The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF (20 page)

“Uh-huh.” Dodd was already wheeling him off to a ward room, her grim face wrinkled into a half-quizzical expression over the mask. “Doctor said to pipe down, didn’t he? Well!”

As soon as Dodd vanished, Jenkins sat down, running his hand over his cap; there were little beads of sweat showing where the goggles and mask didn’t entirely cover his face. “ ‘Stuff came flying out of the air-intake like bullets out of a machine gun,’ ” he repeated softly. “Dr. Ferrel, these two cases were outside the converter – just by-product accidents. Inside—”

“Yeah.” Ferrel was picturing things himself, and it wasn’t pleasant. Outside, matter tossed through the air ducts; inside—He left it hanging, as Jenkins had. “I’m going to call Blake. We’ll probably need him.”

“Give me Dr. Blake’s residence – Maple 2337,” Ferrel said quickly into the phone. The operator looked blank for a second, starting and then checking a purely automatic gesture toward the plugs. “Maple 2337, I said.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Ferrel, I can’t give you an outside line. All trunk lines are out of order.” There was a constant buzz from the board, but nothing showed in the panel to indicate whether from white inside lights or the red trunk indicators.

“But – this is an emergency, operator. I’ve got to get in touch with Dr. Blake!”

“Sorry, Dr. Ferrel. All trunk lines are out of order.” She started to reach for the plug, but Ferrel stopped her.

“Give me Palmer, then – and no nonsense! If his line’s busy, cut me in, and I’ll take the responsibility.”

“Very good.” She snapped at her switches. “I’m sorry, emergency call from Dr. Ferrel. Hold the line and I’ll reconnect you.” Then Palmer’s face was on the panel, and this time the man was making no attempt to conceal his expression of worry.

“What is it, Ferrel?”

“I want Blake here – I’m going to need him. The operator says—”

“Yeah,” Palmer nodded tightly, cutting in. “I’ve been trying to get him myself, but his house doesn’t answer. Any idea of where to reach him?”

“You might try the Bluebird or any of the other nightclubs around there.” Damn, why did this have to be Blake’s celebration night? No telling where he could be found by this time.

Palmer was speaking again. “I’ve already had all the nightclubs and restaurants called, and he doesn’t answer. We’re paging the movie houses and theaters now – just a second. . . . Nope, he isn’t there, Ferrel. Last reports, no response.”

“How about sending out a general call over the radio?”

“I’d . . . I’d like to, Ferrel, but it can’t be done.” The manager had hesitated for a fraction of a second, but his reply was positive. “Oh, by the way, we’ll notify your wife you won’t be home. Operator! You there? Good, reconnect the Governor!”

There was no sense in arguing into a blank screen, Doc realized. If Palmer wouldn’t put through a radio call, he wouldn’t, though it had been done once before. “All trunk lines are out of order. . . . We’ll notify your wife. . . . Reconnect the Governor!” They weren’t even being careful to cover up. He must have repeated the words aloud as he backed out of the office, still staring at the screen, for Jenkins’ face twitched into a maladjusted grin.

“So we’re cut off. I knew it already; Meyers just got in with more details.” He nodded toward the nurse, just coming out of the dressing room and trying to smooth out her uniform. Her almost pretty face was more confused than worried.

“I was just leaving the plant, Dr. Ferrel, when my name came up on the outside speaker, but I had trouble getting here. We’re locked in! I saw them at the gate – guards with sticks. They were turning back everyone that tried to leave, and wouldn’t tell why, even. Just general orders that no one was to leave until Mr. Palmer gave his permission. And they weren’t going to let me back in at first. Do you suppose . . . do you know what it’s all about? I heard little things that didn’t mean anything, really, but—”

“I know just about as much as you do, Meyers, though Palmer said something about carelessness with one of the ports on No. 3 or 4,” Ferrel answered her. “Probably just precautionary measures. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it yet.”

“Yes, Dr. Ferrel.” She nodded and turned back to the front office, but there was no assurance in her look. Doc realized that neither Jenkins nor himself was a picture of confidence at the moment.

“Jenkins,” he said, when she was gone, “if you know anything I don’t, for the love of Mike, out with it! I’ve never seen anything like this around here.”

