Ole Doc Methuselah (15 page)

“Yes,”
said Ole Doc. “One has to understand his fellow man to get along. Just why are
you worried?”

“Well,
Doc, it ain't so much the UMS. Them Soldiers would never come here and wouldn't
stay if they did. No, it's the way taxes have fallen off. I want you to do
something about it. People don't pay their taxes. And then there's the fees—”

“Wait.
Are you the government?”

“Well,
in a way, yes. At least there ain't any other government on Arphon just now and
we're a big commercial outfit. So, well, we collect taxes for the machines.”

“What
machines?”

“The
health machines, of course.” And here Big Lem began to laugh again.

“Maybe
we can do business of one kind or another,” said Ole Doc. “But there's one
thing I've got to fix up. I want to get hold of an extraracial being named
Bestin Karjoy. You let me find him and then I'll come back—”

Big
Lem looked sly. “Some old partner in crime, eh? Well, Doc, if that's what you
want, you'll get it.”

“Now,”
said Ole Doc.

“When
we've settled a thing or two,” said Tolliver. “You'll work for me?”

“We'll
settle this when you've found this Bestin Karjoy for me,” said Ole Doc. “It
won't wait.”

“I'm
afraid it will, my friend. Will you sign on?”

“I'd
have to know more,” said Ole Doc, restraining a blowup with difficulty and
holding on to his cunning.

“Such
as—”

“What
taxes? What air? What are you doing?”

“We
sell air,” said Tolliver. “We sell it in small bombs or in cans and we get a
hundred dollars for a flask big enough to keep a man a month. Now that's legal,
isn't it?”

“Why
air?”

“Why
not?” said Tolliver. “Men have to breathe, don't they?”

“What
taxes then?” said Ole Doc.

“Why,
the taxes to keep the machines running. Didn't you see the big machine central
when you came into town?”

“I
wasn't looking closely,” said Ole Doc.

“Well,
that's just one. We got hundreds all over the planet. And we keep them going so
long as the citizens pay the tax. And when they refuse to pay it, well, we get
'em to put up a bond. And—”

“What
kind of a bond?”

“Personal
liberty bond, of course. If we don't collect when it's due, then the man's
liberty is over and he's repossessed by us.”

“Why
do you want him?”

“Slaves,
of course. Nine-tenths of the people on this planet would rather be slaves than
have the machines stop. So there we go.”

“You
mean nine-tenths are slaves by this action. See here, Tolliver, what do the
machines do?”

“Why,
they keep the outer spacial gases from settling down and killing people. The
gases ruin the oxygen content of the air. So we run the machines and keep the
gases going up, not down. That's simple, isn't it? And the air bombs we sell
let men breathe when they've been hit by the gases too much.”

“What
kind of gases?”

Tolliver
looked shrewdly at Ole Doc. The crook, thought Tolliver, was pretty
intelligent. Well, all the better. “That's where I need an expert,” said
Tolliver. “Now if you'll just join up and take orders—”

“Let
me look this thing over first,” said Ole Doc. “Money is money but it just may
be that I can't do a thing about it.”

Suspicion
was a fine quality to find in a man. Tolliver reared up and was about to call
when Tinoi, sweating hard from his walk, scuttled in. He saw Ole Doc and left
his prepared report unsaid.

“New
recruit,” said Tolliver. “They all get here, Tinoi?”

“About
twelve died on the way in,” said Tinoi. “Them Persephons don't have good sense
when it comes to driving—”

“How
much did you get?” said Tolliver.

Tinoi
look aggrieved and his boss laughed.

“Well,
put them in a stockade and . . . no, wait. Here. Take this man around and let
him look the place over.”

Tinoi
twisted his head sideways at Ole Doc in suspicion, and then he caught a secret
gesture from Tolliver which said, “Watch him, don't let him see too much, kill
if he tries to get away.”

“I
need this man,” added Tolliver.

Ole
Doc rose. “If you'll let me know where I can find Bestin—”

“Later,
later. Take him along, Tinoi.”

Outside
Ole Doc tried to regain his weapons and was refused. He would have made a
stronger bid if he had not just then seen the slaves waiting before the door.

They
were groveling in the dust, lying prone with exhaustion or looking in dumb
misery at the huge gold office building which was their doom. These were the
same slaves Ole Doc had seen earlier, for there was the same grizzled ancient,
coughing and whining in their midst, “Air! Air!”

Ole
Doc took half a dozen strides and was outside. He saw what he was looking for
and went sick inside. There she was, lying on a litter, moaning in
semiconsciousness, twisting with fever. The beauty of her was spoiled and her
spirit was shredded with pain.

With
another pace, Ole Doc tried to approach her. He knew how she had been burned,
why he had been lying outside in the grass. Connoly was standing hugely in his
way, lordly drunk but very positive.

“Nobody
gets near them slaves,” said Connoly. “Orders.”

“Come
back here, you,” said Tinoi. He scuttled down the steps and grabbed Ole Doc
from behind.

Ole
Doc offered no fight.

“Who's
this bloke?” asked Connoly, when they had him back at a decent distance.

“Recruit,
the boss said. Just what we don't need is a recruit,” grumbled Tinoi. “Too
many splits now. Too big a payroll. Connoly, you run these pigs into the stockade.
I got to play nursemaid to this kid here. Never get to rest. Never get a drink.
Never em——” he trailed off. “Come on, you. What are you supposed to do?”

“I'm
supposed to repair the machines,” said Ole Doc.

“Well,
come on then.” He scuttled away and Ole Doc followed.

The
machine was above eye level which was why Ole Doc had missed it. It was a huge
gold drum and it stood squarely on top of the office building. They went up to
it in an elevator and found it humming to itself.

