Ole Doc Methuselah (3 page)

And the way she looked at him then made it
summer entirely. “Even . . .” she said hesitantly, “even if you are so young, I
have all the confidence in the universe in you, Doctor.”

That
startled Ole Doc. He hadn't been patronized that way for a long, long time. But
more important—he glanced into the mirror over the table. He looked more
closely. Well, he
did
look young. Thirty, maybe. And a glow began to
creep up over him, and as he looked back to her and saw her cascading glory of
hair and the sweetness of her face—

“Master
Doctor!” interrupted the unwelcome Hippocrates. “The Earthman is gone.”

Ole
Doc stared out the port and saw thin twirls of smoke arising from the charred
and blasted grass. The Earthman was gone all right, and very much gone for
good. But one boot remained.

“Looks,”
said Ole Doc, “like we've got some opposition.”

Chapter Two

“We
were proceeding to Junction City,” said the girl, “when a group of men shot
down our ship and attacked us.”

Ole
Doc picked a thoughtful tooth, for the fish he had caught had been
excellent—deep fried, southern style. He felt benign, chivalrous. Summer was in
full bloom. He was thinking harder about her hair than about her narrative.
Robbery and banditry on the spaceways were not new, particularly on such a
little-inhabited planet as Spico, but the thoughts which visited him had not
been found in his mind for a long, long time. She made a throne room of the
tiny dining salon and Ole Doc harked back to lonely days in cold space, on
hostile and uninviting planets, and the woman-hunger which comes.

“Did
you see any of them?” he asked, only to hear her voice again.

“I
didn't need to,” she said.

The
tone she took startled Ole Doc. Had he been regarding this from the viewpoint
of volume sixteen of Klote's standard work on human psychology, he would have
realized the predicament into which, with those words, he had launched himself.
Thirteen hundred years ago a chap named
Malory
had written a
book about knight-errantry; it had unhappily faded from Ole Doc's mind.

“Miss
Elston,” he said, “if you know the identity of the band then perhaps something
can be done, although I do not see what you could possibly gain merely by
bringing them to the Bar of the Space Council.”

Hippocrates
was lumbering back and forth at the buffet clearing away the remains of the
meal. He was quoting singsong under his breath the code of the Soldiers of
Light, “It shall be unlawful for any medical officer to engage in political
activities of any kind, to involve himself with law, or in short, aid or abet
the causes, petty feuds, personal vengeances . . . '” Ole Doc did not hear him.
The music of Venus was in Miss Elston's voice.

“Why,
I told you about the box, Doctor, it contains the deed to this planet and, more
important than that, it has the letter which my father was bringing here to
restrain his partner from selling off parcels of land at Junction City. Oh,
Doctor, can't you understand how cruel it is to these people? More than ten
thousand of them have come here with all the savings they have in the universe
to buy land in the hope that they can profit by its resale to the Procyon-
Sirius
Spaceways.

“When
my father, Judge Elston, first became interested in this scheme it was because
it had been brought to his attention by a Captain Blanchard who came to us at
our home near New York and told us that he had private information that Spico
was completely necessary to the Procyon-Sirius Spaceways as a stopover point
and that it would be of immense value. Nobody knew, except some officials in
the company, according to Captain Blanchard, and my father was led to believe
that Captain Blanchard had an excellent reputation and that the information was
entirely correct.

“Blanchard
came here on Spico some time ago and laid out the necessary landing fields and
subdivided Junction City, using my father's name and money. He circulated
illustrated folders everywhere setting forth the opportunities of business and
making the statement that the Spaceways would shortly begin their own
installation. Thousands and thousands of people came here in the hope either of
settling and beginning a new life or of profiting in the boom which would
result. Blanchard sold them land still using my father's name.

“A
short while ago my father learned from officials of the company that a landing
field was not necessary here due to a new type of propulsion motor which made a
stopover unnecessary. He learned also that Captain Blanchard had been involved
in
blue-sky
speculations on
Alpha
Centauri
. He visiographed Blanchard and told him to cease all operations
immediately and to refund all money, saying that he, Judge Elston, would absorb
any loss occasioned in the matter. Blanchard told him that it was a good scheme
and was making money and that he didn't intend to refund a dime of it. He also
said that if my father didn't want himself exposed as a crook, he would have to
stay out of it. Blanchard reminded him that only the name of Elston appeared on
all literature and deeds and that the entire scheme had obviously been conceived
by my father. Then he threatened to kill my father and we have been unable to
get in contact with him since.

