Ole Doc Methuselah (6 page)

“Blanchard!”

He
knew that voice. He now saw the man. It was Ole Doc! His clothing was charred,
his left arm was held up by a belt. But it was Ole Doc. And behind him swarmed
a dark cloud of people.

With
a hasty shot, Blanchard made his pursuer dodge. In an instant Blanchard had
gained the port. Cursing, he brought it to and then raced into the control
section. Somewhere a door clanged.

Throwing
the gun down, Blanchard grabbed for the panel where the starting levers and
throttles stood waiting. One set was marked “Chemical” for departure and
landing on a port. The other set was marked “Atomic.” It was the second that he
thrust full ahead to “start.” In about ten seconds there would be the
beginning of the fission.

“Blanchard!”

About
the ship the mob swung, many of them passing by the tubes.

Mayor
Zoran yelled to some of the men to force the ports of the ship and two Centauri
men launched their heavy bulks into the task. Somebody in the crowd yelled to
keep clear of the tubes and there was an immediate swing to give them berth.
Several pocket torches appeared and turned ship and field into blazing
daylight. People gaped up at the golden ship or yelled encouragement to the two
Centauri men who were still working at the spaceport. A little boy managed to
climb up to the top of the vessel and with great initiative went to work with a
slingshot handle prying up the emergency entrance hatch. People noticed him and
howled encouragement at him. His father bellowed at him for a moment trying to
get him to come down and then, realizing he had a hero on his hands, began to
point and tell people it was his son. The boy vanished into the ship and there
was an immediate scream from several women who had just realized that Blanchard
might be in there, still alive, after killing Ole Doc.

At
this the Centauri men renewed their efforts and bent several iron bars into
pretzels working on the door. Suddenly it gave way, but not through their
efforts. The little boy had opened it from inside, but when a horde would have
bounded through it, the child barred their way with a shrill yell of protest. A
moment later the effort withdrew hastily.

But
it was not the boy who had turned them. Charred and battered and breathing hard
after great exertion, Ole Doc filled the spaceport. He was holding a small
blaster in his right hand and smoke idled up from its muzzle. He became
conscious of it and thrust it into his holster.

The
startled silence suddenly burst. From three thousand throats volleyed a
spontaneous cheer, a cheer which beat in great waves against the ship, almost
rocking it. The enthusiasm fled out from the field and smote against the
surrounding hills to come back redoubled and meet the new, louder bursts which
sprang up amid tossed hats.

Ole
Doc was trying to say something, but each attempt was battered back and drowned
in the tumult. Finally, when he had for the fifth time raised his hand for
silence, they let him speak.

“I
want to tell Mayor Zoran . . .”

There
were new cheers for Mayor Zoran and he came forward.

“Tell
your people,” said Ole Doc, “that their money is safe.”

There
was bedlam in answer to this.

“You
had better,” said Ole Doc when he could again speak, “drain your water
systems, all the reservoirs. I . . . well . . . Just drain them and don't drink
any more water until you do.”

They
cheered this, for they would have cheered anything.

When
he could talk, Ole Doc called for Hippocrates. But no Hippocrates answered.
People went off eagerly looking for the doctor's slave but there was no instant
result.

Finally
Ole Doc thanked them and put the little boy outside and, despite many yells for
reappearance, kept the spaceport firmly closed.

Still,
there was much to talk about and the crowd, half hopeful that Ole Doc would
come back, hung about the ship. Some space rangers found the ashes and the two identification
tags and rumors began to fly around that it hadn't been Blanchard who had gone
into the ship. New waves of pessimism went through the crowd. If that was
Blanchard there, in the ashes, then what had happened to the money? Maybe it
had been burned with Blanchard. People began to drift back to the ship and
scream for Ole Doc to come out again.

Several
lost interest and recalling the doctor's admonition to drain the reservoirs,
followed the lead of a local common physician who sought some reflected glory
and went off to do what they were told.

But
those who remained were suddenly stricken in their tracks by the sound,
peculiarly fiendish and high pitched, of a dynamo within the ship. They first
mistook it for some wail of a savage beast and then identified it. Shortly
afterwards lights began to arc in the midship ports and so brilliant was their
flare that they sent green, yellow and red tongues licking across the field and
lighted up the rows of attentive faces near at hand.

Other
dynamos began to cut in and the golden ship vibrated from bow to tubes. There
were some who held that she was about to take off and so went well back from
her, but others, more intelligent, found in these weird manifestations no such
message—nor any message at all—and so hung about in fascination.

It
was the little boy, hero of the earlier episode, who again adventured. He
climbed up to the emergency entrance hatch which was still open and started to
climb down.

