Complete Venus Equilateral (1976) SSC

by George O. Smith

  “Now, since I can carve my medical knowledge on the head of a phi with a dull hatchet, you’ll have to explain.”

  “Suffocation,” said the doctor, “to the layman implies fighting for breath in a smoke-filled room or having his windpipe plugged by a blanket. Drowning means gurgling water and not being able to breathe. Fact is, suffocation is a failure of the blood to carry oxygen in and carbon out of the body. So far okay?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “First, there is no trace of poison. Your associate on Triton reported that he fed these mice some of the cheese left over from a sandwich, and that the water was from the drinking-water supply. Scratch out poison, Mr. Channing.

  “But let’s consider suffocation. Veinous blood is notably blue; arterial blood is bright red. Laymen seldom observe veinous blood because hemoglobin acts so fast that if a vein is cut, it reacts with the oxygen of the air and instantly turns red. In monoxide poisoning, for example, the carbon monoxide molecule latches on with—so to speak—both hands, and the veinous blood from the victim is bright red. In cases of oxygen shut off, there is no supply and arterial blood runs blue. That’s oversimplified, of course, but your mice show no such anomalies.”

  “Just like hell,” mumbled Channing.

  “What was that?” the doctor asked sharply.

  “Oh, in the technical world, hell is where all the parts function properly but nothing works. Well, back to the old drawing board.”

  -

  It was, indeed, back to the old drawing board, but this problem was not to be solved. Animals flipped over to the station on Triton all died, in about the same mysterious pattern. Upon their return, when they could be compared in autopsy to the carefully made pre-trip examinations, no reason could be found.

  But in the three weeks that followed the first failure, the old drawing board brought forth a new success. A large packing case was deposited on the lawn of Keg Johnson’s new Terran domicile, with an ornate label carrying his name as the addressee. On the six flat sides was a large, two-colored stencil that couldn’t have been missed at ninety meters in a high fog:

  -

  CERTIFIED UNIQUES

  -

  In the case was a batch of smaller boxes, each containing some real or synthetic mineral—including a sheaf of identium documents—that either refused or reacted violently to the matter-scanning beam. The sheaf of identium documents was, upon examination, the certification papers and a copy of an application for a patent for a true artifact transmitter.

  As Keg Johnson was reading the details, Walt Franks entered. “How do you like these apples?” he asked Keg.

  “Looks like you fellows did it,” Keg nodded. “Only two things bother me. First, how much is it going to cost me to buy a piece of this action; and second, do humans merely walk into a booth and dial their destination, or do we go through that old ‘Fasten Seat Belts, No Smoking’ routine?”

  Watt shook his head. “First, we haven’t formed any company yet; and second, while getting there may be half the fun, staying alive once you’ve arrived is more so.” Walt explained in some detail. “So until we lick this problem, we’re not going to offer passenger service.”

  “Well, let me know when you begin to get these two things off and running. I want in. Now to other items: how come an old duffer like you came a-spacing across the System?”

  “I was elected by default.” Walt chuckled. “Don’s busy with the experimental work. Since Neptune is at about fifty-five degrees heliocentric from Pluto, it would take Wes Farrell the same time to cross the arc as it takes to run from Pluto to Earth. So I took the good old Relay Girl and loaded up with parts for a one-cubic—meter transporter, built the thing here on Earth, and received that humble package for you. I’m expendable in this imminent maternity case, you know. Grandfathers are less important than fathers.”

  Keg laughed. “Actually, the father isn’t important at the time, but none of them believe it. How’s things going?”

  “Routine, if you believe the medico. Says it’s a shame to take his valuable time.”

  “Sounds fine. We’ll keep in touch, Waft. I think I am about to draw up a proposal to incorporate. Both you and Channing are too interested in playing with the nuts and bolts to give serious thought to business. There’s always that one way to become useful: be very adept at something distasteful to the other guy.”

  “I’d be in favor of it,” said Walt. “All you can get is a refusal, and what you say about our interest is true. Try it for size.”