Jenkins shook himself, and for the first time since he’d been there, used Ferrel’s nickname. “Doc, I don’t – that’s why I’m in a blue funk. I know just enough to be less sure than you can be, and I’m scared as hell!”

“Let’s see your hands.” The subject was almost a monomania with Ferrel, and he knew it, but he also knew it wasn’t unjustified. Jenkins’ hands came out promptly, and there was no tremble to them. The boy threw up his arm so the sleeve slid beyond the elbow, and Ferrel nodded; there was no sweat trickling down from the armpits to reveal a worse case of nerves than showed on the surface. “Good enough, son; I don’t care how scared you are – I’m getting that way myself – but with Blake out of the picture, and the other nurses and attendants sure to be out of reach, I’ll need everything you’ve got.”

“Doc?”

“Well?”

“If you’ll take my word for it, I can get another nurse here – and a good one, too. They don’t come any better, or any steadier, and she’s not working now. I didn’t expect her – well, anyhow, she’d skin me if I didn’t call when we need one. Want her?”

“No trunk lines for outside calls,” Doc reminded him. It was the first time he’d seen any real enthusiasm on the boy’s face, and however good or bad the nurse was, she’d obviously be of value in bucking up Jenkins’ spirits. “Go to it, though; right now we can probably use any nurse. Sweetheart?”

“Wife.” Jenkins went toward the dressing room. “And I don’t need the phone; we used to carry ultra-short-wave personal radios to keep in touch, and I’ve still got mine here. And if you’re worried about her qualifications, she handed instruments to Bayard at Mayo’s for five years – that’s how I managed to get through medical school!”

The siren was approaching again when Jenkins came back, the little tense lines about his lips still there, but his whole bearing somehow steadier. He nodded. “I called Palmer, too, and he O.K.’d her coming inside on the phone without wondering how I’d contacted her. The switchboard girl has standing orders to route all calls from us through before anything else, it seems.”

Doc nodded, his ear cocked toward the drone of the siren that drew up and finally ended on a sour wheeze. There was a feeling of relief from tension about him as he saw Jones appear and go toward the rear entrance; work, even under the pressure of an emergency, was always easier than sitting around waiting for it. He saw two stretchers come in, both bearing double loads, and noted that Beel was babbling at the attendant, the driver’s usually phlegmatic manner completely gone.

“I’m quitting; I’m through tomorrow! No more watching ’em drag out stiffs for me – not that way. Dunno why I gotta go back, anyhow; it won’t do ’em any good to get in further, even if they can. From now on, I’m driving a truck, so help me I am!”

Ferrel let him rave on, only vaguely aware that the man was close to hysteria. He had no time to give to Beel now as he saw the raw red flesh through the visor of one of the armor suits. “Cut off what clothes you can, Jones,” he directed. “At least get the shield suits off them. Tannic acid ready, nurse?”

“Ready.” Meyers answered together with Jenkins, who was busily helping Jones strip off the heavily armored suits and helmets.

Ferrel kicked on the supersonics again, letting them sterilize the metal suits – there was going to be no chance to be finicky about asepsis; the supersonics and ultraviolet tubes were supposed to take care of that, and they’d have to do it, to a large extent, little as he liked it. Jenkins finished his part, dived back for fresh gloves, with a mere cursory dipping of his hands into antiseptic and rinse. Dodd followed him, while Jones wheeled three of the cases into the middle of the surgery, ready for work; the other had died on the way in.

It was going to be messy work, obviously. Where metal from the suits had touched, or come near touching, the flesh was burned – crisped, rather. And that was merely a minor part of it, as was the more than ample evidence of major radiation burns, which had probably not stopped at the surface, but penetrated through the flesh and bones into the vital interior organs. Much worse, the writhing and spasmodic muscular contractions indicated radioactive matter that had been forced into the flesh and was acting directly on the nerves controlling the motor impulses. Jenkins looked hastily at the twisting body of his case, and his face blanched to a yellowish white; it was the first real example of the full possibilities of an atomic accident he’d seen.

“Curare,” he said finally, the word forced out, but level. Meyers handed him the hypodermic and he inserted it, his hand still steady – more than normally steady, in fact, with that absolute lack of movement that can come to a living organism only under the stress of emergency. Ferrel dropped his eyes back to his own case, both relieved and worried.