Within
the instant he shot forth again, his face ghastly in the torches. He came
stumbling down the hull ladder and collapsed at its foot. One hand on the last
rung kept him from sinking to the ground and in this position he was ill.

Eager
people crowded about him and lifted him up, volleying questions at him. But the
child only screamed and beat at them to be let go. When he was finally released
he sped nimbly past the crowd and sought sobbing comfort in his mother's arms.

Rumors
began to double, then. There were those in the crowd who held that some devil's
work was afoot inside that ship. Others hazarded the wild theory that it had
not been the doctor at all who had come to the spaceport, but Blanchard in the
doctor's clothes. Others began to retell mysterious and awful things they had
heard about the Soldiers of Light, doctors whom no one knew, who were too
powerful to be under any government. Somebody began to say that the System
Patrol cruisers should be informed, and shortly, an authoritative youth, a
radioman on one of the spaceships in the other port, walked away to send the
message, promising a patrol ship there before morning.

With
this new stimulus reaching out, people of the town began to cluster back around
the ship in great numbers and there were many ugly comments in the crowd.
Finally Mayor Zoran himself was called upon for action and he was pressed to
the fore where he rapped imperiously upon the spaceport of the
Morgue.

The
weird screaming dynamos whined on. The lights flashed and arced without
interruption. An hour went by.

People
remembered then something they had heard about Soldiers of Light, that it was
enough to be banished for them to interfere with politics anywhere. This
convinced them that something violent should be done to the man in that ship
and blasters began to appear here and there and a battering ram was brought up
to force the door. Nobody would risk the emergency port.

The
difference between the loud whinings within and the sudden silence was so sharp
that the battering-ram crew hesitated. In the silence ears rang. Crickets could
be heard chirping near the river. No one spoke.

With
a slow moan, the spaceport opened from within. Bathed in the glare of half a
hundred torches, a gray-haired, noble-visaged man stood there. He looked calmly
down upon the crowd.

“My
friends,” he said, “I am Alyn Elston.”

They
gaped at him. A few came nearer and stared. The man appeared tired but the very
image of the pictures on all the literature.

“I
am here, my friends, to tell you that tomorrow morning you shall have all your
money returned to you or shall be given work on certain projects I envision
here—and will finance—as you yourselves may elect. I have the money with me. I
need the records and I am sure morning will do wonderfully well. However, if
any of you doubt and can show me your receipts I shall begin now . . .”

They
knew him then. They knew him and their relief was so great after all their
suspicions and worries that the cheers they sent forth reached twice as far as
those they had given Ole Doc. The rolling thunderbolts of sound made the ship
and town shiver. Men began to join hands and dance in crazy circles. Hats went
skyward. They cheered and cheered until there was nothing to their voices but
harsh croaks. And this called for wetness and so they flooded into the town.
They carried Elston on their shoulders and hundreds fought with one another to
clasp his hand and promise him devotion forever.

In
a very short while they would let him speak again.

And
he would speak and they would speak and the available supply of liquor would
drop very low indeed in Junction City.

 

Back
aboard the
Morgue,
had they not been so loud, they would have heard a
strange series of thumps and rattles which betokened the disposal in the
garbage disintegrator of certain superfluous mass which had been, at the last,
in the doctor's road.

And
now quietly, palely, the real and only hero of the affair, utterly forgotten,
worked feebly on himself, trying to take away the burn scars and the weariness.
He gave it up. His heart was too ill with worry. He stumbled tiredly toward his
cabin where he hoped to get new clothes. Near the spaceport he stopped, struck
numb.

Hippocrates
was standing there and in the little being's four arms lay cradled a burden
which was very precious to Ole Doc. Alicia Elston's bare throat stretched out
whitely, her lips were partly opened, her bright hair fell in a long, dripping
waterfall. About Hippocrates' feet spread drops of water.

Ole
Doc's alarm received a welcome check.

“She
is well,” said Hippocrates. “When I walked along the riverbank I found three
men taking her from a chest. I killed two but the third threw her in the river.
I killed the third and threw them in but walked for many minutes on the river
bottom before I found her. I ran with her to the nearest spaceship and there we
gave her the pulmotor and oxygen. I made her lie warmly in blankets until she
slept and then I brought her here. What was this crowd, master? What was all
the cheering?”

“How
did you come to find her?” cried Ole Doc, hastily guiding his slave into a
cabin where Alicia could be laid in a bed and covered again.

“I
. . . I was sad. I walked along the river. I see better at night and so saw
them.” But this, obviously, was not what interested Hippocrates. He saw no
reason to dwell upon the small radar tube he had put in her pocket so that he
would not have to go over two square miles of Junction City at some future date
when Ole Doc wanted a message sent to her. There were many things he did which
he saw no reason to discuss with an important mind like Ole Doc's.

