The Bladerunner

by Alan E Nourse

  “The important thing is they’re hearing rumors,” Molly said. “And that must mean that the bladerunners are getting the word around.” She paused. “Have you heard from Billy?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Doc, something’s got to be wrong. He could have gotten hit on the head or almost anything — that’s a rough crowd of people he’s been trying to track down.”

  “I know it, but that’s not what scares me. He was really in no shape to go out at all, and if he’s forgotten to take those capsules — ” Doc sighed. “Molly, I’m going to have to go find him. You get these names cleared and go home. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “You sure you don’t want me along?”

  “Not now. I’ll call if I need you.”

  Outside the hospital the streets were crowded and ground-cabs were nowhere to be found. Doc made his way to the heliport on foot, haunted the loading dock until a cab came in to discharge passengers, and elbowed his way past a fat lady to claim the seat. Half an hour later, with many detours around still-icy Lower City streets, he paid off the cabbie and made his way up the rickety stairs to Billy’s room.

  The place was a shambles — and empty. The bedding was half torn from the bed; one bureau drawer gaped open, with clothes hanging out of it down to the floor. The message signal was blinking witlessly on the telephone console. Doc lifted the receiver and heard his own recorded message from earlier in the day, taped and never erased. Something caught his eye under the bed, and he scraped up a dozen Viricidin capsules that were scattered across the floor. For all the cold weather, Billy’s coat lay in a heap on a chair. Beneath it on the floor was a crumpled sheet of note paper with pencilled names on it, most of them crossed out — obviously people Billy had contacted, or tried to, the day before.

  For a moment Doc surveyed the place. Clearly Billy had been here, probably slept here, and was gone again — but where? Doc crossed the room, sifted through the assorted junk piled on top of the bureau. The phony transponder was gone. Alarmed, Doc ransacked the bed, then dropped to hands and knees to search underneath. Finally he found the instrument, kicked far under the bed but still apparently functioning.

  Doc set it gently back on the bureau, then cleared a chair and sat down, his mind working furiously. It wasn’t like Billy to ignore a telephone message signal, nor was it like him not to call and check in when he was supposed to — not if he was thinking clearly. But fever did funny things to people’s minds, and if Billy were getting sicker, there was no guessing where he might be, or in what kind of trouble. If there were a way to trace him — Doc stared at the telephone console for a moment, then once again dialed the number to reach Parrot. After three rings the receiver clicked. Doc punched the number code Billy had given him, and hung up. A moment later the call was returned. “Billy?” a man’s voice said.

  “No, this is John Long, Billy’s doctor. I’m calling from Billy’s room.”

  The TV on the phone console flickered on, and the fat, hook-nosed man peered at Doc intently. Finally satisfied, Parrot’s voice was still cautious. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m worried about Billy. He hasn’t called since last night and he isn’t in his room. Do you know where he is?”

  Parrot pursed his lips. “He’s not there? That’s odd. He swung by here for supplies last evening, but I haven’t heard from him since. I thought he was probably just sleeping.” He hesitated. “Matter of fact, he looked awful. I was amazed he got through the day yesterday.”

  “I know,” Doc said. “That’s why I’m worried. He had some medicine but he may have forgotten to take it. Don’t you have any idea where he could be?”

  “He could be anyplace. He had a long list of contacts to make, and picked up some more last night, scattered all over the area. But let me just check a minute … hold on.”

  Parrot left the phone momentarily while Doc tapped his fingers impatiently. In a short while the fat man was back with some cards in his pudgy hands. “This might help,” he said. “There was a kid named Roberts that he couldn’t reach yesterday, a bladerunner, hard guy to run down. Important, too; he has a lot of contacts down in the East Four Hundred Fifteenth Street section, an area I can’t get near. I got a tip on where Roberts might be, and told Billy about it last night.” Parrot picked up a card and read off an address. “It’s just a tavern down in the east side warehouse district, but Roberts hangs out there a lot between jobs. Billy could be down there and you might just catch him.”

