Preferred Risk

by Lester Del Rey

  I had even heard some ugly, never-quite-made-clear stories about why the Company had so many clinics…but when people began hinting at such ridiculous unpleasantness, I felt it was my duty to make it clear that I wanted to hear no subversive talk. So I had never got the details—and certainly would never have believed them for a moment if I had.

  * * * *

  It was very early in the morning, as I say, but it seemed that I was not the first to arrive at the clinic. On the sparse grass before the main entrance, half a dozen knots of men and women were standing around apathetically. Some of them glared at me as I came near them, for reasons I did not understand; others merely stared.

  I heard a hoarse whisper as I passed one group of middle-aged women. One of them was saying, “Benedetto non é morte.” She seemed to be directing it to me; but it meant nothing. The only comment that came to my somewhat weary mind was, “So what if Benedetto isn’t dead?”

  A huge armed expediter, yawning and scratching, let me in to the executive office. I explained that I had been sent for by Mr. Defoe. I had to wait until Mr. Defoe was ready to receive me and was finally conducted to a suite of rooms.

  This might have once been an authentic clinic; it had the aseptic appearance of a depressing hospital room. One for, say, Class-Cs with terminal myasthenia. Now, though, it had been refitted as a private guest suite, with an attempt at luxurious drapes and deep stuffed armchairs superimposed on the basic adjustable beds and stainless steel plumbing.

  I hadn’t seen Defoe in some time, but he hadn’t changed at all. He was, as always, the perfect model of a Company executive of general-officer rank. He was formal, but not unyielding. He was tall, distinguished-gray at the temples, spare, immaculately outfitted in the traditional vest and bow tie.

  I recalled our first meeting. He was from the side of Marianna’s family that she talked about, and she fluttered around for three whole days, checking our Blue Plate policies for every last exotic dish we could squeeze out to offer him, planning the television programs allowed under our entertainment policies, selecting the most respectable of our friends—“acquaintances” would be a better description; Marianna didn’t make friends easily—to make up a dinner party. He’d arrived at the stroke of the hour he was due, and had brought with him what was undoubtedly his idea of a princely gift for newlyweds—a paid-up extra-coverage maternity benefit rider on our Blue Blanket policies.

  We thanked him effusively. And, for my part, sincerely. That was before I had known Marianna’s views on children; she had no intentions of raising a family.

  * * * *

  As I walked in on Defoe in his private suite at the clinic, he was standing with his back to me, at a small washstand, peering at his reflection in a mirror. He appeared to have finished shaving. I rubbed my own bristled chin uneasily.

  He said over his shoulder, “Good morning, Thomas. Sit down.”

  I sat on the edge of an enormous wing chair. He pursed his lips, stretched the skin under his chin and, when he seemed perfectly satisfied the job was complete, he said as though he were continuing a conversation, “Fill me in on your interview with Zorchi, Thomas.”

  It was the first I’d known he’d ever heard of Zorchi. I hesitantly began to tell him about the meeting in the hospital. It did not, I knew, do me very much credit, but it simply didn’t occur to me to try to make my own part look better. I suppose that if I thought of the matter at all, I simply thought that Defoe would instantly detect any attempt to gloss things over. He hardly seemed to be paying attention to me, though; he was preoccupied with the remainder of his morning ritual—carefully massaging his face with something fragrant, brushing his teeth with a maddening, old-fashioned insistence on careful strokes, combing his hair almost strand by strand.

  Then he took a small bottle with a daub attached to the stopper and touched it to the distinguished gray at his temples.

  I spluttered in the middle of a word; I had never thought of the possibility that the handsomely grayed temples of the Company’s senior executives, as inevitable as the vest or the watch chain, were equally a part of the uniform! Defoe gave me a long inquiring look in the mirror; I coughed and went on with a careful description of Zorchi’s temper tantrum.

  Defoe turned to me and nodded gravely. There was neither approval nor disapproval. He had asked for information and the information had been received.

