The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

by Martin Greenberg

  “Operator, this is an emergency. I’m Walnut, 7654; I want to put in a long-distance call to Dr. Kubelik, Mayo’s Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota. If Kubelik isn’t there, I’ll take anyone else who answers from his department. Speed is urgent.”

  “Very good, sir.” Long-distance operators, mercifully, were usually efficient. There were the repeated signals and clicks of relays as she put it through, the answer from the hospital board, more wasted time, and then a face appeared on the screen; but not that of Kubelik. It was a much younger man.

  Ferrel wasted no time in introduction. “I’ve got an emergency case here where all Hades depends on saving a man, and it can’t be done without that machine of Dr. Kubelik’s; he knows me, if he’s there – I’m Ferrel, met him at the convention, got him to show me how the thing worked.”

  “Kubelik hasn’t come in yet, Dr. Ferrel; I’m his assistant. But, if you mean the heart and lung exciter, it’s already boxed and supposed to leave for Harvard this morning. They’ve got a rush case out there, and may need it—”

  “Not as much as I do.”

  “I’ll have to call— Wait a minute, Dr. Ferrel, seems I remember your name now. Aren’t you the chap with National Atomic?”

  Doc nodded. “The same. Now, about that machine, if you’ll stop the formalities—”

  The face on the screen nodded, instant determination showing, with an underlying expression of something else. “We’ll ship it down to you instantly, Ferrel. Got a field for a plane?”

  “Not within three miles, but I’ll have a truck sent out for it. How long?”

  “Take too long by truck if you need it down there, Ferrel; I’ll arrange to transship in air from our special speedster to a helicopter, have it delivered wherever you want. About – um, loading plane, flying a couple hundred miles, transshipping – about half an hour’s the best we can do.”

  “Make it the square of land south of the infirmary, which is crossed visibly from the air. Thanks!”

  “Wait, Dr. Ferrel!” The younger man checked Doc’s cut-off. “Can you use it when you get it? It’s tricky work.”

  “Kubelik gave quite a demonstration and I’m used to tricky work. I’ll chance it – have to. Too long to rouse Kubelik himself, isn’t it?”

  “Probably. O.K., I’ve got the telescript reply from the shipping office, it’s starting for the plane. I wish you luck!”

  Ferrel nodded his thanks, wondering. Service like that was welcome, but it wasn’t the most comforting thing, mentally, to know that the mere mention of National Atomic would cause such an about-face. Rumors, it seemed, were spreading, and in a hurry, in spite of Palmer’s best attempts. Good Lord, what was going on here? He’d been too busy for any serious worrying or to realize, but – well, it had gotten him the exciter, and for that he should be thankful.

  The guard was starting uncertainly off for reinforcements when Doc came out, and he realized that the seemingly endless call must have been over in short order. He tossed the rifle well out of the man’s reach and headed back toward the infirmary at a run, wondering how Jenkins had made out – it had to be all right!

  Jenkins wasn’t standing over the body of Jorgenson; Brown was there instead, her eyes moist and her face pinched in and white around the nostrils that stood out at full width. She looked up, shook her head at him as he started forward, and went on working at Jorgenson’s heart.

  “Jenkins cracked?”

  “Nonsense! This is woman’s work, Dr. Ferrel, and I took over for him, that’s all. You men try to use brute force all your life and then wonder why a woman can do twice as much delicate work where strong muscles are a nuisance. I chased him out and took over, that’s all.” But there was a catch in her voice as she said it, and Meyers was looking down entirely too intently at the work of artificial respiration.

  “Hi, Doc!” It was Blake’s voice that broke in. “Get away from there; when this Dr. Brown needs help, I’ll be right in there. I’ve been sleeping like a darned fool all night, from four this morning on. Didn’t hear the phone, or something, didn’t know what was going on until I got to the gate out there. You go rest.”

  Ferrel grunted in relief; Blake might have been dead drunk when he finally reached home, which would explain his not hearing the phone, but his animal virility had soaked it out with no visible sign. The only change was the absence of the usual cocky grin on his face as he moved over beside Brown to test Jorgenson. “Thank the Lord you’re here, Blake. How’s Jorgen-son doing?”