  “What about the other contacts you gave him?”

  Parrot hesitated. “I can give you the list, but you could get in bad trouble fooling with some of those people.”

  “That’s a risk I’ll just have to take,” Doc said. “I’ve got to find Billy. I should never have sent him out in the first place, and if he needs help now, I’m the one that’s elected. Let me have the names.”

  He scribbled quickly as Parrot gave him names, addresses, directions. Finally he rang off, and sat for some time staring at the list. Conceivably Billy could have gone to contact the one named Roberts — he found Roberts’s name on Billy’s note sheet, the entry unchecked, with a side note naming the tavern — but he could just as well be seeking out any of the others on Parrot’s list, or simply wandering around in a feverish daze, for that matter. There were a dozen names on the list; working alone, Doc realized, it could take him days to run them all down in an effort to trace Billy. Yet he knew he didn’t dare wait any longer for Billy to return or call in. As he puzzled over where to start, a thought occurred, and on impulse he rang Katie Durham’s Hospital office.

  She was still there, for all the late hour, looking harried but surprisingly fresh. “Katie, when we talked this morning you offered some help,” Doc said, “and now I need it.”

  “Anything I can do, John. Is it your Billy?”

  “That’s right. He’s disappeared, and he’s sick. I’m afraid he may be in trouble.”

  “You want an all-points alarm out on him?”

  “You mean police? Lord, no, that would really blow our underground drive apart. But I’ve got a long list of places he might be, and I need to cover them fast. If you could release a Hospital hovercraft for me, and a couple of people to man it for me, it could save me hours — and hours could be precious.”

  Katie frowned. “I think all the Hospital craft are out,” she said, checking a call-board. “No, wait, there’s still one down in the dock. But it’s got to be urgent, John.”

  “It’s urgent,” Doc said. “Just send it down here.” He gave her Billy’s address, and rang off. Moments later he was waiting down on the street, hunched against a cold wind, the list of contacts folded in his pocket, trying hard not to contemplate how urgent his mission might really be.

  IV

  It had been broad daylight when Billy Gimp awakened with a start, uncertain even of where he was. A clock on the bureau showed a little after 3:00 P.M., and he realized dimly that he must have slept fourteen hours at least It had been a restless, dream-tormented sleep, though, and it seemed to him that he felt more weary now than he had the night before. His head ached furiously; his chest was so tight that each breath was painful, and a dry, wracking cough drove him breathless as he got up and staggered across the room. Vaguely he remembered — or had he dreamed it? — that a telephone had been ringing some time earlier; he had struggled out of bed to answer it, but his limbs had been like lead, and he had sprawled on the floor. By the time he had limped to the phone, the call was gone, if there had been a call at all. Now he stared at the message signal, blinking on and off, as if hypnotized by it Finally he picked up the receiver, heard Doc’s voice asking him to call. But wasn’t that last night? Billy tried to clear his mind, but another fit of coughing seized him and he dropped the receiver back without even erasing the tape. He had already called Doc, he was certain of that, no point in calling again so soon, nothing new to report — or was there? What had he done last night?

  Frighteningly, he couldn’t rememb
er. There was something about Roberts, and a whole new list from Parrot. He tottered back to sit on the bed, exhausted and confused. On the floor were the note sheets he must have dropped from his pocket, the contacts he had made, or failed to make, earlier. He picked them up, stared at them stupidly and watched in a feverish haze as they fluttered to the floor again. Most of the names were checked off, all but one or two. Surely he’d done enough, done what Doc had wanted him to do, but there was still someone he had to go back to see….

  Roberts. For a moment, his mind focused clearly. He hadn’t connected with Roberts, not even with Parrot’s tip, and Roberts had to be seen. Aside from his other widespread contacts, Roberts was the key to two suppliers who were vital links in the underground chain. Even if the other new contacts Parrot had given him were left to go begging, he had to try again to reach Roberts.