  -

  On the link between Pluto and Triton, Don Channing said, “Wes, we’re slowly running the mice population to zero over here. How’re they on Triton?”

  “Oh, we can catch a few.”

  “Okay, go catch, and we’ll zap a few this direction. Send their examination records along. I think we’d best keep the same autopsy crew operating.”

  “Will do,” replied Farrell on Triton.

  Channing had never observed the death of a transported animal. He was a fairly gentle man who had no cruel streak; he felt it deplorable that things should cease to live after being transported, and felt it necessary to continue until they found out why. But there was not enough morbid interest in him to suggest—until now—that the transport process be reversed.

  So he watched with as near to a clinical interest as his training for electronics and hardware permitted, ran off the by-now-customary reel of videotape, and then packaged the dead mouse, videotape, and the reel of examination records and headed for the ‘copter parked in his heliport. Halfway to the machine, he was stopped by a hail from the house: Arden, dressed for the city, on a stiff walk.

  “What gives?” he asked.

  “Where are you heading?”

  “Mephisto Medical. Got another dead one.”

  “I hate to use the old cliché—‘Killing two birds’ makes me nervous. But we’re all heading for the same hospital.”

  “Great! When did the word come, and how far along?”

  “Jeffrey called about ten minutes ago. He’s been wearing a course in the carpet for about three hours. Delivery-room attendants say it might be within the hour.”

  -

  Don landed on the hospital roof, although the heliport there was supposed to be for special equipment and emergencies. His small helicopter was immediately hauled over to a far comer, and he and Arden parted, she toward Maternity and he toward Analysis with his package.

  When he was finished with his business, he went to Maternity, where he found Arden, Jeffrey, and the family doctor, Farnum, in a three-way.

  Farnum turned to Don. “Channing,” he asked, “has any of your family any record of Rh negative blood?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, we’ve a problem. It’s turned up. The kids—fraternal twins, one of each—are Rh negative.”

  “How serious is this?”

  “For the immediate instant, no more than mildly serious. But as time wears on, and nothing is done, it becomes terminal.”

  “So what must be done?”

  “The standard practice is to give the infant a complete, whole blood replacement with a compatible type.”

  “So let’s go,” said Don impatiently. “We don’t need a high-level conference to come to a sensible decision.”

  “The decision has been made,” said Doctor Farnum. “The problem is implementing it. First, compatible whole blood of their type is fairly rare, but there is a reasonable probability that, by a general broadcast plea, we can get enough to do the trick. Second, we are set up to do it, but it’s a process that we seldom face because the incidence of Rh negative offspring from a positive mother is low; and further, there is usually a history of mixed Rh in the family to make plans beforehand—such cases usually are sent early enough in their terms to make preparation.”

  “Well, if we have time enough, I can get a spacecraft from Keg Johnson.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Pluto is thirty astro
nomical units out,” said Don, pulling his mini-computer out. “Under one G drive, it would take about eight and a half days to midflight and another eight and a half to the Inner System.”

  “That’s seventeen days. Out of the question.”

  “Well, if we double the drive to two G, we—”

  “Halve the time,” finished Doctor Farnum for him, “and also halve the survival time, since higher G force means greater strain on the breathing and blood systems.”

  “When we’re really in a hurry,” said Don, “we load up on gravanol and take it at five or six G.”

  “And suffer the pangs of hell for a week afterward,” the doctor added. “But we’re not dealing with hardy adults, especially those kept in fair training.” He eyed the perceptible bulge around Channing’s midsection. “We’re dealing with two newly born infants and one mother who’s still dopey and pardonably weak.”

  Distantly, a telephone rang, and an attendant came up. “Mr. Channing? Doctor Wilburs in Analysis would like to speak to you.”

  “Apologize to Doctor Wilburs for me,” said Don. “We’ve a more personal problem than a dead mouse.”

  “Dead mouse,” said Doctor Farnum. “I’ve been hearing waiting-room tales about this. What is with this matter transmitter of yours?”

  “It does fine on minerals and the like, but kills life.”