Ole
Doc had pulled his helmet on from some instinct. But he was surprised to find
Tinoi getting quickly into a mask before he stepped out of the elevator.

“What's
wrong with it?” said Tinoi.

Ole
Doc spoke at urgent random. “The rheostats.”

“The
. . . well, you know your business, I guess. There's the port and there's the
vats. You work and I'll stay here and rest. Walk a man's legs off and then
don't even let him drink. Keep your hands out of the vats, now.”

“I'll
need some of the things I left in the office,” said Ole Doc.

Tinoi
went to the phone and called and presently a clerk came up with them in a paper
bag. No pellets, no hypo gun, no blaster— Ole Doc spread out his small kit.

“Don't
look like tools to me.”

“I'm
a chemist,” said Ole Doc.

“Oh,
I get you. I told him the mixture was too strong. I even get it.”

Ole
Doc smiled and nodded. “We'll see.”

He
gingerly approached a vat in the dark interior. On looking around he found a
simple arrangement. There was a
centrifuge
in the vat and a
molecularizer above it and then there were ports which carried ionized beams
out into the surrounding air. He stepped up and saw that a constant stream of
fluid in very tiny amounts was being broadcast through the jets to be carried
by the wind all around the countryside. He went back to the vats.

With
a drop of the mixture on a filter, he rapidly ruled out virus and bacteria with
a pocket analyzer. Intrigued now, he made a rapid inspection for inorganic
matter and was instantly in the field of naturally produced plant secretions.

He
took a bit of “synthetic skin” from his case and got a very violent reaction.
On the grid, the thing was an allergy product of a plant. And when he had run
through twenty alkaloids, working slowly because of his impoverishment in
equipment, he knew what it was.

Ragweed pollen
!

He
went outside and looked thoughtfully at the town below.

The
beams were sufficient to carry jets of it far beyond the town limits and the
winds would do more. To the east was a large expanse of greenhouse glass and a
monocular told him it was surrounded by Persephon guards and a high electrified
fence. Common sense told him that ragweed was grown there in large quantities.

“Well?”
said Tinoi. “Ain't I ever going to get that drink?”

“You
were right,” said Ole Doc. “It's too strong. I'm satisfied. Let's go.”

Tinoi
grunted with relief and started down. Then he changed his mind and stood aside
to let Ole Doc into the elevator first. But Tinoi went just the same. He went
very inert with a beautiful uppercut to hoist him and lay him down against the
far wall.

Ole
Doc rubbed his gloved knuckles as he turned Tinoi over with his foot. The
cranial structure told him much. Tinoi had been born and bred in the slums of
Earth.

“Ragweed,”
said Ole Doc. “Common, ordinary ragweed. And the older a race gets, the more it
suffers from allergies. Tinoi, Connoly, Big Lem himself—Earthmen.” He was
searching Tinoi's pockets now and he came up with a drug so ancient and common
that at first he didn't recognize it and thought it was cocaine.

The
analyzer set him right.

“
Benadryl
!” said Ole Doc in amazement. “Ragweed, and here's
benadryl. Earthman to begin with and not very susceptible. Benadryl to keep him
going and to prevent a serious case of asthma. Air—asthma—oxygen for asthma,
benadryl for asthma— But it can't be air in those bombs. It wasn't benadryl.”

He
pushed “Basement”
and descended. The door opened on a storeroom guard.
He took Tinoi's blaster and put a neat and silent hole through the Persephon
guard who stood outside the basement storeroom. The guard had alerted, had seen
the body on the floor when the elevator opened and had not had time to shoot
first. Ole Doc shot the lock off the storeroom door.

And
it was there that he came afoul of another ancient custom.

A
bell started ringing faintly somewhere in the upper regions of the building.
For a moment he was not alarmed, for he had safely bypassed all the offices in
the elevator. And then he saw a wire dangling, cut by the opened door. An old-fashioned
burglar alarm!

He
grabbed up a black bomb with its AL lettering and sprinted for the elevator.
But the door closed before he got there and the car went up without him,
carrying Tinoi's unconscious message.

Ole
Doc was shaken into the mistaken idea that this place was further guarded by
gas, for he began to sneeze. Then he saw that his helmet was not sealed tight
and hastily repaired it. Ragweed. He was sneezing from the solution of pollen
which still stained his glove. A heavier dose would have left him gasping, and
as it was, his eyes watered and he staggered as he fumbled for the stair door.

It
crashed toward him and three Persephons leaped out of the areaway. It was not
fair to them just as it had not been fair to their brothers that morning. Ole
Doc gripped the searing-hot blaster, picked up the weapons of the first fallen
one, stepped over the other two bodies and started on up the stairs. The top
door was locked and he shot it open.

The
clerks screamed and thrust back away from him, for they saw murder in his
old-young eyes.

Big
Lem was frozen in his office entrance. The burglar alarm gonged
clang-clang-clang
with furious strength over them all.

“What's
in this?” shouted Ole Doc, thrusting out the bomb.

“Put
that gun down!” bawled Tolliver. “What the devil's wrong—”

Ole
Doc heard in his keyed-up phone the tiny whisper of leather above the clanging
gong. He spun sideways and back and the shot intended for him fired the wood
beside Big Lem Tolliver.

Connoly,
the gunner, was ponderously wheeling for a second shot. Ole Doc snapped a quick
one across his chest. Connoly's face vanished in a dirty black gout
of smoke. He somersaulted backwards down the front steps and landed, dead but
still writhing, in the midst of the slaves he had not had time to herd away and
now would herd no more.

Ole
Doc was still skipping backwards to avoid a counterattack by Big Lem. The
elevator door clanged shut and Tolliver was gone.