisive.

The machine's attempted therapy forced me into a complete self-appraisal. There was a moment of absolute insight during which I was able to evaluate and discard my homicidal intentions toward poor Magnussen. Wrath nodded dubiously. You feel no such urge now? Not in the slightest. Wrath frowned deeply, started to say something and stopped. He turned to Fallonsby and Haskins. Get the machine out of here. I have a few things to say to you at the store. The machine and the clerk lifted the regenerator and left.

Rath took a deep breath. "'Mr. Caswell, I would strongly advise that you accept a new regenerator from the company, gratis. Unless a cure is effected in a proper mechanotherapeutic manner, there is always the danger of a setback.' "'No danger with me,' Caswell said airily, but with deep conviction. "'Thank you for your consideration, sir, and good night.' Rath shrugged and walked to the door. "'Wait,' Caswell called. Rath turned. Caswell was taking his hand out of his pocket.

In it was a revolver. Rath felt sweat trickle down his arms. He calculated the distance between himself and Caswell. Too far. "Here," Caswell said, extending the revolver butt-first. "I won't need this any longer." Rath managed to keep his face expressionless as he accepted the revolver and stuck it into a shapeless pocket. "Good night," Caswell said. He closed the door behind Rath and bolted it. At last he was alone.

Aswell walked into the kitchen. He opened a bottle of beer, took a deep swallow, and sat down at the kitchen table. He stared fixedly at a point just above and to the left of the clock. He had to form his plans now. There was no time to lose.

Magnuson. Magnuson, that inhuman monster who cut down the Caswell gory cake. Magnuson, the man who even now was secretly planning to infect New York with the abhorrent fiend desire. Oh, Magnuson, I wish you a long, long life, filled with the torture I can inflict on you. And to start with, Caswell smiled to himself as he planned exactly how he would dork Magnuson in a blendish manner. End of story fourteen.

Story 15 of Fever's and Physicians in Space Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume 2 This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Homesick by Lynn Venable Frankston pushed listlessly at a red checker with his right forefinger. He knew the move would cost him a man, but he lacked enough interest in the game to plot out a safe move.

His opponent, James, jumped the red disc with the black king and removed it from the board. Gregory, across the room, flicked rapidly through the pages of a magazine, too rapidly to be reading anything, or even looking at the pictures. Russ lay quietly on his bunk, staring out of the viewport. The four were strangely alike in appearance, nearly the same age, the age where grey hairs finally outnumber black, or baldness takes over.

The age when the expanding waistline has begun to sag tiredly, when robust middle age begins the slow accelerating decline toward senility. A strange group to find aboard a spaceship, but then the Columbus was a very strange ship. Bought it to its outer hull. Just under the viewports were wooden boxes full of red geraniums. An ivy wound tenuous green fronds over the gleaming hull that had withstood the bombardment of pinpoint meteors.

and turned away the deadly power of naked cosmic rays. Frankston glanced at his wrist chrono. It was one minute to six, and about a minute, he thought, Ross will say something about going out to water his geraniums. The wrist chrono ticked fifty-nine times. "'I think I'll go out and water my geraniums,' said Ross. No one glanced up. Then Gregory threw his magazine on the floor."

Ross got up and walked, limping slightly, to a warlocker. He pulled out the heavy, ungainly space suit and the big metal bulb of a headpiece. He carried them to his bunk and laid them carefully down. "Will someone please help me on with my suit?" he asked. For one more long moment no one moved. Then James got up and began to help Ross fit his legs into the suit. Ross had arthritis.

Not badly, but enough so that he needed a little help climbing into a space suit. James pulled the heavy folds of the suit up around Russ's body and held it while Russ extended his arms into the sleeve sections. His hands in the heavy gauntlets were too unwieldy to do the front fastenings, and he stood silently while James did it for him. Russ lifted the helmet, staring at it as a cripple might regard a wheelchair which he loathed but was wholly dependent upon.

Then he fitted the helmet over his head and James fastened it down and lifted the oxygen tank to his back. "Ready?" asked James. The bulbous headpiece inclined in a nod. James walked to a panel and through a switch marked "Inner Luck." A round aperture slid silently open. Ross stepped through it and the door shut behind him as James threw the switch back to its original position.

Opposite the switch marked "outer lock" a signal glowed redly and James threw another switch. A moment later the signal flickered out. Frankston, with a violent gesture, swept the checkerboard clean. Red and black men clattered to the floor, rolling and spinning. Nobody picked them up. "What does he do it for?" demanded Frankston in a tight voice. "What does he get out of those stinking geraniums? He can't touch a smell!" "Shut up!" said Gregory.

James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign. Frankston was the one who'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs of cracking, but after so long, even a psycho-expert's opinion might be haywire. Who was a yardstick? Who was normal? Geraniums don't smell much anyway, added Gregory in a more conciliatory tone. Yeah, agreed Frankston. I'd forgotten that, but why does he torture himself like this? And us too.

"'Cause that's what he wanted to do,' answered James. "'Sure,' agreed Gregory. "'The whole trip, the last twenty years of it, anyhow. "'What he could talk about was how, when he got back to Earth, "'he was going to buy a little place in the country and raise flowers.' "'Well, we're back,' muttered Frankston with a terrible bitterness. "'He's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country.' "'Gregory continued almost dreamily. "'Remember the last night out? "'We were all gathered around a viewscreen.'

And there was Earth getting bigger and greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to be going back after thirty years. Thirty years cooped up in this ship, grumbled Frankston. All our twenties and thirties and forties. But we were coming home. There was a rapt expression on Gregory's lined and weathered face. We were looking forward to the twenty or maybe thirty good years we had left. Talking about what we'd do, where we'd live. Wondering what had changed on Earth.

At least we had that last night out. All the data was stashed away in their micro-files. All the data about planets with air we couldn't breathe, and food we couldn't eat. They were going home. Home to big, friendly, green Earth. Frankston's face suddenly crumpled, as though he were about to weep, and he cradled his head against his arms. "'God, do we have to go over it all again? Not again tonight!' "'Leave him alone,' ordered James with an inflection of command in his voice.'

Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to keep watering his geraniums. Frankston remained motionless, and Gregory looked gratefully at James. James was a steady one. It was easier for him, because he understood. Gregory's face became more and more animated as he lost himself, living again his recollections. The day we blasted in. The crowds. Thousands of people. All there to see us come in. We were proud.

Of course, we thought we were the first to land, just like we'd been the first to go out. Those cheers, coming from thousands of people at once, for us, Russ, Lieutenant Russ, was the first one out of the lock. We decided on that. He'd been in command for almost ten years, ever since Commander Stevens died. You remember Stevens, don't you? He took over when we lost Captain Willers. Well, anyway, Russ out first, and then you, James, and you, Frankston, and then Trippett, and me last."

Because you were all specialists, and I was just a crewman. The crewman, I should say. The only one left. Ross hesitated and almost stumbled when he stepped out. And tears began pouring from his eyes. But I thought, well, you know, coming home after thirty years and all that. But when I stepped out of the lock, my eyes stung like fire, and a thousand needles seemed to jab at my skin. And then the President himself stepped forward with the flowers. That's where the real trouble began. With the flowers.

I remember Russ stretching out his arms to take the bouquet, like a mother reaching for a baby. And suddenly he dropped them, sneezing and coughing and sobbing for breath. And the President reached out to help him, asking him over and over what was wrong. It was the same with all of us. We turned and staggered back to the ship, closing the lock behind us. It was bad then. God, I'll never forget it. The five of us, moaning in agony, gasping for breath.

her eyes all swollen shut, and the itching, that itching. Gregory shuddered. Even the emotionally disciplined James set his teeth and felt his scalp crawl with the memory of that horror. He glanced toward the viewport as though to cleanse his mind of the memory. He could see Ross out there, among the geraniums, moving slowly and painfully in his heavy spacesuit. Occupational therapy. Ross watered flowers and Gregory talked,

and Frankston was bitter, and himself. Observation, maybe. Gregory's voice began again, and then they were pounding on the lock, begging us to let the doctor in. But we were all rolling and thrashing with the itching, burning, sneezing, and finally James got himself under control enough to open the locks and let them in. Then came the tests. Allergy tests. Remember those? They cut a little row of scratches in your arm.

each man instinctively glanced at his forearm saw neat rows of tiny pink scars row on row then that put a little powder in each cut and each kind of powder was an extract of some common substance we might be allergic to

The charts they made were full of peas, pea for positive, long columns of big red peas, of pollen, dust, wool, nylon, cotton, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, whiskey, cigarettes, dogs, cats, everything. And wasn't it funny about us being allergic to women's face powder? We were allergic to women from their nylon holes to their face powders.