“I
begged my father to expose Blanchard to the Upper Council but he said he would
have to wash his own dirty linen. Immediately afterwards we came up here. He
tried to leave me behind but I was terrified that something would happen to him
and so I would not stay home.

“My
father had the proof that the Procyon-Sirius Spaceways would not build their
field here. It was in that box. Blanchard has kept good his threat. He attacked
us, he stole the evidence, and now—” She began to sob suddenly at the thought
of her father lying there in that harshly glittering room so close to death. Hippocrates
phonograph-recordwise was beginning the code all over again. “‘It shall be
unlawful for any medical officer to engage in political activities of any kind,
to involve himself with law, or in short, aid or abet the causes, petty feuds,
personal vengeances . . . '”

But
Ole Doc's eyes were on her hair and his mind was roaming back to other days.
Almost absently he dropped a minute capsule in her water glass and told her to
drink it. Soon she was more composed.

“Even
if you could save my father's life, Doctor,” she said, “it wouldn't do any
good. The shock of this scandal would kill him.”

Ole
Doc hummed absently and put his hands behind his head. His black silk dressing
gown rustled. His youthful eyes drifted inwards. He thrust his furred boots out
before him. The humming stopped. He sat up. His fine surgeon's hands doubled
into fists and with twin blows upon the table he propelled himself to his feet.

“Why,
there is nothing more simple than this. All we have to do is find this
Blanchard, take the evidence away from him, tell the people that they've been
swindled, give them back their money, put your father on his feet and
everything will be all right. The entire mess will be straightened out
in jig
time
.” He beamed fondly upon her. And then, with an air of aplomb, began to
pour fresh wine. He had half filled the second glass when abrupt realization
startled him so that he spilled a great gout of wine where it
lay like a puddle of blood on the snowy cloth.

But
across from him sat his ladye faire and now that he had couched his lance and
found himself face to face with an enemy, even the thought of the shattered and
blackened remains of the Earthman did not drive him back. He smiled
reassuringly and patted her hand.

Her
eyes were jewels in the amber light.

Chapter Three

Junction
City was all turmoil, dust and hope. There were men
there who had made a thousand dollars yesterday, who had made two thousand
dollars this morning, and who avidly dreamed of making five thousand before
night. Lots were being bought and sold with such giddy rapidity that no one
could keep trace of their value. Several battered tramp spaceships which had
brought pioneers and their effects lay about the spaceport. Rumors, all of them
confident, all of them concerning profit, banged about the streets like
bullets.

Smug,
hard and ruthless, Edouard Blanchard sat under the awning of the Comet Saloon.
His agate eyes were fixed upon a newly arrived ship, a gold-colored ship with
crossed ray rods upon her nose. He looked up and down the crowded dusty street
where spaceboot trod on leather brogan and placesilk rustled on denim. Men and
women from a hundred planets were there. Men of hundreds of races and creeds
were there with pasts as checkerboard as history itself, yet bound together by
a common anxiety to profit and build a world anew.

It
mattered nothing to Edouard Blanchard that bubbles left human wreckage in their
wake, that on his departure all available buying power for this planet would go
as well. Ten thousand homely souls, whose only crime had been hope, would be
consigned to grubbing without finance, tools or imported food for a
questionable living on a small orb bound on a forgotten track in space. Such
concerns rarely trouble the consciences of the Edouard Blanchards.

The
agate eyes fastened upon an ambling Martian named Dart, who with his mask to
take out forty percent of the oxygen from this atmosphere and so permit him to
breathe, looked like some badly conceived and infinitely evil gnome.

“Dart,”
said Blanchard, “take a run over to that medical ship and find out what a
Soldier of Light is doing in a place like this.”

The
Martian fumbled with his mask and then uneasily hefted his blaster belt. He
squirmed and wriggled as though some communication of great importance had met
a dam halfway up to the surface. Blanchard stared at him. “Well? Go! What are
you waiting for?”

Dart
squirmed until a small red haze of dust stood about his boots. “I've always
been faithful to you, Captain. I ain't never sold you out to nobody. I'm
honest, that's what I am.” His dishonest eyes wriggled upwards until they
reached the level of Blanchard's collar.

Blanchard
came upright. There was a sadistic stir in his hands. Under this compulsion
Dart wilted and his voice from a vicious whine changed to a monotonous wail.
“That was the ship Miss Elston ran to. I'm an honest man and I ain't going to
tell you no different.”

“But
you said she escaped and I've had twelve men searching for her for the past
day. Damn you, Dart. Why couldn't you have told me this?”