  He pressed a communicator button and ordered breakfast. The microphone must have been there, but it was invisible. He sat down at a small, surgical-looking table, leaned back and folded his hands.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me what happened in Caserta just before Hammond disappeared.”

  Talking to Defoe had something of the quality of shouting down a well. I collected my thoughts and told him all I knew on the riot at the branch office.

  While I was talking, Defoe’s breakfast arrived. He didn’t know I hadn’t eaten anything, of course—I say “of course” because I know he couldn’t have known, he didn’t ask. I looked at it longingly, but all my looking didn’t alter the fact that there was only one plate, one cup, one set of silverware.

  He ate his breakfast as methodically as he’d brushed his teeth. I doubt if it took him five minutes. Since I finished the Caserta story in about three, the last couple of minutes were in dead silence, Defoe eating, me sitting mute as a disconnected jukebox.

  Then he pushed the little table away, lit a cigarette and said, “You may smoke if you wish, Thomas. Come in, Susan.”

  He didn’t raise his voice; and when, fifteen seconds later, Susan Manchester walked in, he didn’t look at all impressed with the efficiency of his secretary, his intercom system, or himself. The concealed microphone, it occurred to me, had heard him order breakfast and request his secretary to walk in. It had undoubtedly heard—and most probably recorded—every word I had said.

  How well they did things on the upper echelon of the Company!

  Susan looked—different. She was as blonde and pretty as ever. But she wasn’t bubbly. She smiled at me in passing and handed Defoe a typed script, which he scanned carefully.

  He asked, “Nothing new on Hammond?”

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “All right. You may leave this.” She nodded and left. Defoe turned back to me. “I have some news for you, Thomas. Hammond has been located.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Not too badly hung over, I hope.”

  He gave me an arctic smile. “Hardly. He was found by a couple of peasants who were picking grapes. He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Hammond dead! He had had his faults, but he was an officer of the Company and a man I had met. Dead!

  I asked, “How? What happened?”

  “Perhaps you can tell me that, Thomas,” said Defoe.

  I sat startledly erect, shocked by the significance of the words. I said hotly, “Damn it, Mr. Defoe, you know I had nothing to do with this! I’ve been all over the whole thing with you and I thought you were on my side! Just because I said a lot of crazy things after Marianna died doesn’t mean I’m anti-Company—and it certainly doesn’t mean I’d commit murder. If you think that, then why the devil did you put me in cadet school?”

  Defoe merely raised his hand by bending the wrist slightly; it was enough to stop me, though. “Gently, Thomas. I don’t think you did it—that much should be obvious. And I put you in cadet school because I had work for you.”

  “But you said I knew something I was holding back.”

  Defoe waggled the hand reprovingly. “I said you might be able to tell me who killed Hammond. And so you might—but not yet. I count heavily on you for help in this area, Thomas. There are two urgent tasks to be done. Hammond’s death—” he paused and shrugged, and the shrug was all of Hammond’s epitaph—“is only an incident in a larger pattern; we need to work out the pattern itself.”

  He glanced again at the typed list Susan had handed him. “I find that I can stay in the Naples area for only a short time; t
he two tasks must be done before I leave. I shall handle one myself. The other I intend to delegate to you.

  “First we have the unfortunate situation in regard to the state of public morale. Unfortunate? Perhaps I should say disgraceful. There is quite obviously a nucleus of troublemakers at work, Thomas, and Gogarty has not had the wit to find them and take the appropriate steps. Someone else must. Second, this Zorchi is an unnecessary annoyance. I do not propose to let the Company be annoyed, Thomas. Which assignment would you prefer?”

  I said hesitantly, “I don’t know if Mr. Gogarty would like me to—”

  “Gogarty is an ass! If he had not blundered incessantly since he took over the district, I should not have had to drop important work to come here.”

  I thought for a second. Digging out an undercover ring of troublemakers didn’t sound particularly easy. On the other hand, I had already tried my luck with Zorchi.

  “Perhaps you’d better try Zorchi,” I said.

  “Try?” Defoe allowed himself to look surprised. “As you wish. I think you will learn something from watching me handle it, Thomas. Shall we join Signore Zorchi now?”