Thirty years of breathing purified, sterilized, filtered air. Thirty years of drinking distilled water and swallowing synthetic food tablets had changed us. The only things we weren't allergic to were the metal and plastic and synthetics of our ship. This ship. We're allergic to Earth. That's funny, isn't it? Gregory began to rock back and forth, laughing the thin high laugh of hysteria.

James silently walked to a water hydrant and filled a plastic cup. He brought Gregory a small white pill. "'You wouldn't take this with the rest of us at supper. You'd better take it now. You need it.' Gregory nodded bleakly, sobering at once, and swallowed the pellet. He made a face after the water. "'Distilled,' he spat. "'Distilled. No flavour. No life. Like us. Distilled.'

If only we could have blasted off again. Frankston's voice came muffled through his hands. It wouldn't have made any difference where, anywhere or nowhere. No, our fine ship is obsolete and we're old, much too old. They have the space drive now. Men don't make thirty-year junkets into space and come back allergic to Earth. They go out, and in a month or two they're back with their hair still black and their eyes still bright and their uniforms still fit.

a month or two is all those crowds that cheered us they were proud of us and sorry for us because we'd been out thirty years and they'd never expected us back at all but it was convenient for space port better sarcasm tinged his voice they actually had to postpone the regular monthly transgalactic run to let us in with this big clumsy hulk

"Why didn't we ever see any of the new ships, either going out or coming back?" asked Gregory. Frankston shook his head. "You don't see a ship when it's in space drive. It's out of normal space-time dimensions. We had a smattering of the theory at cadet school. Anyway, if one did flash into normal space-time, say for instance coming in for a landing, the probability of us being at the same place at the same time was almost nil, two ships passing in the night, as the old saying goes."

Gregory nodded. "'I guess Trippett was the lucky one.' "'We didn't see Trippett die,' replied James. "'What was it?' asked Frankston. "'What killed Trippett so quickly, too? It was only outside a few minutes, like the rest of us, and eight hours later he was dead.' "'We couldn't be sure,' answered James.

Some virus. There were countless varieties. People living in a contaminated atmosphere all their lives build up a resistance to them. Sometimes a particularly virulent strain will produce an epidemic, but most people, if they're affected, will have a mild case of whatever it is and recover. But after thirty years in space, thirty years of breathing perfectly pure, uncontaminated air, Trippett had no antibodies in his bloodstream. The virus hit, and he died.

"But why didn't the rest of us get it?" asked Gregory. "We were lucky. Viruses are like that. Those people talked about building a home for us," muttered Frankston. "Why didn't they?" "It wouldn't have been any different," answered James gently. "It would have been the same. Almost an exact duplicate of the ship. Everything but the rockets. Same metal and plastic and filtered air and synthetic food. Couldn't have had wool rugs or downed pillows or smiling wives or fresh air or eggs for breakfast.

would have been just like this. So, since the ship was obsolete, they gave it to us, and a plot of ground to anchor it to. And we're home. They did the best they could for us. The very best they could. But I feel stifled. Shut in. The ship is large, Frankston. We all crowd into this section, because without each other we'd go mad. James kicked the edge of the magazine on the floor, and God were not allergic to decontaminated paper. They're still reading.

"You're getting old," said Gregory. "Someday one of us will be here alone." "God help him, then," answered James, with more emotion than was usual for him. During the latter part of the conversation the little red signal had been flashing persistently. Finally James saw it. Ross was in the outer lock. James threw the decontaminator switch and the signal winked out. Every trace of dust and pollen would have to be removed from Ross's suit before he could come inside the ship.

"It's like on an alien planet," commented Gregory. "Isn't that what this is to us, an alien planet?" asked Frankston, and neither of the other men dared answer his bitter question. A few minutes later Ross was back in the cabin and James helped him out of his spacesuit. "How are the geraniums, Ross?" asked Gregory. "Fine," said Ross enthusiastically. "They're doing just fine." He walked over to his bunk and lay down on his side so he could see out of the viewport.

There would be an hour left before darkness fell, an hour to watch the geraniums. They were tall and red, and swayed slightly in the evening breeze. End of story fifteen. Story sixteen of Fevers and Physicians in Space Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two This Lebervox recording is in the public domain. Part by Henry Sleesa Part One Sistone Diastole

The cardiophone listened, hummed and recorded, tracing a path of perilous peaks and precipices on the white paper. Relax, Dr. Rostov pleaded. Please relax, Mr. Monk. The eyes of Fletcher Monk replied. Rostov knew their language well enough to read the glaring messages they transmitted. Indignation. Don't use that commanding tone with me, Doctor. Protest. I am relaxed. Completely relaxed. Warning. Get me out of this electric chair, Rostov.

The physician sighed and clicked the apparatus off. Swiftly, but with knowing fingers, he disengaged his patient from the wire and rubber encumbrances of the reclining seat. Fletcher Monk sat up and rubbed his forearms, watching every movement the doctor made as he prepared to study the results of his examination. You're fussing, Rostov, he said coldly. My shirt. In a moment. Now, said Monk impatiently.

The physician shook his head sadly. He handed Monk his shirt and waited until the big man had buttoned it halfway down. Then he returned to the cardiophone for a more critical study. A fine analysis was hardly necessary. The alarming story had been told with the first measurements of the heart medicine. Cut it out, said Monk briskly. You've got that death-head look again, Rostov. If you want to say something, say it.

You were tight as a drum, said the doctor. That's going to influence my findings, you know, if you hadn't refused the narcotic, Fletcher Monk barked. I won't be drugged. It would have relaxed you. I was relaxed as I ever am, the other man said, candidly, and Rostov recognized the truth of his analysis. Monk lived in a world of taut muscles and nerves, stretched out just below the breaking point.

Tenseness was his trademark. There was no more elasticity in Monk's body than there was in the hard cash he accumulated so readily. "Well," the patient jeered, "what's the verdict, you damned sawbones? Don't you throw away my cigars? Don't you send me on a long sea voyage?" Rostov frowned. "Don't look so smug," Monk exploded. "I know you think there's something wrong with me. You can't wait to bury me." "You're sick, Mr. Monk," said the doctor. "You're very sick."

Monk glowered. You're wrong, he said, icily. You made a lousy diagnosis. What was that feeling you described? asked Rostov. Remember what you told me? Like a big black bird flapping its wings in your chest. Didn't that mean something to you, Mr. Monk? Industrialist paled. All right, get to the point, he said quietly. What did that gadget tell you? Bad news, said the doctor.

Your heart's been strained almost to bursting. It's working on willpower, Mr. Monk. Hardly anything else. Get to the point, Monk shouted. That is the point, Rastaf said stiffly. You have a serious heart condition, a dangerous condition. You've ignored eighty years of my advice, and now your heart is showing the effects. What can it do to me? Kill you, said the doctor bluntly. Frankly, I can't even promise that the usual precautions will do any good, but we have no other choice than to take them.

The human body is a miraculous affair, and even the most desperate damages sometimes can't prevent it from going on living. But I won't mince words with you, Mr. Monk. You're a direct sort of person, so I'm telling you directly. Your chances are slim." Monk sat down and put his black tie on distractedly. He sat deep in thought for a while and then said, "'How much would it cost to fix it?' "'What?' "'Money,' the big man cried. "'How much money would it take to get me repaired?'

but it's not the method of money. Don't give me that. Monk put his jacket on with a violent motion. I've learned better than that in my fifty years, Dr. Rostov. Money fixes everything. Everything. I could curdle your milk by telling you some of the things I've fixed with money. The physician shrugged. Money doesn't buy health, doesn't it? The patient gave an abrupt laugh. Money buys people, Dr. Rostov. It buys loyalty and disloyalty.

It buys friends and sells enemies. All these are commodities, Doctor. I found that out. The hard way. Mr. Monk, you don't know what I'm telling you. Your heart action is unreliable, and no amount of dollars can bring it back to normal. The industrialist stood up. You think the heart is incorruptible, eh? He snorted. Well, I think different. Someplace on Earth there's a man or a method that can fix me up. It'll take money to find the answer, that's for sure.

But I'll find it. Rostov put out his hand helplessly. You're being unreasonable, Mr. Monk. There is nothing on earth. All right, Fletcher Monk shouted. So maybe there's nothing on earth. His body trembled with his emotion. Then I'll go to the stars, if I have to.

Rostov started. "If you mean this gravity business." "What's that?" Monk froze. "What's that you said?" "This gravity thing," the doctor said. "This silly story about the Mars colony they've been spreading." "What silly story?" asked Monk, narrowing his eyes. "I haven't heard it. What do you mean?" Rostov regretted his words, but he knew it was too late to stop the industrialist from extracting the details from him. He made a despairing gesture and went over to his desk.