  Brown’s voice answered in a monotone, words coming in time to the motions of her fingers. “His heart shows signs of coming around once in a while, but it doesn’t last. He isn’t getting worse from what I can tell, though.”

  “Good. If we can keep him going half an hour more, we can turn all this over to a machine. Where’s Jenkins?”

  “A machine? Oh, the Kubelik exciter, of course. He was working on it when I was there. We’ll keep Jorgenson alive until then, anyway, Dr. Ferrel.”

  “Where’s Jenkins?” he repeated sharply, when she stopped with no intention of answering the former question.

  Blake pointed toward Ferrel’s office, the door of which was now closed. “In there. But lay off him, Doc. I saw the whole thing, and he feels like the deuce about it. He’s a good kid, but only a kid, and this kind of hell could get any of us.”

  “I know all that.” Doc headed toward the office, as much for a smoke as anything else. The sight of Blake’s rested face was somehow an island of reassurance in this sea of fatigue and nerves. “Don’t worry, Brown, I’m not planning on lacing him down, so you needn’t defend your man so carefully. It was my fault for not listening to him.”

  Brown’s eyes were pathetically grateful in the brief flash she threw him, and he felt like a heel for the gruffness that had been his first reaction to Jenkins’ absence. If this kept on much longer, though, they’d all be in worse shape than the boy, whose back was toward him as he opened the door. The still, huddled shape did not raise its head from its arms as Ferrel put his hand onto one shoulder, and the voice was muffled and distant.

  “I cracked, Doc – high, wide and handsome, all over the place. I couldn’t take it! Standing there, Jorgenson maybe dying because I couldn’t control myself right, the whole plant blowing up, all my fault. I kept telling myself I was O.K., I’d go on, then I cracked. Screamed like a baby! Dr. Jenkins – nerve specialist!”

  “Yeah. . . . Here, are you going to drink this, or do I have to hold your blasted nose and pour it down your throat?” It was crude psychology, but it worked, and Doc handed over the drink, waited for the other to down it, and passed a cigarette across before sinking into his own chair. “You warned me, Jenkins, and I risked it on my own responsibility, so nobody’s kicking. But I’d like to ask a couple of questions.”

  “Go ahead – what’s the difference?” Jenkins had recovered a little, obviously, from the note of defiance that managed to creep into his voice.

  “Did you know Brown could handle that kind of work? And did you pull your hands out before she could get hers in to replace them?”

  “She told me she could. I didn’t know before. I dunno about the other; I think . . . yeah, Doc, she had her hands over mine. But—”

  Ferrel nodded, satisfied with his own guess. “I thought so. You didn’t crack, as you put it, until your mind knew it was safe to do so – and then you simply passed the work on. By that definition, I’m cracking, too. I’m sitting in here, smoking, talking to you, when out there a man needs attention. The fact that he’s getting it from two others, one practically fresh, the other at least a lot better off than we are, doesn’t have a thing to do with it, does it?”

  “But it wasn’t that way, Doc. I’m not asking for grand-stand stuff from anybody.”

  “Nobody’s giving it to you, son. All right, you screamed – why not? It didn’t hurt anything. I growled at Brown when I came in for the same reason – exhausted, overstrained nerves. If I went out there and had to take ove
r from them, I’d probably scream myself, or start biting my tongue – nerves have to have an outlet; physically, it does them no good, but there’s a psychological need for it.” The boy wasn’t convinced, and Doc sat back in the chair, staring at him thoughtfully. “Ever wonder why I’m here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, you might. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was about your age, there wasn’t a surgeon in this country – or the world, for that matter – who had the reputation I had; any kind of surgery, brain, what have you. They’re still using some of my techniques . . . uh-hum, thought you’d remember when the association of names hit you. I had a different wife then, Jenkins, and there was a baby coming. Brain tumor – I had to do it, no one else could. I did it, somehow, but I went out of that operating room in a haze, and it was three days later when they’d tell me she’d died; not my fault – I know that now – but I couldn’t realize it then.

