Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner

by Alan E Nourse

  Much of the influx of patients at Hospital No. 7 was ascribed to these announcements, but there was no question that underground rumors were contributing even more heavily. For Doc and Molly the first day had been spent telephoning multitudes of underground patients that they had treated in the past, urging them to come forth, and compiling a growing list of those who were too suspicious to come to the Hospital, even at Doc's urging, but pleaded that he—or somebody—get them the protective medicine via underground channels. By evening Doc had apportioned these calls between himself and Molly Barret; after Billy's long-overdue call had come in, Doc and Molly set out on their respective ways on night-long rounds to catch those recalcitrant patients and urge them to pass the word to others they knew to come into the emergency rooms for care. And the lines grew longer.

  Next morning Doc was back at the Hospital at seven, after two hours of stolen sleep, and met a hollow-eyed Molly in his office to compare notes. Over a hundred new calls were awaiting answers on his telephone recorder; even Molly was receiving calls from underground patients long since forgotten. It was clear from the doctors' call board in the Hospital lobby that other staff doctors were straggling in late or not at all—a reflection, Doc assumed, of their efforts to reach their own underground patients. Each- of the staff had found a special notice from Dr. Katie Durham in his box the day before, announcing that the Hospital was going on Emergency Routine until the epidemic work was under control. Routine admissions were canceled, all but emergency surgery was canceled, and special Clinics, staff meetings, and teaching rounds were all canceled. What was more, it was made clear that there would be no formal inquiry as to where staff doctors might be and what they might be doing in the hours they were freed from the normal hospital routine. If they had underground patients to see, the notice seemed to imply, this was their opportunity to see them, and the earlier the better.

  Briefly Doc and Molly went over their lists, agreeing who should see whom. Both kept a nervous eye on the phone, hoping for a call from Billy, but no call came. Finally Molly was paged for Emergency Room relief service, with another room being opened for administering Viricidal and immune globulin, and Doc started off for morning rounds on his recovering post-surgical patients. Both would be busy at the Hospital all morning, but would be free by midafternoon to get back to their lists of underground patients.

  On the surgical wards one problem led to another, and it was hours later when Doc started back toward his office, feeling a bone-weariness he hadn't felt for months. Katie Durham, emerging from an office in the Computer Section, saw him boarding the elevator, and joined him. Her face was flushed, but there were lines of weariness about her eyes. "I don't know, John," she said as they stepped off the elevator and started down the corridor toward his office, "we're catching thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands by now, in the various Clinics—we've opened four of the specialty clinics to immunizations and protective shots—but the admission curve on the meningitis is still climbing. We're nearly out of isolation beds by now, and there are more coming in every hour. I wish we'd started all this ten days ago."

  "Well, we didn't. But with all the activity now the curve is bound to show a drop pretty soon."

  "Maybe so. If it doesn't, I don't know what we're going to do. These people coming in for shots are on the thin edge. It wouldn't take much to trigger a panic, and a lot of them are actively sick—" Her voice trailed off and she regarded him solemnly. "Do you have any idea what's happening on the underground end of this?"

  "Hard to say yet," Doc said. "Molly Barret and I must have seen over two hundred people between us in the past twenty-four hours. Most of the other staff have been doing the same thing. How many contacts per doctor is hard to guess, but if each of the four hundred and fifty staff people have seen as many as we have, that adds up to ninety thousand contacts. It's probably not that good, but it could be close. The problem isn't contacting people, right now, it's getting supplies. My supplier is going to be down to bare shelves tonight unless I miss my guess."

  "So are we. Central Supply is very low, but we have a special shipment coming in from Chicago this afternoon. We seem to be further into this thing than other sectors of the city or country, the Health Control expediter tells me that they're mobilizing other areas somewhat more slowly, and that there's less urgency elsewhere. Which is fine, I guess. As long as panic stories don't start spilling out of here, we may just be in time." Katie looked up at him. "What do you hear from your boy?"

  "Too little for comfort. I was just going to check." Doc flipped his console switch, scanned the list of calls that had come in while he was gone, and shook his head. "Nothing. I haven't heard from him since last night, and I don't like it. He said he was touching every base he could as fast as he could, but he's sick himself, sounded just terrible last night. He was supposed to check in again this morning, but he hasn't."

  "Is there anything I can do?" Katie said.

  "No, not at this point. He may just be out of reach of a phone, I don't know. From the lines downstairs, though, it looks as if the word is getting around somehow. You just see that there are enough supplies for us to dip into when we need to."

  "I'll check with Central right now, but I think they'll be all right again by this afternoon. And John"—Katie paused on her way out—"don't you get too worn out. We don't want you sick too."

  "Nor you." Doc looked up at her and smiled. "You know, it seems strange, the two of us being on the same side of the fence all of a sudden. Maybe when this is all over—if it ever gets over—we could have ourselves a night on the town. Dinner, a good show, not a word about medicine or Health Control."

  "I haven't heard anything that's sounded so good in months," Katie said. "It's a date, John—when all this is over." She hesitated a moment more, then turned and disappeared down the hall.

  His desk was piled high with unfinished Hospital work, but Doc turned to the telephone and tried Billy's number for the third time that morning. As before, it rang and rang with no response. He left a tape message urging Billy to call back without delay, and turned back to his desk. There were heaps of patient records to review, X-rays and cardiograms to read for permanent recording, robot-operated cases to analyze and criticize, correspondence to answer. Doc buzzed for a sandwich to save time and dug into the pile, working steadily through the afternoon. At one point Molly checked in, about to leave the hospital to resume underground calls. Over coffee they studied her list, and she agreed to check back by early evening for new calls that would be accumulating.

  With Molly on her way, Doc returned to his desk work, but he couldn't get his mind off Billy. As afternoon wore into evening there was still no word. Twice he tried calling Parrot with the code number Billy had given him, but although a connection was made each time, he heard only a recorder tape humming, and neither call was returned. With growing uneasiness Doc joined the evening crowd in the Hospital cafeteria, noting the almost complete absence of the usual clots of staff doctors around the table. He ordered a steak and black coffee, then returned to his office, and began systematically returning query calls that had piled up from underground patients during the afternoon. Now he found that people were noticeably more receptive to his urging that they come in to Hospital facilities for protective shots; only a few could not be convinced, and when Molly checked in about 9:00 p.m. he had only half a dozen additional names for her. "They just aren't as suspicious as they were yesterday," Doc told her. "Mostly they just want to be reassured that the rumors they've heard are true."

  "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 forg
otten 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 conld 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 remember. 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. . . .