From the top drawer he withdrew a folded sheet torn from the pages of a daily newspaper that specialized in lurid articles and wild imaginings. Monk snatched it from the doctor's hand. Let me see that, he said. He turned the paper over in his hand until he found the red-penciled article the doctor had referred to. Mars boon to heart cases, says space doctor. Monk read the headline aloud and then looked at Rostov.

It's a misquotation, the physician said. Dr. Feasley never made such a bold statement. I've taken something out of context to make a sensational story. Let me see for myself, snapped Monk. He began to read. Space Medicine Association? Dr. Samuel Feasley Renowned? Here it is. The effects of Earth's gravitational pull on the body versus the relatively light gravitation encountered by the members of the Martian colony. Two-fifths the pull of Earth. Interesting speculation on the heart action.

He crushed the paper in his hands. "'By God!' he cried. "'Here's my answer, you gloomy old fool!' "'No, no,' said Rostov hurriedly. "'You don't know what you're saying.'

Fletcher Monk laughed loudly. "'I always know what I'm saying, Dr. Rostov. Here it is in black and white. Why should I die on Earth, when I can live on Mars?' "'But it's impossible. There are so many problems. Money solves problems.' "'Not this one,' said the doctor heatedly. "'Not the problem of acceleration. You'll never reach Mars alive.' Monk paused. "'What do you mean?' he blinked. "'The acceleration will kill you,' Rostov said in a shaking voice.'

Three Gs are enough to burst that sick heart of yours. An acceleration reaches a gravity of nine at one point. You'd never make it. I'll never make it here, said Monk, biting out the words. You told me that yourself. At least there's a chance, the doctor argued. A slim one, surely. But you're talking about almost certain death. How do you know? said Monk contemptuously. You've never had anything to do with space medicine. You're what they call a groundworm, Doc. Just like me.

You'll never even get aboard a spaceship. There's a rigid physical examination required. You couldn't pass it in a million years. It's suicide to think of it. Monk paced the floor. But if I did pass it, impossible. But if I did, Monk insisted. Would my chances for living be better on Mars? I suppose so. Your heart wouldn't have to work nearly so hard. You'd weigh less than ninety pounds.

That's worth a try, isn't it? He grasped the physician by the shoulders and shook him. Isn't it? He shouted. Mr. Monk, I can't let you even consider it. You can't! Monk looked at him threateningly.

Are you dictating my affairs now, Doctor? Are you forgetting who I am? The Mars Colony is a working organization, the Doctor said desperately. The life there is hard, rugged. Hard, Monk roared. Hardness and monk are synonymous words, Doctor Rostov. Don't you read the papers? Don't you know what they call me? The Iron Millionaire, he laughed. And there's something else you're not aware of. I own a lot of this country, but I also own a good piece of the Mars Colony. Just let him try and stop me.

Bastard threw his hands in the air. You're completely off balance, Mr. Monk. What you're thinking about is impossible in a dozen different ways. But I'm not going to worry about it. You'll never get near a space vessel. That remains to be seen, said Monk. The best thing for you, the doctor continued, is to start slowing down. Right now. Today. And the first project we have to work on is the loss of some thirty or forty pounds. You're much too heavy for that heart of yours. Monk didn't appear to be listening.

Thoughtfully, he reached inside his coat and brought out a long black cigar. He bit off the end and spat it onto the polished floor of the examining room. "'You'll have to lose those, too,' the doctor cautioned. "'Cigars are out.' Fletcher Monk jammed the cigar between his teeth. He looked at the doctor and smiled grimly. "'Okay, Doc,' he said. "'I'm going to follow your advice. And the first thing we're going to do is arrange the loss of some weight.' He lit the cigar and puffed heavily.

"'About a hundred and thirty pounds,' he said. Monk put his hat on his head and walked out. He felt better already. Monk found his informant in the person of a Space Lane employee named Horner. Garcia, the converted hood that now assisted Monk in his personal affairs, brought the Space Lane man into the industrialist's office and gestured him into a chair.

All right, said Monk. Garcia's told you what I want. Now let's go. He picked up a paper from his desk and began to read off the list of typewritten names. Houston, he said. All good, said Horner. He's a dispatch officer. Prusty old guy. Spent eleven years in space and he's plenty mean. I don't care about his disposition, said Monk testily. Can he be bought? Horner shook his head. I doubt it. All right then, Monk rattled the paper. How about Roth?

Uh, he's the chief medical officer. Very army. He helped draft the original physical standards for spaceflight. Davis, said Monk. Well, Horner looked pensive. He doesn't mind a fast buck now and then. But he's only a supplies officer. He couldn't do anything about smuggling you aboard. Christy?

Don't know much about Christie. He's a pilot and pretty close-mouthed. Spends most of his time between trips in the bosom of his family, so to speak. Which is maybe understandable, because he's got a wife that is absolutely— Skip that junk, said Garcia toughly. Boss wants facts. Keep out of this, you, said Monk. He smiled humorously at Horner. What about Christie's wife? Well, she's, I mean, she's a looker, understand? A real beauty.

only from what i heard around the base she's a groundworm's delight if you know what i mean i don't know what you mean said monk patiently well with a husband away six months out of every year and a swell-looking doll like that figure it out for yourself monk grunted i'll keep it in mind he said now how about this fellow

"'Maybe there's something there,' said Horner. "'He's a doctor, too. Handles most of the routine physicals. I heard a rumor about some pretty unethical practices he was mixed up in before he took this job. There may be nothing to it, but if you could look into it—' "'I will,' said Monk abruptly. He handed the paper over to the Space Lane employee. "'Anybody else here you want to tell me about?' Horner looked over the list. "'That's about it, I guess,' he said. "'Nobody here can do you any good.'

But you look into this guy, Forsh. He may be your boy. Monk smiled tightly. Pay him, he said to Garcia. When the detectives handed Fletcher Monk the completed report on the activities of Diana Christie, he read it through thoroughly, savoring each juicy word between puffs of his cigar. The report was excellently constructed. It was painstaking in its detail.

named names places times events and even recorded certain revealing conversations it gave the background of each of mrs christie's lovers even down to their income and place of birth it was a marvellous document in monk's estimation and not the first of its kind he had had prepared a powerful piece of persuasion

With great satisfaction he replaced the volume in an envelope and buzzed for Garcia. His instructions to the assistant were crisp and definite. The assignment was the kind that Garcia both understood and relished. He took the report from Monk's hands and went on his way to call on the lady in question. Bill Christie, recently returned from a Mars flight, was both amazed and disturbed by the strange request his beautiful young wife made of him. It was awful, illegal, even criminal.

to arrange for the certification of a man with a weak heart, to virtually counterfeit the medical records of the Space Lane Company. But he was her uncle, Diana Christie pleaded, the only relative she had in the world, the only one she loved outside of Christie himself. He must help her. He must give her poor sick uncle a chance to make a new life for himself in the Mars colony. He wouldn't do it. He couldn't.

but she cried with great wet tears streaming down the smooth plains of her face didn't he love her wasn't this one little favour worth doing for the sake of her happiness no one would be hurt by it the motives were altruistic after all but the risk

There wasn't any risk, she assured him. Her uncle was wealthy, very wealthy. He could supply all the money Bill would need. If what people said about Dr. Forch was true, he might be approached. That would make it simple, wouldn't it? It was such a small thing he could do. But how she would appreciate it! How she would love him for it! And of course, finally, with her cruel arms about his neck and her soft cheek pressed against his, he replied, "'Now do it!'

Monk handed his luggage to the official at the Space Lane flight desk, but he kept the brown leather bag in his hand, and no amount of argument could separate him from it. It was easy to understand his devotion to this particular piece of personal property. It contained some four million dollars in cash. "'And maybe the youngest man on Mars!' he smiled to himself as he walked onto the loading platform. "'But I'll be the richest!'

aboard the ship the pilot bill christie gave him a worried glance and assisted him into the contour chair christie showed concern you feel okay mr wheeler he asked monk smiled back but not in answer to the question he enjoyed the pseudonym because it was the name of an old competitor long since buried beneath monk's superior talents in the business of making money

"'Try and relax as much as you can,' said Christie. "'We'll give you a mild sedative before blast-off. Remember there are going to be distinct variations in the g-forces as we accelerate, so try to remember the breathing instructions.' "'I will,' said Monk. "'Once more, though. There'll be a steady build-up of acceleration for about ninety seconds. We'll go rapidly from zero gravity to nine.'

Breathe deeply and regularly on the way up. Then when you feel a normal amount of pressure, hold your breath. Don't let it out until you feel the G-physes increase again. I understand, Monk nodded. We'll get up to a peak of eight Gs, and hold that for about two minutes. Do the same thing. Hold your breath when you start accelerating once more. It'll be easy after that. The pilot made a final check of Monk's G-suit and straps. Then he clapped the industrialist on the shoulder and strode off.