  “So, I tried setting up as a general practitioner. No more surgery for me! And because I was a fair diagnostician, which most surgeons aren’t, I made a living, at least. Then, when this company was set up, I applied for the job, and got it; I still had a reputation of sorts. It was a new field, something requiring study and research, and damned near every ability of most specialists plus a general practitioner’s, so it kept me busy enough to get over my phobia of surgery. Compared to me, you don’t know what nerves or cracking means. That little scream was a minor incident.”

  Jenkins made no comment, but lighted the cigarette he’d been holding. Ferrel relaxed farther into the chair, knowing that he’d be called if there was any need for his work, and glad to get his mind at least partially off Jorgenson. “It’s hard to find a man for this work, Jenkins. It takes too much ability at too many fields, even though it pays well enough. We went through plenty of applicants before we decided on you, and I’m not regretting our choice. As a matter of fact, you’re better equipped for the job than Blake was – your record looked as if you’d deliberately tried for this kind of work.”

  “I did.”

  “Hm-m-m.” That was the one answer Doc had least expected; so far as he knew, no one deliberately tried for a job at Atomics – they usually wound up trying for it after comparing their receipts for a year or so with the salary paid by National. “Then you knew what was needed and picked it up in toto. Mind if I ask why?”

  Jenkins shrugged. “Why not? Turnabout’s fair play. It’s kind of complicated, but the gist of it doesn’t take much telling. Dad had an atomic plant of his own – and a darned good one, too, Doc, even it it wasn’t as big as National. I was working in it when I was fifteen, and I went through two years of university work in atomics with the best intentions of carrying on the business. Sue – well, she was the neighbor girl I followed around, and we had money at the time; that wasn’t why she married me, though. I never did figure that out – she’d had a hard enough life, but she was already holding down a job at Mayo’s, and I was just a raw kid. Anyway—

  “The day we came home from our honeymoon, dad got a big contract on a new process we’d worked out. It took some swinging, but he got the equipment and started it. . . . My guess is that one of the controls broke though faulty construction; the process was right! We’d been over it too often not to know what it would do. But, when the estate was cleared up, I had to give up the idea of a degree in atomics, and Sue was back working at the hospital. Atomic courses cost real money. Then one of Sue’s medical acquaintances fixed it for me to get a scholarship in medicine that almost took care of it, so I chose the next best thing to what I wanted.”

  “National and one of the biggest competitors – if you can call it that – are permitted to give degree in atomics,” Doc reminded the boy. The field was still too new to be a standing university course, and there were no better teachers in the business than such men as Palmer, Hokusai and Jorgenson. “They pay a salary while you’re learning, too.”

  “Hm-m-m. Takes ten years that way, and the salary’s just enough for a single man. No, I’d married Sue with the intention she wouldn’t have to work again; well, she did until I finished internship, but I knew if I got the job here I could support her. As an atomjack, working up to an engineer, the prospects weren’t so good. We’re saving a little money now, and someday maybe I’ll get a crack at it yet. . . . Doc, what’s this all about? You babying me out of my fit?”

  Ferrel grinned at the boy. “Nothing else, son, though I was curious. And it worked. Feel all right now, don’t you?”

  “Mostly, except for what’s going on out there – I got too much of a look at it from the truck. Oh, I could use some sleep, I guess, but I’m O.K. again.”

  “Good.” Doc had profited almost as much as Jenkins from the rambling off-trail talk, and had managed more rest from it than from nursing his own thoughts. “Suppose we go out and see how they’re making out with Jorgenson? Um, what happened to Hoke, come to think of it?”

  “Hoke? Oh, he’s in my office now, figuring out things with a pencil and paper since we wouldn’t let him go back out there. I was wondering—”

  “Atomics? . . . Then suppose you go in and talk to him; he’s a good guy, and he won’t give you the brush-off. Nobody else around here apparently suspected this Isotope R business, and you might offer a fresh lead for him. With Blake and the nurses here and the men out of the mess except for the tanks, there’s not much you can do to help on my end.”