From the spread of the muscular convulsions, there could be only one explanation – somehow, radioactives had not only worked their way through the air grills, but had been forced through the almost airtight joints and sputtered directly into the flesh of the men. Now they were sending out radiations into every nerve, throwing aside the normal orders from the brain and spinal column, setting up anarchic orders of their own that left the muscles to writhe and jerk, one against the other, without order or reason, or any of the normal restraints the body places upon itself. The closest parallel was that of a man undergoing metrozol shock for schizophrenia, or a severe case of strychnine poisoning. He injected curare carefully, metering out the dosage according to the best estimate he could make, but Jenkins had been acting under a pressure that finished the second injection as Doc looked up from his first. Still, in spite of the rapid spread of the drug, some of the twitching went on.

“Curare,” Jenkins repeated, and Doc tensed mentally; he’d still been debating whether to risk extra dosage. But he made no counter-order, feeling slightly relieved this time at having the matter taken out of his hands; Jenkins went back to work, pushing up the injections to the absolute limit of safety, and slightly beyond. One of the cases had started a weird minor moan that hacked on and off as his lungs and vocal cords went in and out of synchronization, but it quieted under the drug, and in a matter of minutes the three lay still, breathing with the shallow flaccidity common to curare treatment. They were still moving slightly, but where before they were perfectly capable of breaking their own bones in uncontrolled efforts, now there was only motion similar to a man with a chill.

“God bless the man who synthesized curare,” Jenkins muttered as he began cleaning away damaged flesh, Meyers assisting.

Doc could repeat that; with the older, natural product, true standardization and exact dosage had been next to impossible. Too much, and its action on the body was fatal; the patient died from “exhaustion” of his chest muscles in a matter of minutes. Too little was practically useless. Now that the danger of self-injury and fatal exhaustion from wild exertion was over, he could attend to such relatively unimportant things as the agony still going on – curare had no particular effect on the sensory nerves. He injected neo-heroin and began cleaning the burned areas and treating them with the standard tannic-acid routine, first with a sulphonamide to eliminate possible infection, glancing up occasionally at Jenkins.

He had no need to worry, though; the boy’s nerves were frozen into an unnatural calm that still pressed through with a speed Ferrel made no attempt to equal, knowing his work would suffer for it. At a gesture, Dodd handed him the little radiation detector, and he began hunting over the skin, inch by inch, for the almost miscroscopic bits of matter; there was no hope of finding all now, but the worst deposits could be found and removed; later, with more time, a final probing could be made.

“Jenkins,” he asked, “how about I-713’s chemical action? Is it basically poisonous to the system?”

“No. Perfectly safe except for radiation. Eight in the outer electron ring, chemically inert.”

That, at least, was a relief. Radiations were bad enough in and of themselves, but when coupled with metallic poisoning, like the old radium or mercury poisoning, it was even worse. The small colloidally fine particles of I-713 in the flesh would set up their own danger signal, and could be scraped away in the worst cases; otherwise, they’d probably have to stay until the isotope exhausted itself. Mercifully, its half-life was short, which would decrease the long hospitalization and suffering of the men.

Jenkins joined Ferrel on the last patient, replacing Dodd at handing instruments. Doc would have preferred the nurse, who was used to his little signals, but he said nothing, and was surprised to note the efficiency of the boy’s cooperation. “How about the breakdown products?” he asked.

“I-713? Harmless enough, mostly, and what isn’t harmless isn’t concentrated enough to worry about. That is, if it’s still I-713. Otherwise—”

Otherwise, Doc finished mentally, the boy meant there’d be no danger from poisoning, at least. Isotope R, with an uncertain degeneration period, turned into Mahler’s Isotope, with a complete breakdown in a billionth of a second. He had a fleeting vision of men, filled with a fine dispersion of that, suddenly erupting over their body with a violence that could never be described; Jenkins must have been thinking the same thing. For a few seconds, they stood there, looking at each other silently, but neither chose to speak of it. Ferrel reached for the probe, Jenkins shrugged, and they went on with their work and their thoughts.