  He stood up shakily, stripping off his dirty shirt and undershirt and searching for something cleaner in the dresser. His sleeve caught the phony transponder and sent it skittering under the bed, but Billy hardly noticed. He struggled into his coat, got it on inside out, tugged it off and inadvertently dropped it on the floor; for a moment he just stood staring at it, and finally decided it was not worth the effort to reach down and pick it up. He pulled on a sweater instead, surveyed the room with his head swimming, and finally started down the stairs.

  He was halfway down the first flight when he heard his phone jangling again. Swearing, he stopped and listened as it rang and rang. Then it was silent again, and he leaned wearily on the railing. Probably it was Doc, he should have tried to get it, should have tried to call while he was still up there, but the room seemed miles out of reach now, far too difficult to go back. Doc would keep. If he could just get down the stairs now, one step at a time down to the street, he could maybe get back to the place where Roberts might be found, get the message and supplies to him, finish what he had started yesterday the way Doc had asked him to, so that he could stop and rest and sleep and wait for this headache to go away….

  It was cold outside, with a biting wind that chewed through the light sweater and made his chest tighten all the more. It seemed to Billy that there was more street traffic than usual, with cars and trucks jamming up the narrow streets and people crowding the sidewalks and doorways. The place he had looked for Roberts the night before was miles to the southeast, but he started walking, bending against the wind. Within a block his teeth were chattering uncontrollably and the cough became so painful he had to lean against a lamppost until it eased. He watched three empty ground-cabs creep by before it dawned on him that he still had money in his pockets and could ride.

  From that point on the day degenerated into nightmare. The tavern, when he reached it, was crowded, but Roberts was nowhere to be seen. At first the hard-eyed bartender denied having heard of any Roberts, but then he looked more closely at Billy, shivering uncontrollably on the bar stool, and frowned. “What’s the matter, you sick? You a patient or something?”

  “Yeah, I’m a patient. I gotta see Roberts.”

  “You’re too early, he never gets here till almost midnight Come on back then; he’ll take care of you.”

  Nodding dazedly, Billy stumbled out of the place. Back in the cab he dug in his pockets, spilling the bundle of Viricidin injection kits Parrot had given him onto the seat, and came up with Parrot’s list of contacts he had picked up last night Only a few were checked off — he must have given up early. But there were more than six hours before midnight, plenty of time to contact some of them.

  He gave the cabbie an address and plunged in. Where he went, exactly, he never could have said. Half the time he was in a stupor, with stairways, alleys, and crowded streets flashing by in blurred succession. At one point he was asking someone — a bartender? — for aspirin, gulping down the white pills with water, inhaling some and coughing until his sides ached to clear his chest again. Later he was facing a chubby, dough-faced youth with a badly scarred cheek across a table, talking, pleading, urging the boy to contact other bladerunners he knew, yet sensing from the fish-eyed stare that what he was saying was making no sense. At another place someone hurled him down a flight of stairs and he remembered thinking, like a drunken man, how lightly and gracefully he was falling, pirouetting in dreamlike slow motion until he thudded to a stop on the landing below. And later still, someone was feeding him something somewhere, a warm, watery soup that made him gag and cough, yet introduced a spot of warmth that did wonders for his chill.

  And finally, miraculously, seven hours and a half a dozen calls later, he was back at the tavern where Roberts was due, the bundle of Viricidin kits still stuffed in his pants pocket. The place, a combination of tavern, restaurant, and pool hall, was crowded and noisy now; a jukebox screamed, and people were packed in three deep at the bar. Near the door Billy saw a group of Naturist men, heads and beards half shaven, clustered together in deep conversation. Billy slipped past them, then paused to peer back into the bluish gloom of the place, almost gagging at the combined stench of beer, wet clothes, and acrid smoke. He had met Roberts only once before, remembered only vaguely the long, dirty-blond hair and the hatchet face, but he was sure that if he saw him he would recognize him. Moving past the bar and pool tables, Billy searched the tables and booths toward the rear.