“I
just thought she'd fly away and that would be all there was to it. I didn't
think she'd come back. But you ain't got nothing to be afeared of, Mr. Captain
Blanchard. No Soldier of Light can monkey with politics. The Universal Medical
Society won't interfere.”

Captain
Blanchard's hands, long, thin, twisted anew as though they were wrapping
themselves around the sinews in Dart's body and snapping them out one by one.
He restrained the motion and sank back. “You know I'm your friend, Dart. You
know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. You know it's only those who oppose my
will whom I, shall I say, remove. You know that you are safe enough.”

“Oh
yes, Captain Blanchard, I know you are my friend. I appreciate it. You don't
know how I appreciate it. I'm an honest man and I don't mind saying so.”

“And
you'll always be honest, won't you, Dart?” said Blanchard, white hands
twitching. He smiled. From a deep pocket he extracted first a long knife with
which he regularly pared his nails, then a thick sheaf of money, and finally,
amongst several deeds, a communication which Mr. Elston had been attempting to
bring to Spico. He read it through in all its damning certainty. It said that
the Procyon-Sirius Spaceways would not use this planet. Then, striking a match
to light a cigar, he touched it to the document and idly watched it burn. The
last flaming fragment was suddenly hurled at the Martian.

“Get
over there instantly,” said Blanchard, “and find out what you can. If Miss
Elston comes away from that ship unattended, see that she never goes back to
it. And make very certain, my honest friend, that the Soldier on that ship
doesn't find out anything.”

But
before Dart had more than beaten out the fire on the skirt of his coat, a
youthful, pleasant voice addressed them. Blanchard hastily smoothed out his
hands, veiled his eyes, and with a smile which he supposed to be winning faced
the speaker.

Ole
Doc, having given them his “good morning,” continued guilelessly as though he
had not heard a thing.

“My,
what a beautiful prospect you have here. If I could only find the man who sells
the lots—”

Blanchard
stood up instantly and grasped Ole Doc Methuselah by the hand, which he pumped
with enormous enthusiasm. “Well, you've come to the right place, stranger. I am
Captain Blanchard and very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr—”

“Oh,
Captain Blanchard, I have heard a great deal about you,” said Ole Doc, his
blue eyes very innocent. “It is a wonderful thing you are doing here. Making
all these people rich and happy.”

“Oh,
not my doing, I assure you,” said Captain Blanchard. “This project was started
by a Mr. Elston of New York City, Earth. I am but his agent trying in my small
way to carry out his orders.” He freed his hand and swept it to take in the
dreary, dusty and being-cluttered prospect. “Happy, happy people,” he said.
“Oh, you don't know what pleasure it gives me to see little homes being created
and small families being placed in the way of great riches. You don't know.”
Very affectedly he gazed down at the dirt as though to let his tears of
happiness splash into it undetected. However, no tears splashed.

After
a little he recovered himself enough to say, “We have only two lots left and
they are a thousand dollars apiece.”

Ole
Doc promptly dragged two bills from his breast pocket and handed them over. If
he was surprised at this swift method of doing business, Captain Blanchard
managed to again master his emotion. He quickly escorted Ole Doc to the
clapboard shack which served as the city hall so that the deeds could be
properly recorded.

As
they entered the flimsy structure a tall, prepossessing individual stopped
Blanchard and held him in momentary converse concerning a program to put
schools into effect. Ole Doc, eyeing the man, estimated him as idealistic but
stupid. He was not particularly surprised when Blanchard introduced him as Mr.
Zoran, the mayor of Junction City.

Here,
thought Ole Doc, is the fall guy when Blanchard clears out.

“I'm
very glad to make your acquaintance Mr. . . .” said Mayor Zoran.

“And
I yours,” said Ole Doc. “It must be quite an honor to have ten thousand people
so completely dependent upon your judgment.”

Mayor
Zoran swelled slightly. “I find it a heavy but honorable trust, sir. There is
nothing I would not do for our good citizens. You may talk of empire builders,
sir, but in the future you cannot omit mention of these fine beings who make up
our population in Junction City. We have kept the riffraff to a minimum, sir.
We are families, husbands, wives, small children. We are determined, sir, to
make this an Eden.” He nodded at this happy thought, smiled. “To make this an
Eden wherein we all may prosper, for with the revenue of the Spaceways flooding
through our town, and with our own work in the fields to raise its supplies,
and with the payroll of the atomic plant which Captain Blanchard assures us
will begin to be built within a month, we may look forward to long, happy and
prosperous lives.”