Twenty minutes later, when they were ready for blast-off, a warning bell sounded throughout the ship. With a deafening roar of its rocket motors, the great vessel lifted itself laboriously from the ground, squatting on flame, filling Fletcher Monk's mind with a first real sense of fear since he learned the grim facts of his ailment in Rostov's office. Then the acceleration began, and in less than a minute Monk knew a taste of hell.

His vision blurred as the crushing force of naked speed pasted him against the contour seat. Consciousness began to leave him, but not soon enough, for there in the tortured imaginings of his pain-constricted brain came the ugly black bird again, shrieking horribly and perching itself on his chest. Its huge claws raked his ribs, and its dripping beak fastened itself on his throat.

Now he recognized the species for what it was: a vulture, a bird of prey, unwilling to be robbed of its earth victim, trying to pinion him to the planet with the strength of its anger. Its great wings flapped, flapped, flapped, beating against his body, flooding it with unrelieved anguish. Then Monk gasped. Gone. The bird was gone. A moment's peace, a moment's freedom from torment.

No, the vulture returned, bent on its evil purpose. It wouldn't be denied. It raked its razor-sharp claws across Monk's shoulder, dug its beak into his chest, flapping, flapping. Fletcher Monk screamed. He opened his eyes, admitted a rush of clean air gratefully into his lungs. It's a miracle, said Bill Christie. Nothing more. You were in a bad way, Mr. Will, but you'll be okay now.

"'Thank you. Thank you,' panted Fletcher Monk. "'We'll be on our way now. We'll reach the Big Bird in a matter of minutes.' "'The Big Bird!' said Monk in horror. Christy smiled. "'That's what we call the space station. We'll pick up some supplies and fuel there, and then we'll take off again. But you won't have to be concerned about the acceleration on the second blast-off. You can take that easily.' "'Are you sure?' said Monk anxiously. "'Positive. There won't be any gravitational pull to overcome this time. You'll be fine.'

"'I appreciate this, Christy. I won't forget your help.' "'That's okay, Mr. Wheeler. It makes my wife happy.' "'Yes.' Monk felt well enough now to give the pilot a sardonic smile. "'She's a wonderful girl, Diana. A wonderful girl.' "'You're telling me?' said Bill Christy. The space suit that Fletcher Monk had been assigned before the descent on Mars was a little tight-fitting for his comfort. He wondered what life would be like in this eternal bulky costume.

but he was comforted by the picture of the Mars colony he had received back on Earth, a labyrinth of airtight interiors, burrowing their way over and into the planet, served by gigantic oxygen tanks. The network of buildings had been expanding every year, until now it covered some hundred miles of the planet's surface. It spent most of his time safely indoors, he promised himself, while he wouldn't need the cumbersome trappings of space clothing. His life had been an indoor affair anyway, back on Earth.

The passengers were led into the quarantine section, where they would spend their first three days on Mars. It was a relief to Monk to shed the heavy spacesuit in the air-filled room, and it was a revelation, for with helmet and boots removed he found himself almost floating with each step he took, moving feather-light over the ground. He was surprised and a little unnerved at first, but then he remembered that this feeble gravitation was the preserver of his health, and he laughed aloud.

"'Something funny?' said the man at the front desk. It was a young man, about thirty, but there was an ageless competence in his features. Monk smiled. "'Just feeling good, that's all.' He patted the bound of the bag in his hand. "'Name?' "'Well, it'll be listed as Wheeler.' The official scanned the list. "'Who it is? Ben Wheeler?' He looked at Monk curiously. "'How old are you, Mr. Wheeler?' "'Fifty,' said Monk. "'Pretty old for the colony, aren't you, Mr. Wheeler?'

Monk smirked. "'The first thing we have to do is get rid of that wheelie business, young man. My name is Monk. Fletcher Monk.' The official looked puzzled. "'I don't get it. Why the phony name?' "'I used an alias for reasons of my own. Now I'm telling you my real name. Monk.' The man shrugged and wrote something on the manifest. "'I don't expect you to cheer,' said Monk sarcastically. "'But you could show some reaction.'

"'What does that mean?' Monk flushed. "'Don't tell me you never heard of me. I am Fletcher Monk. I own half of this place.' "'So?' "'What do you mean, so? My firm controls thirty percent of the mineral rights of the colony. We ship you practically all of your earth supplies. We can buy or sell this place at the drop of a quotation.' "'Listen, bud,' the young man seemed annoyed, "'if you're trying to impress me, forget it. And if you're threatening my job, you can't take it.' "'Insolence!' Monk raged. "'Who's your commanding officer? I want to see him right away.'

"'My pleasure,' the official grinned. "'Hey, Gregorio!' he called to the man at the desk behind him. "'Call Captain Moore. Danderman here wants a word with him.' Monk took a seat, while the other passengers went through the initial formalities. He sat there, fuming, until a tall man with an untrimmed beard entered the room. He took off his helmet and spoke briefly to the young man at the front desk, then looked over at Monk and came to his side. "'Mr. Monk,' he said, "'I'm Captain Moore.'

nice to meet you captain i've just had a little conversation with your official greeter he smiled man to man not a very friendly chap we forget a lot about manners up here said the captain not smiling back we're kept pretty busy i realize that of course said the industrialist but i would expect a little common courtesy

You'll earn a right to courtesy out here, Mr. Monk, the captain snapped. The Mars colony lives on labor, and that's our first consideration. Courtesy comes about last on our list. We're in a battle here, 24 hours and 37 minutes a day. We've got to fight to keep it alive, and we've got to wrestle with a whole new planet if we want to unearth its secrets. Courtesy is a distinct privilege on Mars, Mr. Monk. Monk bristled.

"I don't quite get your meaning, Captain," he said indignantly. "But don't expect to pull rank or a holy attitude on me. In case you didn't realize it, I'm in a position to exert a great deal of influence over your little colony. And don't think I won't use it," Captain shrugged. "Use it?" he said. "Go on. See if your influence really holds up here. Remember, Mr. Monk, you came to us of your own volition, and you can always turn around and go back." "Impossible," said Monk, blanching. "I'm going to live here, for good."

Then you'll have to adjust to our way, said the Captain Gremley. You'll have to learn our way of doing things and cooperate a hundred percent. And the first thing you'll have to do is take a work assignment. Work? Monk gasped. Why should I? You can't force me to work for you. Remember Captain John Smith, Mr. Monk. He said the same thing to his colonists that I'm going to say to you now. If you don't work, you don't eat.

"But what could I do? I'm no scientist, I'm no—" "There's plenty to do," the captain interrupted. "And most of it is dirty physical labour. We have a thousand mineralogists, chemists, geologists, botanists, physicists, meteorologists, and a lot more technical people at work on this planet. I can use all the help they can get, don't worry about that." "But I'm Fletcher Monk," the industrialist said. "I won't go grubbing around this filthy place. You can't enslave me like some chain-gang prisoner."

You'll do what you have to do, said the captain, and you'll probably even like it. There's a wonderland outside this door, he said enthusiastically. A crazy, wild, improbable wonderland, where we never see a rainfall, where the plants grow scarlet and clouds chase you down the street.

We're uncovering marvelous things here. We have to fight, and sometimes die to do it. But frankly, we enjoy the work." He gave Monk his first smile. "But he's a prisoner on Mars, Mr. Monk. We're all volunteers." He started to leave, but Monk stopped him. "Wait," he said, licking his lips. "I have one more thing to say." He lowered his vice. "I can make a deal with you, Captain. A deal like you never had in your whole life." He patted the brown leather bag. "Name your price," he said.

And don't be shy about the figure." "What do you mean?" "You know what I'm talking about, Mr. Moore. Money—real, hard-earth dollars—just name the amount it would take to buy a few small creature comforts around this place, and the right to live my own life." "You can't buy away out of working, mister." "Don't give me that. You'll sing a different tune when I tell you how much is in this bag. All you have to do is quote a figure and it's yours." "Sorry, Mr. Monk," said the captain tersely. "What do you mean by sorry?"

i'm on a lifetime assignment here and so are practically all the members of the colony it's a job that can barely be completed in a lifetime and the economy we operate under doesn't call for money your dollars are so much excess baggage on mars what are you talking about i grasped i'm offering you a fortune money's money you fool you can paper the walls of your quarters with it said the officer sharply see if it helps keep out the martian cold that's about all the usefulness it has up here

Wildly, Fletcher Monk unlocked the bag and dipped inside. His hand came out with a fistful of green bills. "Look!" he cried. "I'm not joking about this. Look at it. Doesn't the sight of it mean anything to you? It brings back some memories," said the Captain, smiling. "That's about all. Now you'd better go back to your desk and get your quarantine instructions." He saluted the industrialist casually and turned away. "Okay, Mr. Moneybags," said the young official as the Captain left. "Let's get acquainted.