  Roberts was sitting with two others in the farthest booth, eating in sullen silence. As Billy approached he put his fork down and sat up straight. “Roberts?” Billy said, hesitating.

  “Who wants him?” one of the others said.

  “I’m Billy Gimp. I work out of Parrot’s shop. He wanted me to see you.”

  Roberts motioned him to sit down. “Parrot threw me out on my can three years ago. Said he was tired of my face. What does he want now?”

  “It’s about this flu that’s around, it’s bad news and the word’s gotta be spread.” Fumbling for words, Billy told the story as clearly as he could remember it. “They figure people are going to be dying in flocks if we don’t move,” he concluded, “and that means seeing patients and making other contacts, both.”

  “There’s been some meningitis around,” Roberts conceded, “but I haven’t seen anybody dying.”

  “You will. It’s the same thing as the flu, a late complication. People got to be protected. Viricidin if they’re sick, immune globulin if they’ve been exposed, polyvalent vaccine for everybody who hasn’t gotten the flu yet. They can get it at any Hospital or Clinic.”

  Roberts shook his head suspiciously. “Who put you onto this? You sound like a shill for Health Control to me.”

  “Not so, but the word is getting around.”

  “I haven’t heard anything from my doc.”

  “Maybe he just hasn’t heard yet We’re trying to spread this as far and fast as possible. I’ve got some injection kits for you to start with.” Billy hauled the bundle of supplies out of his pocket and set it on the table. “There’s no cost; we’re moving these things free before we have a full-scale epidemic going out of control.”

  “I don’t like it,” Roberts said. “I’ve been hearing a thousand rumors, all different. Why should I believe you?”

  “Don’t believe me. Call Parrot.”

  “I don’t mess around with Parrot.”

  “Then call your own supplier.”

  Roberts came to his feet. “I’ll do that, right now.” He looked at his two companions. “Keep this gimpy one here till I get back.”

  Billy sat at the table, still shivering, as the youth crossed the room to a telephone booth. Roberts was gone so long Billy was almost dozing when he came back, looking sobered and shaken.

  “Big John says it’s on the level,” Roberts said. “He’s been trying to reach me and so has my doc.” He looked at Billy. “Big John says that underground supplies are very scarce; we should be sending people to the Hospitals. That straight?”

  “That’s straight,” Billy said.

  “No questions asked, no qualifications?”

  “Not for that.”


  “Well, we’d better move.” Roberts motioned to his two companions. “We’ll take these supplies.”

  “Okay, but only use them for people that won’t go in to a Hospital for anything.”

  Roberts picked up the brown-wrapped packet and started toward the door. They had not noticed, as they talked, that the place, previously noisy, had become ominously quiet, and the group of Naturists had moved down the bar to stare at them fixedly. Now a huge half-shaven man stepped out in front of Roberts, flanked by two others. “Hold it, Bud,” he rumbled. “What’s in the package?”

  “That’s my business,” Roberts said.

  “And any lousy bladerunner with bootleg medical supplies is my business,” the big man said. “Hand it over.”

  Somewhere a glass crashed on the floor. Roberts moved like lightning, driving straight into the big man’s midriff with his fist, then turning aside and bringing a fist down on his neck. As the big man went reeling into his cohorts, Roberts’ companions headed for the door on Roberts’ heels. Billy was on his feet now, sidestepping one of the big man’s friends and catching another with a sharp chop across the nose as he moved in. Three other Naturists loomed up in the narrow alley between the bar and the door, and a knife appeared from somewhere. His head swimming, Billy deftly tripped the first man, used a bar stool for a pivot to swing past the other two, tripped himself on somebody’s leg and landed with a thud by the door. Somebody caught at his arm as he scrambled to his feet, but Billy twisted loose as he crashed through the door, leaving his sweater behind.