Disregarding
the joy and relief and thankfulness which was flooding from his master,
Hippocrates stood sturdily in the cabin door until Ole Doc started to leave.

“I
don't know how I can ever . . .”

Hippocrates
interrupted his thanks.

“You
have Miss Elston, master. The spaceways are wide. We can go far. By tomorrow
morning it will be known that a Soldier of Light has entered social relations
and politics. By tomorrow night the System Patrols will be looking for us. By
the next day your Society will have banished us or called us to a hearing to
banish us. It is little time. We have provisions to leave this galaxy.
Somewhere, maybe Andromeda, we can find outlaws and join them. . . .”

Ole
Doc looked severely at him.

Hippocrates
stepped humbly aside. He cast a glance at the woman he had saved and at his
master. He saw that things would be different now.

Chapter Six

It
was a bright morning. Dawn came and bathed the
Morgue
until every golden
plate of her gleamed iridescently. The grass of the field sparkled with dew and
a host of birds swooped and played noisily in the rose and azure sky.

Junction
City stirred groggily. It scrubbed its eyes, tried
to hide from the light, scrubbed again and with aching heads and thick tongues
arose.

No
comments were made on the revel. The Comet Saloon was shut tightly. Blanchard's
house swung its doors idly in the wind. But no one commented. Everyone stumbled
about and said nothing to anyone about anything.

So
passed the first few hours of morning. People began to take an interest in
existence when a System Patrol cruiser swung in and with a chemical rocket
blast settled in the main spaceport.

Hippocrates,
sweeping the steps of the port ladder, looked worriedly at the newcomer and
then threw down his broom. He rolled into the main salon where he knew Ole Doc
was.

Opening
his mouth to speak three successive times, Hippocrates still did not. Ole Doc
was sitting in an attitude of thought from which no mere worldly noise ever
roused him. Presently he rose and paced about the table. He paid no heed
whatever to Hippocrates.

Finally
the small being broke through all codes. “Master, they are coming! We still
have time. We still have time! I do not want you to be taken!”

But
he might as well have addressed the clouds which drifted smoothly overhead. With
long paces the doctor was walking out a problem. His appearance was much
improved over last night, for all burns had vanished the night before and the
arm was scatheless. However, it lacked days until treatment time and the rule
never varied. Ole Doc looked a little gray, a little worn, and there were lines
about his mouth and in the corners of his eyes.

Once
he walked to a cabinet where he kept papers and threw back a plast-leaf and
looked at a certificate there. He stood for a long time thus and finally broke
off to stand in the doorway of Alicia's cabin where the girl still slept,
lovely, vital and young.

Hippocrates
tried to speak again. “We can take her and the ship still has time. They have
not yet come into the town to get reports . . .”

Ole
Doc stood looking sadly at the girl. His slave went back to the spaceport and
stared at the town.

A
little wind rippled the tops of the grass. The silverplated river flowed
smoothly on. But Hippocrates saw no beauty in this day. His sharp attention was
only for the group of System officers who went into the town, stayed a space
and then came out towards the ship, followed by several idlers and two dogs and
a small boy.

Rushing
back to the salon, Hippocrates started to speak. His entrance was abrupt and
startled Alicia, who now, dressed and twice as lovely as before, stood beside
Ole Doc at the file cabinet.

“Master!”
pleaded Hippocrates.

But
Ole Doc had no ears for his slave. He saw only Alicia. And Alicia had but scant
attention for Hippocrates; she was entirely absorbed in what Ole Doc had been
saying. It seemed to the little slave that there was a kind of horror about her
expression as she looked at the doctor.

Then
Ole Doc opened up the plast-leaf and showed her something there. She looked.
She turned white and trembled. Her gaze on Ole Doc was that of a hypnotized but
terrified bird. With an unconscious movement she drew back her skirt from him
and then steadied herself against the table.

“And
so, my dear,” said Ole Doc, “now you know. Pardon me for what I proposed, for
misleading you.”

She
drew farther back and began to stammer something about undying gratitude and
her father's thanks and her own hopes for his future and many other things that
all tumbled together into an urgent request to get away.

Ole
Doc smiled sadly. He bowed to her and his golden silk shirt rustled against his
jeweled belt. “Goodbye, my dear.”

Hastily,
hurriedly, she said goodbye and then, hand to throat, ran past the slave and
down the ladder and across the spaceport to the town.

Hippocrates
watched her go, looked at her as she skirted the oncoming officers and started
toward a crowd in the square which seemed to be listening to an address by her
father. The cheers were faint only by distance. Hippocrates scratched his
antennae thoughtfully for a moment and then turned all attention to the
approaching officers. He bristled and cast a glance at the blaster rack.