A year later, Captain Harlan Moore presided at the dedication of the first fully equipped hospital erected on the planet Mars. It was an impressive affair, despite the fact that it took place in a small crowded chamber, and that the attending assemblage was still begrimed by their day's work. When the ceremonies were complete, Captain Moore made an inspection of the new medical center, and one of his first stops was the bedside of Fletcher Monk.

we knew he wasn't a well man said the young physician who stood by the bed taking monk's pulse he watched as the captain picked up the chart hooked to the edge of the bed yes said moore he was a very sick man when he first came to the colony and more wise than one he added

The doctor looked perplexed. "'This illness still surprises me,' he said. "'I have examined him almost monthly for the past year, and frankly I would have bet on his survival. He began to improve rapidly, physically, anyway. It might have been the lesser gravity or the healthier life,' he looked at the captain curiously. "'Yet he wasn't assigned to any over-strenuous duties.' "'Now he wasn't,' said the captain.'

We don't want anybody to undertake work they can't handle. His labor was hardly physical. He worked in the geological and botanical groups, but not in the field. He did classifying and clerical work. Then that won't account for the trouble. Perhaps it does, in a way. The captain bent over the puffy, chalk-white face of the industrialist, listening to his shallow breathing. He was never happy doing it. He had different ideas about himself from we did. He never understood what we were doing or why.

"'The greatest mystery of them all,' said the physician, shaking his head. "'What is?' "'The human body. It's incredible how much we've learned about the physical world, and even the physical features of our own construction. But there's still a mystery we haven't penetrated.' The captain smiled. "'That doesn't sound like you.' "'I know,' the young physician answered. "'But when I see a case like this, a man breathing his life away for a reason I really can't understand—'

The doctor rubbed the back of his head. I know it's crazy and old-fashioned, and doesn't make the least bit of sense in these scientific times, Captain, but if anyone were to ask me, off the record and completely unofficially, I could only give them one honest diagnosis of this case. I think this man is dying of a broken heart. End of Story 16. Story 17 of Fevers and Physicians in Space Ed Reed Shod Sci-Fi Volume 2

This Lebevox recording is in the public domain. The Happy Unfortunate by Robert Silverberg Rolf Decker stared incredulously at the slim, handsome young Earther who was approaching the steps of Rolf's tumbling-down spacer-town shack. He's got no ears, Rolf noted in unbelief. After five years in space, Rolf had come home to a strangely altered world, and he found it hard to accept. Another Earther appeared.

This one was about the same size, and gave the same impression of fragility. This one had ears, all right, and a pair of gleaming two-inch horns on his forehead as well. I'll be eternally roasted, Wolf thought. Now I've seen everything. Both Earthers were dressed in neat, golden-laid green tunics, costumes which looked terribly out of place amid the filth of Spacetown, and their hair was dyed a light green to match. He'd been scrutinizing them for several moments before they became aware of him.

They both spotted him at once, and the one with no ears turned to his companion and whispered something. Rolf, leaning forward, strained to hear. "'Beautiful, isn't he? That's the biggest one I've ever seen. Come over here, won't you?' The horned one called in a soft, gentle voice, which contrasted oddly with the raucous bellowing Rolf had been accustomed to hearing in space. "'We'd like to talk to you.'

Just then, Cannaday emerged from the door of the shack and limped down to the staircase. "'Hey, Rolf,' he called, "'leave those things alone. Let me find out what they want first, huh?' "'Can it be any good, whatever it is?' Cannaday growled. "'Tell them to get out of here before I throw them back to wherever they came from, and make it first.' The two Earthers looked at each other uneasily. Rolf walked toward them. "'He doesn't like Earthers, that's all,' Rolf explained. "'But he won't do anything but yell.'

"'Kennedy spat in disgust, "'turned and limped back inside the shack. "'I didn't know you were wearing horns,' "'Wolf said. "'The earth had flushed. "'New style,' he said. "'Very expensive.' "'Oh,' Wolf said, "'I'm new here, "'and I just got back. "'Five years in space. "'When I left you, people looked all alike. "'Now you wear horns.' "'It's the new trend,' said the airless one. "'We're individs. "'When you left, the conforms were in power, "'style-wise. "'But the new surgeons could do almost anything, you see.'

The shadow of a frown crossed Rolf's face. "'Anything?' "'Almost. They can't transform an Earther into a Spacer, and I don't think they ever will.' "'Or vice versa,' Rolf asked. They snickered. "'What Spacer would want to become an Earther? Who would give up that life out in the stars?' Rolf said nothing. He kicked at the heap of litter in the filthy street. "'What Spacer indeed,' he thought.'

He suddenly realized that the two little earthers were staring at him as if he were some sort of beast. He probably weighed as much as both of them, he knew, and at six-four he was better than a foot tall. They looked like children next to him, like toys. The savage blast of acceleration would snap their flimsy bodies like toothpicks. "'What places have you been to?' the airless one asked. "'Two years on Mars, one on Venus, one on the Belt, one on Neptune,' Wolf recited. "'I didn't like Neptune.'

It was best in the belt. Just our one ship, prospecting. He made a pile and series enough to buy out. I shot half of it on Neptune. Still have plenty left, but I don't know what I can do with it. He didn't add that he'd come home puzzled, wondering why he was a spacer instead of an earther, condemned to live in filthy spacer town when York was just across the river. They were looking at his shabby clothes, at the dirty brownstone hovel he lived in, an antique of a house four or five centuries old.

"'You mean you're rich?' the Earthers said. "'Sure,' Rolf said. "'Every Spacer is. So what? What can I spend it on? My money's banked on Mars and Venus. Thanks to the law I can't legally get it to Earth, so I live in Spacertown.' "'Have you ever seen an Earth a city?' the Ereless One asked, looking around at the quiet streets of Spacertown, with big powerful men sitting idly in front of every house.'

"'I used to live in York,' Rolf said. "'My grandmother was an Earther. She brought me up there. I haven't been back there since I left for space.' "'You forced me out of York,' he thought. "'I'm not part of their species. Not one of them.' The two Earthers exchanged glances. "'Can we interest you in a suggestion?' They drew in their breath as if they expected to be knocked sprawling. Kennedy appeared at the door of the shack again. "'Rolf! Hey, you turning into an Earther! Get rid of them two cuties before there's trouble!'

Wolf turned and saw a little nut of spacers standing on the other side of the street, watching him with curiosity. He glared at them. "'I'll do whatever I damn well please,' he shouted across. He turned back to the two earthers. "'Now, what is it you want?' "'I'm giving a party next week,' the airless one said. "'I'd like you to come. I'd like to get the spacer slant on life.' "'Party?' Wolf repeated. "'You mean dancing and games and stuff like that?'

"You'll enjoy it," the Earther said coaxingly, "and would all love to have a real spacer there. When is it?" "A week. I have ten days left of my leave. All right," he said, "I'll come." He accepted the Earther's card, looked at it mechanically, saw the name "Carol Quentin," and pocketed it. "Sure," he said, "I'll be there." The Earthers moved toward their little jet car, smiling gratefully. As Rolf crossed the street, the other spacers greeted him with cold, puzzled stares.

Cannaday was almost as tall as Rolf and even uglier. Rolf's eyebrows were bold and heavy. Cannaday's thick, contorted, bushy clumps of hair

Canaday's nose had been broken long before in some barroom brawl, his cheekbones bulged, his face was strong and hard. More important, his left foot was twisted and gnarled beyond hope of redemption by the most skilful surgeon. He had been crippled in a jet explosion three years before and was of no use to the space lines any more.

They'd pensioned him off. Part of the deal was the dilapidated old house in Spacetown, which he operated as a boarding house for transient spaces. What do you want to do that for? Canaday asked. Haven't those earthies pushed you around enough so you have to go dance at one of their wild parties? Leave me alone, Wolf muttered.

You like this filth you live in. Spacetown is just a ghetto, that's all. The others have pushed you right into the muck. You're not even a human being to them, just some sort of trained ape. And now you're going to go and entertain them. I thought you had brains, Wolf. Shut up, he dashed his glass against the table. It bounced off and dropped to the floor where it shattered. Kennedy's girl, Laney, entered the room at the sound of the crash.

She was tall and powerful-looking, with straight black hair and the strong cheekbones that characterized the spaces. Immediately she stood up and began shoveling up the broken glass. "'That wasn't smart, Rolf,' she said. "'That'll cost you half a credit. Wasn't worth it, was it?' Rolf laid the coin on the edge of the table. "'Tell your pal to shut up, then. If he doesn't stop icing me, I'll fix his other foot for him. You can buy him a dolly.' She looked from one to the other. "'It's bothering you two now.'