  “He’s here?”

  Defoe said impatiently, “Of course, Thomas. Come along.”

  * * * *

  Zorchi’s secretary was there, too. He was in a small anteroom, sitting on a hard wooden chair; as we passed him, I saw the hostility in his eyes. He didn’t say a word.

  Beyond him, in an examination room, was Zorchi, slim, naked and hideous, sitting on the edge of a surgical cot and trying not to look ill at ease. He had been shaved from head to knee stumps. Esthetically, at least, it had been a mistake. I never saw such a collection of skin eruptions on a human.

  He burst out, faster than my language-school Italian could follow, in a stream of argument and abuse. Defoe listened icily for a moment, then shut him up in Italian as good as his own, “Answer questions; otherwise keep quiet. I will not warn you again.”

  I don’t know if even Defoe could have stopped Zorchi under normal conditions. But there is something about being naked in the presence of fully dressed opponents that saps the will; and I guessed, too, that the shaving had made Zorchi feel nakeder than ever before in his life. I could see why he’d worn a beard and I wished he still had it.

  “Dr. Lawton,” said Defoe, “have you completed your examination of the insured?”

  A youngish medical officer of the Company said, “Yes, sir. I have the slides and reports right here; they just came up from the laboratory.” He handed a stapled collection of photographic prints and papers to Defoe, who took his own good time to examine them while the rest of us stood and waited.

  Defoe finally put the papers down and nodded. “In a word, this bears out our previous discussion.”

  Lawton nodded. “If you will observe his legs, you will see that the skin healing is complete; already a blastema has formed and—”

  “I know,” Defoe said impatiently. “Signore Zorchi, I regret to say that I have bad news for you.”

  Zorchi waved his hand defiantly. “You are the bad news.”

  Defoe ignored him. “You have a grave systemic imbalance. There is great danger of serious ill effects.”

  “To what?” snarled Zorchi. “The Company’s bank account?”

  “No, Zorchi. To your life.” Defoe shook his head. “There are indications of malignancy.”

  “Malignancy?” Zorchi looked startled. “What kind? Do you mean cancer?”

  “Exactly.” Defoe patted his papers. “You see, Zorchi, healthy human flesh does not grow like a salamander’s tail.”

  The phone rang; impeccable in everything, Defoe waited while Dr. Lawton nervously answered it. Lawton said a few short words, listened for a moment and hung up, looking worried.

  He said: “The crowd outside is getting rather large. That was the expediter-captain from the main gate. He says—”

  “I presume he has standing orders,” Defoe said. “We need not concern ourselves with that, need we?”

  “Well—” The doctor looked unhappy.

  “Now, Zorchi,” Defoe went on, dismissing Lawton utterly, “do you enjoy life?”

  “I despise it!” Zorchi spat to emphasize how much.

  “But you cling to it. You would not like to die, would you? Worse still, you would not care to live indefinitely with carcinoma eating you piece by piece.”

  Zorchi just glowered suspiciously.

  “Perhaps we can cure you, however,” Defoe went on reflectively. “It is by no means certain. I don’t want to raise false hopes. But there is the possibility—”

  “The possibility that you will cure me of collecting on my policies, eh?” Zorchi demanded belligerently. “You are crazy, Defoe. Never!”

  Defoe looked at him for a thoughtful moment. To Lawton, he said: “Have you this man’s claim warranty? It has the usual application for medical treatment, I presume?” He nodded as Lawton confirmed it. “You see, Mr. Zorchi? As a matter of routine, no claim can be paid unless the policyholder submits to our medical care. You signed the usual form, so—”

  “One moment! You people never put me through this before! Did you change the contract on me?”

  “No, Signore Zorchi. The same contract, but this time we will enforce it. I think I should warn you of something, though.”

  He riffled through the papers and found a photographic print to show Zorchi. “This picture isn’t you, Signore. It is a picture of a newt. The doctor will explain it to you.”