“Hello
up there!” said a smooth, elegant young man in the scarlet uniform of the
System Patrol.

“Nobody
here!” stated Hippocrates.

“Be
quiet,” said Ole Doc behind him. “Come aboard, gentlemen.”

The
idlers and the small boy and the dogs stayed out, held by Hippocrates' glare.
The salon was shortly full of scarlet.

“Sir,”
said the officer languidly, “we have audacity, I know, in coming here. But as
you are senior to anyone else . . . well, could you tell us anything about a
strange call from this locale? We hate to trouble you. But we heard a call and
we came. We had no details. Five people, fellow named Blanchard and his friends,
ran away into the country or someplace. But no riot. Could you possibly inform
us of anything, sir?”

Ole
Doc smiled. “I hear there was a riot among the five,” he said. “But I have no
details. Just rumor.”

“Somebody
is jolly well pulling somebody's toe,” said the languid young man. “Dull. Five
men vanishing is nothing to contact
us
about. But a riot, now.” He
sighed at the prospect and then slumped in boredom. “No radioman aboard any
ship here sent such a message, they say, and yet we have three monitors who
heard it. Hoax, what?”

“Quite,”
smiled Ole Doc. “A hoax!”

“Well,
better be getting on.” And they left, courteously and rather humbly refusing
refreshment.

It
was a very staggered little slave who watched them go. The small boy lingered
and gazed at the ship as though trying to put a finger on something in his
mind. He was a very adventurous boy, exactly the same that had scaled the ship
the night before. He frowned, puzzled.

“Man
child,” said Hippocrates, “do you recall a riot?”

The
little boy shook his head. “I . . . I kind of forget. Everybody seems to think
maybe there should have been one. . . .”

“Do
you remember anybody named Blanchard getting killed?” thrust Hippocrates,
producing a cake mystically from the pantry behind him.

“Oh,
he didn't get killed. Everybody knows that. He ran away when Mr. Elston came.”

“You
remember a Soldier of Light addressing a crowd last night?”

“What?
Did he?”

“No,”
said Hippocrates, firmly. “He was not out of this ship all day yesterday nor
last night either.” And he tossed down the cake which was avidly seized.

Hippocrates
stomped back into the salon.

He
did not know what he expected to find, but certainly not such normality. Ole
Doc was playing a record about a fiddler of Saphi who fiddled for a crown and,
while humming the air, was contentedly filling up a cuff with a number of
calculations.

With
a gruff voice, Hippocrates said, “You poured powder in the water to make
everyone forget, to be angry and then forget. And it's worn off. Nobody
remembers anything. Mr. Elston and Alicia have promised not to speak. I see it.
But you should have told me. I worried for you. You should have told me! Nobody
will ever know and I was sick with what would happen!”

Ole
Doc, between hums, was saying, “Now with the twenty thousand that I got back,
and with what is in the safe, I have just enough to cruise to . . . da, dum, de
da . . . yes. Yes, by Georgette, I shall!” He threw down the pencil and got
up, smiling.

“Hello,
Hippocrates, old friend,” said Ole Doc, just noticing him. “And how are you
this wonderful noon? What will you fix me for lunch? Make it good, now, and no
wine. We're taking off right away for Saphi. We're going to buy us a complete
new set of raditronic equipment there and get rid of all this worn-out junk.
Why . . .” he stopped, staring. “Why, you're crying!”

Hippocrates
bellowed, “I am not!” and hurriedly began to clear the table to spread out the
finest lunch ever set before the finest master of the happiest and most
won-back slave in the galaxy. In a moment or two, exactly imitating the record
which had stopped, he was singing the “Fiddler of Saphi,” the happiest he had
been in a very, very long time.

During
lunch, while he shoved new dishes about on their golden plates, Hippocrates
took a moment to glance, as a well-informed slave should, at the certificate
which had made that horrible, detestable woman so gratifyingly scared.

The
aged, carefully coated and preserved parchment—brown and spotted with mildew
from some ancient time even so—surrendered very little information to
Hippocrates. It merely said that the University of
Johns Hopkins
on some planet named Baltimore in a system called Maryland—wherever that might
be—did hereby graduate with full honors one Stephen Thomas Methridge as a physician
in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Six.

Even
if this
was
seven hundred years ago that Ole Doc first learned his
trade, what of that? He knew more than any doctor graduated in the best school
they had today.

Well,
good riddance, though just why she should so disapprove of that school was more
than Hippocrates could figure out.

He
sang about the fiddler of Saphi and forgot it in the happy scramble of
departure.