A couple of Earthers were here this morning, Kennedy said, slumming. They took a fancy to a young friend here and invited him to one of their parties. He accepted. You what? Don't go, Rolf. You're crazy to go. Why am I crazy? He tried to control his voice. Why should we keep ourselves apart from the Earthers? Why shouldn't the two races get together? She put down her tray and sat next to him. They're more than two races, she said patiently. Earther and Spacer are two different species, Rolf.

carefully, genetically separated. "'They're small and weak. We're big and powerful. You've been bred for going to space. They're the Kerstoffs, the ones who are too weak to go. The line between the two groups is too strong to break.' "'And they treat us like dirt, like animals,' Kennedy said. "'But they're the dirt. They were the ones who couldn't make it. Don't go to the party,' Leney said. "'They just want to make fun of you. Look at the big ape,' they'll say.'

Wolf stood up. "'You don't understand, neither of you does. I'm part Earther,' Wolf said. "'My grandmother on my mother's side. She raised me as an Earther. She wanted me to be an Earther, but I kept getting bigger and uglier all the time. She took me to a plastic surgeon once, figuring he'd make me look like an Earther. He was a little man. I don't know what he looked like to start with, but some other surgeon had made him clean-cut and straight-nosed and thin-lipped, like all the other Earthers. I was bigger than he was, twice as big, and I was only fifteen.'

He looked at me and felt my bones and measured me. Healthy little ape, those were the words he used. He told my grandmother I'd get bigger and bigger, that no amount of surgery could make me small and handsome, that I was fit only for space and didn't belong in York. So I left for space the next morning. I see, Lainey said quietly. I didn't say goodbye, I just left. There's no place for me in York. I couldn't pass myself off as an earther anymore. But I'd like to go back and see what the old life was like, now that I know what it's like to be on the other side for a while.

"'It'll hurt when you find out, Rolf. I'll take that chance, but I want to go. Maybe my grandmother will be there. The surgeons made her young and pretty again every few years. She looked like my sister when I left.' Lainey nodded her head. "'There's no point arguing with him, Kennedy. He has to go back there and find out. So let him alone.' Rolf smiled. "'Thanks for understanding.' He took out Quentin's card and turned it over and over in his hand.'

Worf went to York on foot, dressed in the best clothes, with his face as clean as it had been in some years. Spacetown was just across the river from York, and the bridges spanning the river were bright and gleaming in the mid-afternoon sun. The bombs had landed in York during the long-forgotten war, but somehow they had spared the sprawling borough across the river.

and so York had been completely rebuilt. Once the radioactivity had been purged from the land, while what was now a spacer town consisted mostly of buildings that dated back to the twentieth century, York had been the world's greatest seaport. Now it was the world's greatest spaceport. The sky was thick with incoming and outgoing liners. The passengers on the ship usually stayed at York, which had become an even greater metropolis than it had been before the bomb.

The crew crossed the river to Spacetown, where they could find their own kind. York and Spacetown were like two separate planets. There were three bridges spanning the river, but most of the time they went unused, except by spacemen going back home, or by spacemen going to the spaceport for embarkation. There was no regular transportation between the two cities. To get from Spacetown to York, you could borrow a jet car, or you could walk. Ralph walked. He enjoyed the trip.

"I'm going back home," he thought as he paced along the gleaming arc of the bridge, dressed in his Sunday best. He remembered the days of his own childhood, his parentless childhood. His earliest memory was of a fight at the age of six or so. He had stood off what seemed like half the neighborhood, ending the battle by picking up an older bully much feared by everyone and heaving him over a fence. When he told his grandmother about the way he had won the fight, she cried for an hour and never told him why.

but they never picked on him again, though he knew the other boys had jeered at him behind his back as he grew bigger and bigger over the years. Ape, they called him. Ape, but never to his face. He approached the york end of the bridge. A guard was waiting there. An earther guard, small and frail, but with a sturdy-looking blaster at his hip. "'Going back, spacer?' Rolf started. How did the guard know? And then he realized that all the guard meant was, "'Are you going back to your ship?'

No, no, I'm going to a party. Cal Quinton's house. Tell me another, spacer. The guard's voice was light and derisive. A swift poke in the ribs would break him in half, Rolf thought. I'm serious. Quinton invited me. Here's his card. If this is a joke, it'll mean trouble. But go ahead. I'll take your word for it. Rolf marched on past the guard almost nonchalantly. He looked at the address on the card. 12406 Kenman Road.

He rooted around in his fading memory of York, but he found the details had blurred under the impact of five years of Mars and Venus and the Belt and Neptune. He did not know where Kenman Road was. The glowing street signs were not much help either. One said 287th Street and the other said 72nd Avenue. Kenman Road might be anywhere.

He walked on a block or two. The streets were antiseptically clean, and he had the feeling that his boots, which had lately trod in Spacered Town, were leaving dirt marks along the street. He did not look back to see. He looked at his wrist-crown. It was getting late, and Kenman Road might be anywhere. He turned into a busy thoroughfare, conscious that he was attracting attention. The streets here were crowded with little people who barely reached his chest. They were all about the same height, and most of them looked alike.

A few had had radical surgical alterations, and every one of these was different. One had a unicorn-like horn, another an extra eye which cunningly resembled his real ones. The Earthers were looking at him furtively, as they would at a tiger or an elephant strolling down a main street. "'Where are you going, spacer?' said a voice in the middle of the street. Rolf's first impulse was to snarl out a curse and keep moving, but he realized that the question was a good one, and one whose answer he was trying to find out for himself. He turned.

Another policeman stood on the edge of the walkway. "'Are you lost?' The policeman was short and delicate-looking. Rolf produced his card. The policeman studied it. "'What business do you have with Quinton?' "'Just tell me how to get there,' Rolf said. "'I'm in a hurry.' The policeman backed up a step. "'All right, take it easy,' he pointed to a kiosk. "'Take the subcar here. There's a stop at Kenman Road. You can find your way from there.'

I'd rather walk it, Rolf said. He didn't want to have to stand the strain of riding in a subcar with a bunch of curious, staring earthers. Fine with me, the policeman said. It's about two hundred blocks to the north. Got a good pair of legs? Never mind, Rolf said. I'll take the subcar. Kenman Road was a quiet little street in an expensive-looking end of York. 12406 was a towering building which completely overshadowed everything else on the street.

As Rolf entered the door, a perfumed little earther with a flashing diamond where his left eye should have been and a skin-stained bright purple appeared from nowhere. "'We've been waiting for you. Come on, Carl will be delighted that you're here.' The elevator zoomed up so quickly that Rolf thought for a moment that he was back in space, but it stopped suddenly at the sixty-second floor, and as the door swung open the sounds of wild revelry drifted down the hall.

Rolf had a brief moment of doubt when he pictured Laney and Kennedy at this very moment playing cards in their mouldering hovel while he walked down this plaster-lined corridor back into a world he had left behind. Quentin came out into the hall to greet him. Rolf recognized him by the missing ears. His skin was now subdued blue to go with his orange robe. "'I am so glad you came,' the little earther bubbled. "'Come on in and I'll introduce you to everyone.'

The door opened photoelectrically as they approached. Quentin seized him by the hand and dragged him in. There was a sound of laughter and of shouting. As he entered it all stopped, suddenly as if it had been shut off. Rolf stared at them quizzically from under his lowering brows, and they looked at him with ill-concealed curiosity. They seemed divided into two groups. Clustered at one end of the long hall was a group of earthers who seemed completely identical, all with the same features, looking like so many dolls in a row.

These were the Earthers he remembered, the ones whom the plastic surgeons had hacked at and hewn until they all conformed to the prevailing concept of beauty. Then at the other end was a different group. They were all different. Some had glittering jewels set in their foreheads. Others had no lips, no hair, extra eyes, three nostrils. They were a weird and frightening group, highest product of the plastic surgeon's art. Both groups were staring silently at Rolf.

"'Friends, this is Wolf—Wolf Decker,' Wolf said after a pause. He had almost forgotten his own last name. "'Wolf Decker, just back from outer space. I've invited him to join us tonight. I think you'll enjoy meeting him.' The stony silence slowly dissolved into murmurs of polite conversation as the party-goers adjusted to the presence of the new car. They seemed to be discussing the matter earnestly among themselves, as if Quentin had done something unheard of by bringing a spacer into an earther party.'

A tall girl with blonde hair drifted up to him. "'Ah, Yana,' Quentin said. He turned to Rolf. "'This is Yana. She asked to be your companion at the party. She's very interested in space, and things connected with it.' "'Things connected with it,' Rolf thought. "'Meaning me.' He looked at her. She was as tall an earther as he had yet seen, and probably suffered for it when there were no spaces around. Furthermore, he suspected her height was accentuated for the evening by special shoes.'