  The print was an eight-by-ten glossy of a little lizard with something odd about its legs. Puzzled, Zorchi held it as though the lizard were alive and venomous. But as the doctor spoke, the puzzlement turned into horror and fury.

  “What Mr. Defoe means,” said Lawton, “is that totipotency—that is, the ability to regenerate lost tissues, as you can, even when entire members are involved—is full of unanswered riddles. We have found, for instance, that X-ray treatment on your leg helps a new leg to form rapidly, just as it does on the leg of the salamanders. The radiation appears to stimulate the formation of the blastema, which—well, never mind the technical part. It speeds things up.”

  His eyes gleamed with scientific interest. “But we tried the experiment of irradiating limbs that had not been severed. It worked the same way, oddly enough. New limbs were generated even though the old ones were still there. That’s why the salamander in the photo has four hands on one of its limbs—nine legs altogether, counting that half-formed one just beside the tail. Curious-looking little beast, isn’t it?”

  Defoe cleared his throat. “I only mention, Signore, that the standard treatment for malignancy is X-radiation.”

  Zorchi’s eyes flamed—rage battling it out with terror. He said shrilly, “But you can’t make a laboratory animal out of me! I’m a policyholder!”

  “Nature did it, Signore Zorchi, not us,” Defoe said.

  Zorchi’s eyes rolled up in his head and closed; for a moment, I thought he had fainted and leaped forward to catch him rather than let his legless body crash to the floor. But he hadn’t fainted. He was muttering, half aloud, sick with fear, “For the love of Mary, Defoe! Please, please, I beg you! Please!”

  It was too much for me. I said, shaking with rage, “Mr. Defoe, you can’t force this man to undergo experimental radiation that might make a monster out of him! I insist that you reconsider!”

  Defoe threw his head back. “What, Thomas?” he snapped.

  I said firmly, “He has no one here to advise him—I’ll take the job. Zorchi, listen to me! You’ve signed the treatment application and he’s right enough about that—you can’t get out of it. But you don’t have to take this treatment! Every policyholder has the right to refuse any new and unguaranteed course of treatment, no matter what the circumstances. All you’ve got to do is agree to go into suspension in the va—in the clinic here, pending such time as your condition can be infallibly cured. Do it, man! Don’t let them make you a freak—demand suspension! What have
you got to lose?”

  I never saw a man go so to pieces as Zorchi, when he realized how nearly Defoe had trapped him into becoming a guinea pig. Whimpering thanks to me, he hastily signed the optional agreement for suspended animation and, as quickly as I could, I left him there.

  Defoe followed me. We passed the secretary in the anteroom while Dr. Lawton was explaining the circumstances to him; the man was stricken with astonishment, almost too paralyzed to sign the witnessing form Defoe had insisted on. I knew the form well—I had been about to sign one for Marianna when, at the last moment, she decided against the vaults in favor of the experimental therapy that hadn’t worked.

  Outside in the hall, Defoe stopped and confronted me. I braced myself for the blast to end all blasts.

  I could hardly believe my eyes. The great stone face was smiling!

  “Thomas,” he said inexplicably, “that was masterful. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

  CHAPTER VII

  We walked silently through the huge central waiting room of the clinic.

  There should have been scores of relatives of suspendees milling around, seeking information—there was, I knew, still a steady shipment of suspendees coming in from the local hospitals; I had seen it myself. But there were hardly more than a dozen or so persons in sight, with a single clerk checking their forms and answering their questions.

  It was too quiet. Defoe thought so, too; I saw his frown.

  Now that I had had a few moments to catch my breath, I realized that I had seen a master judoist at work. It was all out of the textbooks—as a fledgling Claims Adjuster, I had had the basic courses in handling difficult cases—but not one man in a million could apply textbook rules as skillfully and successfully as Defoe did with Zorchi.

  Push a man hard and he will lunge back; push him hard enough and persistently enough, and he will lunge back farther than his vision carries him, right to the position you planned for him in the first place. And I, of course, had been only a tool in Defoe’s hand; by interceding for Zorchi, I had tricked the man into the surrender Defoe wanted.