  Ferrel felt more at peace with the world than he had since the call from Palmer as he watched Jenkins head off across the surgery toward his office; and the glance that Brown threw, first toward the boy, then back at Doc, didn’t make him feel worse. That girl could say more with her eyes than most women could with their mouths! He went over toward the operating table where Blake was now working the heart massage with one of the fresh nurses attending to respiration and casting longing glances toward the mechanical lung apparatus; it couldn’t be used in this case, since Jorgenson’s chest had to be free for heart attention.

  Blake looked up, his expression worried. “This isn’t so good, Doc. He’s been sinking in the last few minutes. I was just going to call you. I—”

  The last words were drowned out by the bull-throated drone that came dropping down from above them, a sound peculiarly characteristic of the heavy Sikorsky freighters with their modified blades to gain lift. Ferrel nodded at Brown’s questioning glance, but he didn’t choose to shout as his hands went over those of Blake and took over the delicate work of simulating the natural heart action. As Blake withdrew, the sound stopped, and Doc motioned him out with his head.

  “You’d better go to them and oversee bringing in the apparatus – and grab up any of the men you see to act as porters – or send Jones for them. The machine is an experimental model, and pretty cumbersome; must weigh seven – eight hundred pounds.”

  “I’ll get them myself – Jones is sleeping.”

  There was no flutter to Jorgenson’s heart under Doc’s deft manipulations, though he was exerting every bit of skill he possessed. “How long since there was a sign?”

  “About four minutes, now. Doc, is there still a chance?”

  “Hard to say. Get the machine, though, and we’ll hope.”

  But still the heart refused to respond, though the pressure and manipulation kept the blood circulating and would at least prevent any starving or asphyxiation of the body cells. Carefully, delicately, he brought his mind into his fingers, trying to woo a faint quiver. Perhaps he did, once, but he couldn’t be sure. It all depended on how quickly they could get the machine working now, and how long a man could live by manipulation alone. That point was still unsettled.

  But there was no question about the fact that the spark of life burned faintly and steadily lower in Jorgenson, while outside the man-made hell went on ticking off the minutes that separated it from becoming Mahler’s Isotope. Normally, Doc was an agnostic, but now, unconsciously, his mind slipped back into the simple faith of his childhood, and he heard Brown echoi
ng the prayer that was on his lips. The second hand of the watch before him swung around and around and around again before he heard the sound of men’s feet at the back entrance, and still there was no definite quiver from the heart under his fingers. How much time did he have left, if any, for the difficult and unfamiliar operation required?

  His side glance showed the seemingly innumerable filaments of platinum that had to be connected into the nerves governing Jorgenson’s heart and lungs, all carefully coded, yet almost terrifying in their complexity. If he made a mistake anywhere, it was at least certain there would be no time for a second trial; if his fingers shook or his tired eyes clouded at the wrong instant, there would be no help from Jorgenson. Jorgenson would be dead!

  5

  “Take over massage, Brown,” he ordered. “And keep it up no matter what happens. Good. Dodd, assist me, and hang onto my signals. If it works, we can all rest afterward.”

  Ferrel wondered grimly with that part of his mind that was off by itself whether he could justify his boast to Jenkins of having been the world’s greatest surgeon; it had been true once, he knew with no need for false modesty, but that was long ago, and this was at best a devilish job. He’d hung on with a surge of the old fascination as Kubelik had performed it on a dog at the convention, and his memory for such details was still good, as were his hands. But something else goes into the making of a great surgeon, and he wondered if that were still with him.

  Then, as his fingers made the microscopic little motions needed and Dodd became another pair of hands, he ceased wondering. Whatever it was, he could feel it surging through him, and there was a pure joy to it somewhere, over and above the urgency of the work. This was probably the last time he’d ever feel it, and if the operation succeeded, probably it was a thing he could put with the few mental treasures that were still left from his former success. The man on the table ceased to be Jorgenson, the excessively gadgety infirmary became again the main operating theater of that same Mayo’s which had produced Brown and this strange new machine, and his fingers were again those of the Great Ferrel, the miracle boy from Mayo’s, who could do the impossible twice before breakfast without turning a hair.