She was not of the individ persuasion, because her face was well shaped, with smooth, even features, with no individualist distortion. Her face was unstained. She wore a clinging off-the-breast tunic. Quite a dish, Rolf decided. He began to see that he might enjoy this party. The other guests began to approach timidly, now that the initial shock of his presence had worn off.

They asked silly little questions about space, questions which showed they had only a superficial interest in him, and were treating him as a sort of talking dog. He answered as many as he could, looking down at their little painted faces with concealed contempt. They think as little of me as I do of them. The thought hit him suddenly, and his broad face creased in a smile at the irony. Then the music started.

The knot of earthers slowly broke up and drifted away to dance. He looked at Yana, who had stood patiently at his side through all this. I don't dance, he said. I never learned how. He watched the other couples moving gracefully around the floor, looking for all the world like an assemblage of puppets. He stared in the dim light, watching the couples clinging to each other as they rocked through the motions of the dance. He stood against the wall, wearing his ugliness like a shield.

He saw the great gulf which separated him from the Earthers spreading before him, as he watched the dancers and the gay chatter and the empty badinage and the furtive handholding and everything else from which he was cut off. The bizarre Individs were dancing together. He noticed one man putting an extra arm to full advantage, and the almost identical conforms had formed their own group again. Rolf wondered how they'd torn each other apart when they all looked alike.

"'Come on,' Yana said. "'I'll show you how to dance.' He turned to look at her with her glossy blonde hair and even features. She smiled prettily, revealing white teeth. "'Probably newly purchased,' Rolf wondered. "'Actually, I do know how to dance,' Rolf said. "'But I do it so badly.' "'So it doesn't matter?' she said gaily. "'Come on.' She took his arm. "'Maybe she doesn't think I look like an ape,' he thought. "'She doesn't treat me the way the others do. "'But why am I so ugly, and why is she so pretty?'

He looked at her and she looked at him, and he felt her glance on his stubbly face with its ferocious teeth and burning yellowish eyes. He didn't want her to see him at all. He wished he had no face. He folded her in his arms, feeling her warmth radiate through him. She was very tall, he realized, almost as tall as a spacer woman, but with none of the harsh ruggedness of the women of Spacertown. They danced, she well, he clumsily.

When the music stopped, she guided him to the entrance of a veranda. He walked outside into the cool night air. The lights of the city obscured most of the stars, but a few still showed, and the moon hung high above York. He could dimly make out the lights of Spacertown across the river, and he thought again of Laney and Cannaday, and wished Cannaday could see him now with this beautiful earther next to him. "'You must get lonely in space,' she said after a while.

"'I do,' he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. "'But it's whereby long. I'm bred for it.' She nodded. "'Yes, and any of those so-called men inside would give ten years of his life to be able to go to space. But yet you say it's lonely. Those long rides for the night,' he said, "'they get you down. You want to be back among people, so you come back. You come back, and what do you come back to?' "'I know,' she said softly. "'I've seen space at town.'

Why must it be that way? he demanded. Why is space so lucky and so wretched all at once? Let's not talk about it now, she said. I'd like to kiss it, he thought, but my face is rough, and I'm rough and ugly, and she'd push me away. I remember the pretty little Eartha girls who ran laughing away from me when I was thirteen and fourteen, before I went to space. You don't have to be lonely, she said. One of her perfect eyebrows lifted just a little.

Maybe someday you'll find someone who cares, Wolf. Someday, maybe. Yeah, he said. Someday, maybe. But he knew it was all wrong. Could he bring this girl to Spacetown with him? No, she must be merely playing a game, looking for an evening's diversion. Something new. Make love to a spacer. He fell silent, and he watched her again. And she watched him. He heard her breath rising and falling evenly. Not at all like his own thick gasps.

After a while he stepped close to her, put his arm around her, tilted her head into the crook of his elbow, bent, and kissed her. As he did it, he saw he was botching it just like everything else. He had come too close, and his heavy boot was pressing on the tip of her shoe, and he had not quite landed square on her lips, but still he was close to her. He was reluctant to break it up, but he felt she was only half responding, not giving anything of herself, while he had given all. He drew back a step.

She did not have time to hide the expression of distaste that involuntarily crossed her face. He watched the expression on her face as she realized the kiss was over. He watched her silently. "'Someday, maybe,' he said. She stared at him, not hiding the fear that was starting to grow on her face. He felt a cold chill deep in his stomach, and it grew until it passed through his throat and into his head.'

"'Yeah,' he said. "'Someday, maybe. But not you. Not anyone who's just playing games. That's all. You want something to tell your friends about. That's why you volunteered for tonight's assignment. It's all you can do to keep from laughing at me. But you're sticking to it. I don't want any of it, hear me? Get away!' She stepped back to pace. "'You ugly, clumsy clown! You ape!' Tears began to spoil the flawless mask of her face.'

Blinded with anger, he grabbed roughly for her arm, but she broke away and dashed back inside. She was trying to collect me, he thought. Her hobby, interesting dates. She wanted to add me to her collection, an experience. Calmly he walked to the end of the veranda and stared off into the night, choking his rage. He watched the moon making its dead wide across the sky, and stared at the sprinkling of stars.

The night was empty and cold, he thought finally, but not more so than I. He turned and looked back through the half-opened window. He saw a girl who looked almost like her, but was not tall enough, and wore a different dress. Then he spotted her. She was dancing with one of the conforms, a frail-looking man, a few inches shorter than she, with regular, handsome features. She laughed at some sly joke, and he laughed with her.

Rolf watched the moon for a moment more, thinking of Lainey's warning. I just want to make fun of you. Look at the big ape, they'll say. He knew he had to get out of there immediately. He was a spacer, and they were Earthers, and he scorned them for being contemptuous little dolls, and they laughed at him for being a hulking ape. He was not a member of their species. He was not a part of their world.

He went inside. Carl Quentin came washing up to him. I'm going, Ralph said. What? You don't mean that? The little man said. Why, the party's scarcely gotten underway, and there are dozens of people who want to meet you, and you'll miss the big show if you don't stay. I've already seen the big show, Ralph told him. I want out, now. You can't leave now, Quentin said.

Ralph thought he saw tears in the corners of the little man's eyes. "'Please don't leave. I've told everyone you'd be here. You'll disgrace me.' "'What do I care? Let me out of here.' Ralph started to move toward the door. Quentin attempted to push him back. "'Just a minute, Ralph. Please.' "'I have to get out,' he said. He knocked Quentin out of his way with a backhand swipe of his arm and dashed down the hall, frantically looking for the elevator.'

Laney and Cannaday were sitting up waiting for him when he got back early in the morning. He slung himself into a pneumo chair and unsealed his boots, releasing his cramped, tired feet. "'Well,' Laney asked, "'how was the party you have found among the Earthers, Rolf?' He said nothing. "'It couldn't have been that bad,' Laney said. Rolf looked up at her.

"'I'm leaving space, and I'm going to go to a surgeon and have him turn me into an ursa. I hate this filthy life.' "'He's drunk,' Kennedy said. "'No, I'm not drunk,' Ruffer tottered. "'I don't want to be an ape any more.' "'Isn't what you are. If you're an ape, what are they to you, monkeys?' Kennedy laughed harshly. "'Are they really so wonderful?' Laney asked. "'Does the life appeal to you so much that you'll give up space for it? Do you admire the ursas so much?'

She's got me, Wolf thought. I hate space at town, but will I like York any better? Do I really want to become one of those little puppets? But there's nothing left in space for me. At least the Earthers are happy. I wish you wouldn't look at me that way. Leave me alone, he snarled. I'll do whatever I want to do. Lainey was staring at him, trying to poke behind his mask of anger.

He looked at her wide shoulders, her muscular frame, her unbeautiful hair and rugged face and compared it with Yonah's clinging grace, her flowing gold hair. He picked up his boots and stumped up to bed. The surgeon's name was Goldring, and he was a wiry, intense man who prevailed on one of his colleagues to give him a tiny slit of a mouth. He sat behind a shining, plaster-lined desk, waiting patiently until Ruff finished talking.

"'It can't be done,' he said at last. "'Plastic surgeons can do almost anything, but I can't turn you into an earther. It's not just a matter of chopping eight or ten inches out of your legs. You'd have to alter your entire bone structure, or you'd be a hideous, misproportioned monstrosity. And it can't be done. I can't build you a whole new body from scratch, and if I could do it, you wouldn't be able to afford it.'

Rolf stamped his foot impatiently. "'The third surgeon has given me the same line. What is this, a conspiracy? I see what you can do. If you can graft a third arm onto somebody, you can turn me into an earther.'