Ole
Doc looked across the bleak plain. A two-year winter would come to Spico soon,
a winter in which no food could be raised. He looked at Mayor Zoran. “I trust,
sir, that you have reserved some of your capital against possible emergencies,
emergencies such as food, or the cost of relief expeditions coming here.”

Captain
Blanchard masked a startled gleam which had leaped into his agate eyes. “I am
sure that there is no need for that,” he said.

Mayor
Zoran's head shook away any thought of such a need. “If land and building
materials have been expensive,” he said, “I am sure there will be more money
in the community as soon as the Spaceways representatives arrive, and there is
enough food now for three weeks. By the way,” he said, turning to Blanchard,
“didn't you tell me that today was the day the officials would come here?”

Blanchard
caught and hid his hands. “Why, my dear mayor,” he said, “there are always
slight delays. These big companies, you know, officials with many things on
their minds, today, tomorrow, undoubtedly sometime this week.”

Mayor
Zoran was reassured and, shaking hands with Ole Doc and Captain Blanchard,
strode off into the street where he made a small procession of his progress.
People stopped him here and there and asked him eagerly for news.

Inside
at the desk a small sleepy clerk woke up long enough to get out his records
book, but before the transaction could be begun Ole Doc took back the two
one-thousand-dollar bills.

“There
are two or three things which I would like to know,” said Ole Doc innocently.
“I wonder if there are going to be schools?”

“Oh
yes, of course,” said Blanchard. “I didn't know that you were a family man.”

“And
will there be medical facilities?” said Ole Doc.

“Why,
yes, just this morning a ship of the Universal Medical Society landed here. It
won't be long before they start work on the hospitals.”

“But,”
said Ole Doc smoothly, “the Universal Medical Society does only research and
major planning. Certainly they would not take cognizance of Spico.”

“Well
now, I wouldn't be too sure,” said Captain Blanchard. “And besides we have the
usual common run of physicians here, three of them.”

Ole
Doc repressed his humph at this and smiled. “Well, I suppose you know more
about it than I do,” he said. “But what about your water supply? Is it
adequate?”

Here
Captain Blanchard began to assume his most expansive and guileless pose and
would have carried on for some time about the excellence of the water supply if
Ole Doc had not interrupted him.

“You
say you have three reservoirs already. Now, are these community owned or would
it be possible to buy them?”

Captain
Blanchard had not expected that morning that his stars would arise so luckily.
His thin white hands began to twitch as though already plucking gold from the
pockets of his victim. “But this would require,” said Captain Blanchard, “a
great deal of money. Yes, indeed, a great deal of money.”

Ole
Doc smiled as though this were an easy matter. “For the water company,” he
said, “I would be willing to pay a very reasonable amount.”

The
sleepy clerk was sleepy no longer. His eyes widened. Here he was observing the
captains of industry at work.

“For,
let us say, twenty thousand dollars,” said Ole Doc, “I would be willing—”

“My
dear fellow,” said Blanchard, “twenty thousand dollars would not be enough to
buy the piping system which we have installed.”

Ole
Doc shrugged. “Then I suppose that's all there is to it,” he said.

Captain
Blanchard's hands did a particularly spasmodic bit of twitching. “Oh no, it
isn't,” he said. “Oh no, indeed. I'm sure that we might be able to come to
some sort of an understanding on this. Ah . . . perhaps forty thousand dollars—”

“No,
twenty thousand is all the cash I have,” said Ole Doc.

“Why,
then, this is very simple; if you give us your note of hand for, let us say,
twenty thousand dollars at proper interest and cash to the sum of twenty
thousand dollars, why, we can arrange the matter right here. I have the power
of attorney, you know, to sign for all these things for Mr. Elston.”

“Done,”
said Ole Doc, and felt himself seized immediately by the eager Blanchard who
pumped his hand so hard that he nearly broke the wrist bones. The clerk was now
thoroughly popeyed. And he was all thumbs and blots as he attempted to make out
the papers for the transaction. But finally his difficulties were dispensed
with and Ole Doc, signing the name of William Jones and paying across the
proper sums and notes, found himself the possessor, proud owner and manager of
the waterworks of Junction City.

Blanchard
seemed to be anxious to depart immediately and left Ole Doc to his own devices.
For some hours the doctor wandered through the city looking in at the temporary
dwellings, watching men struggle to raise out of secondhand materials livable
or usable establishments. He patted children on the head, diagnosed to himself
various diseases and deformities, and was generally a
Harun
al-Rashid
.