"'Please, Mr. Decker, I've told you I can't. But I don't understand why you want such a change. Oddly a week goes by without some York boy coming to me and asking to be turned into a spacer, and I have to refuse him for the same reasons I'm refusing you. That's the usual course of events, a romantic earther boy wanting to go to space and not being able to. An idea, Het Rolf. Was one of them Carl Quentin? I'm sorry, Mr. Decker, I just can't divulge any such information.'

Rolf shot his arm across the desk and grasped the surgeon by the throat. Answer me. Yes, the surgeon gasped. Quinton asked me for such an operation. Almost everyone wants one. And you can't do it? Rolf asked. Of course not. I've told you. The amount of work needed to turn Arthur into Spacer or Spacer into Arthur is inconceivable. It'll never be done. I guess that's definite then, Rolf said, slumping a little in disappointment. But there's nothing to prevent you from giving me a new face. If

From taking away this face and replacing it with something people can look at without shuddering.

"I don't understand you, Mr. Decker," the surgeon said. "I know that. Can't you see it? I'm ugly. Why? Why should I look this way?" "Please calm down, Mr. Decker. You don't seem to realize that you are a perfectly normal-looking spacer. You were bred to look this way. It's your genetic heritage. Space is not a thing for everyone. Only men with extraordinary bone structure can withstand acceleration. The first men were carefully selected and bred. You see the result of five centuries of this sort of breeding.

"'The sturdy, heavy-boned spacers, you, Mr. Decker, and your friends, are the only ones who are fit to travel in space. The others, the weaklings like myself, the little people, resort to plastic surgery to compensate for your deficiency. But while the trend was to have everyone conform to a certain standard of beauty, if we couldn't be strong, we could at least be handsome.'

Lately a new theory of individualism has sprung up, and now we strive for original forms in our bodies. This is all because size and strength has been bred out of us and given to you. I know all this, Oth said. Why can't I peel away your natural face and make you look like an Earther? There's no reason why. It would be a simple operation. But who would you fool? Why can't you be grateful for what you are? You can go to Mars, while me can merely look at it. If I gave you a new face, it would cut you off from both sides.

The Earthers would still know you were a spacer, and I'm sure the other spacers would immediately cease to associate with you. What were you to say? You're not supposed to pass judgment on whether an operation should be performed, or you wouldn't pull out people's eyes and stick diamonds in. It's not that, Mr. Decker. The surgeon folded and unfolded his hands in impatience. You must realize that you are what you are. Your appearance is a social norm, and for acceptance in your social environment, you must continue to appear impassive.

Well, perhaps, shall I say, ape-like. It was as bad a word as the surgeon could have chosen. Ape? Ape am I? I'll show you who's an ape! Rolf yelled all the accumulated frustration of the last two days suddenly bursting loose. He leaped up and overturned the desk. Dr. Goldring hastily jumped backwards as the heavy desk crashed to the floor. A startled nurse dashed into the office, saw the situation, and immediately ran out.

"Give me your instruments, I'll operate on myself!" He knocked a gold ring against the wall, pulled down a costly solidograph from the wall, and kicked it at him, and crashed through into the operating room, where he began overturning tables and heaving chairs through glass shelves. "I'll show you!" he said. He cracked an instrument case and took out a delicate knife with a near-microscopic edge. He bent it in half and threw the crumpled wicket away. Wildly he destroyed everything he could, raging from one end of the room to the other, ripping down furnishings, smashing

Destroying! Royal Doctor Goldring stood at the door and yelled for help. It wasn't long in coming. An army of Earth-air policemen erupted into the room and confronted him as he stood panting amid the wreckage. They were all short men, but there must have been twenty of them. Don't shoot him! someone called, and then they advanced in a body.

He picked up the operating table and hurled it at them. Three policemen crumpled under it, but the rest kept coming. He battered them away like insects, but they surrounded him and piled on. For a few moments he struggled under the load of fifteen small men, punching and kicking and yelling. He burst loose for an instant, but two of them were clinging to his legs and he hit the floor with a crash. They were on him immediately, and he stopped struggling after a while.

The next thing he knew, he was lying sprawled on the floor of his room in Spacer Town, breathing dust out of the tattered carpet. He was a mass of cuts and bruises, and he knew they must have given him quite a going over. He was sore from head to foot. So they hadn't arrested him? No, of course not. No more than I would arrest any wild animal who went berserk. They had just dumped him back in the jungle. He tried to get up. Couldn't make it. Quite a going over it must have been. Nothing seemed broken, but everything was slightly bent.

"'Satisfied now,' said a voice from somewhere. It was a pleasant sound to hear, a voice, and he let the mere noise of it soak into his mind. "'Now that you've proved to everyone that you really are just an ape.' He twisted his neck around, slowly, because his neck was stiff and sore. Lainey was sitting on the edge of his bed with two suitcases next to her. "'It really wasn't necessary to run wild there,' she said.

The Earthers all knew you were just an animal anyway. You didn't have to prove it so violently. Okay, Laney, quit it. If you want me to. I just wanted to make sure you knew what had happened. A gang of Earther cops brought you back a while ago and dumped you here. They told me the whole story. Leave me alone. You've been telling everyone that all along, Wolf. Look where it got you. A royal beating at the hands of a bunch of Earthers.

Now that they've thrown you out for the last time, has it filtered into your mind that this is where you belong? In Spacer Town? Only between trips. You belong in space, Rolf. No surgeon can make you an Earther. The Earthers are dead, but they don't know it yet. All their parties, their fancy clothes, their extra arms and missing ears. That means they're decadent. They're finished. You're the one who's alive. The whole universe is waiting for you to go out and step on its neck.

Instead you want to turn yourself into a green-skinned little monkey. Why? He pulled himself to a sitting position. I don't know, he said. I've been all mixed up, I think. He felt his powerful arm. I'm a spacer. Suddenly he glanced at her. What are the suitcases for, he said. I'm moving in, Lainey said. I need a place to sleep. What's the matter with Kennedy? Did he get tired of listening to you preaching? He's my friend, Lainey. I'm not going to do him dirt. He's dead, Wolf.

When the Earther cops came here to bring you back, and he saw what they did to you, his hatred overflowed. He always hated Earthers, and he hated them even more for the way you were being tricked into thinking they were worth anything. He got hold of one of those cops and just about twisted him into two pieces. They blasted him. Wolf was silent. He let his head sink down on his knees. So I moved down here. It's lonely upstairs now. Come on, I'll help you get up.

she walked toward him hooked her hand on his arm and half dragged half pushed him to his feet her touch was firm and there was no denying the strength behind her i have to get fixed up he said abruptly my leave's up in two days i have to get out of here we're shipping for pluto he rocked unsteadily on his feet it'll really get lonely here then he said

Are you really going to go? Or are you going to find some jack surgeon who'll make your face pretty for a few dirty credits? Stop it. I mean it. I'm going. I'll be gone a year on this sign-up. By then I'll have enough cash piled up on various planets to be a rich man. I'll get it all together and get a mansion on Venus and have greenie slaves. It was getting toward noon. The sun, high in the sky, burst through the shutters and lit up the dingy room. I'll stay here, Laney said. You're going to Pluto? He nodded.

"'Kanaday was supposed to be going to Pluto. "'He was heading there when that explosion finished his foot. "'He never got there after that. "'Poor old Kanaday,' Rolf said. "'I'll miss him too, I guess. "'I'll have to run the boarding-house now. "'For a while. "'Will you come back here when your year's up?' "'I suppose so,' Rolf said without looking up. "'This town is no worse than any of the other space-ed towns. "'No better, but no worse.' "'He slowly lifted his head and looked at her as she stood there facing him.

"'I hope you come back,' she said. The sun was coming in from behind her now and lighting her up. She was rugged, all right, and strong, a good hard worker, and she was well built. Suddenly his aches became less painful. He looked at her and realized that she was infinitely more beautiful than the slick, glossy-looking girl he had kissed on the veranda, who had bought her teeth at a store and had gotten a figure from a surgeon. "'You know,' he said at last, "'I think I have an idea.'

You wait here, and I'll come get you in my years up. I'll have enough to pay passage to Venus for two. We can get a slightly smaller mansion than I planned on getting, but we can get it. Some parts of Venus are beautiful, and the closest those monkeys from York can get to it is to look at it in the night sky. You think it's a good idea? I think it's a great idea, she said, moving toward him. Her head was nearly as high as his own. I'll go back to space, I have to, to keep my rating. But you'll wait for me, won't you?

I'll wait. And as he drew her close, he knew she meant it. End of story seventeen. End of Fevers and Physicians In Space Ed Reed Short Sci-Fi Volume Two

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