  “I wonder—would that include whole blood?”

  “I don’t know at what level one can say, ‘Here life begins.’ But I do know that all of our experiments end the same way. Appearance of anoxia but no evidence of any change in the blood,”

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” said Doctor Farnum. “You get your crew alert.”

  -

  Arrangements.

  First was a full hour of wide-band transmission of every characteristic of the compatible blood type that was, to date, known to medical science. Next, the word was broadcast, and whole-blood banks were shipping that blood type to Central Medical Center on Terra. Helicopters especially contrived to transport whole blood carried the precious fluid to the transporting station built by Walter Franks.

  A Doctor Knowles was in charge. “First, we test for compatibility,” he explained. “We’ll do this two ways. They’re sending a sample this way, and we’re sending a sample from the banks that way. We’ll test on either end for compatibility before we risk this many canisters.”

  “Okay,” said Franks nervously.

  He put the sample in the chamber and pressed the button. The transfer was instantaneous, and a second later, he handed the sample from Pluto to Doctor Knowles.

  “Got it, Don,” said Franks.

  “Ditto,” replied Channing on Pluto.

  “My God!” Doctor Knowles exploded. “Compatible? This reacts as if they weren’t even within the same gross blood types. Quick coagulation. Odd—”

  He deposited a small drop on either end of a slide, one from the sample from Pluto, the other from the banks on Terra.

  “Observe,” he said tensely. “The whole blood from our banks here on Terra is red—veinous blood turned red upon contact with atmospheric oxygen. The sample from Pluto remains blue. It is not reacting with atmospheric oxygen.”

  He reached for the telephone; it rang as his hand touched it. The caller was from Doctor Farnum on Pluto.

  “Doctor,” Farnum said, “we’ve an odd incompatibility here—and the sample from your blood banks does not react—”

  “No,” said Doctor Knowles, “it’s the sample from Pluto that remains blue.”

  “Let’s both check this.”

  The samples were reswapped, and as they were all waiting for the result, Don Channing’s hand strayed into his side pocket. An envelope. He’d been handed it as he left Maternity, his mind awhirl with plans to set up this blood transmission, and he’d abruptly shoved it in his pocket. With nothing else to do, and with nervous tension making his hands itch, he opened the envelope and read:

  -

  Channing:

  The last mouse also died of anoxia—but with this difference: the hemoglobin did not react with oxygen. How do you explain this? None of the others acted that way.

  Finholdt—Analysis.

  -

  The speaker blurted into life.

  “Farnum? Hate to question you, but there is not only complete compatibility, but that sample you alleged to be inert is nicely red when exposed.”

  Doctor Farnum looked up from his test table. “I was about to report the same thing.”

  Channing whistled. “Walt—you heard that?”

  “Yes. And if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, then we’ve got the problem licked. Both problems.”

  Channing poked another button. “Stand by, Walt. Conference call.” Wes Farrell’s voice came in to confirm. “Wes, we think we’re on to something. Stand by five.”

  Don went to a wall plate and began to unscrew it. Doctor Farnum asked, “What are you up to, Channing?”

  “I’ve got us an idea,” said Don. He returned to the machine with two small machine screws in his hand. “Now,” he said, “I have two standard wall-plate machine screws, here and ready to go. The first goes direct to Terra. While I’m zapping it off, Wes, I’m sending the other to you. Take a look at it, and then fire it off to Walt.”

  “I hear you, but I don’t understand.”

  “Wes, in all our experiments—except the last—we returned the dead ones to the point of origin for examination. Making a two-trip each?”

  “Yes, now that you mention it. But—”

  “Here she goes.”

  On Terra, Walt Franks said, “It’s here—but left-hand threaded.”

  On Triton, Wes Farrell said, “She’s here, but left-hand threaded.”

  On Terra, Walt said, “The second one arrived. It’s as natural as anyone rolling a three-and-four.”

  “All right,” said Don, with a smile. “Walt, get another blood sample, and transport it to Triton. Wes, when it arrives, waste no time, but re-zap it over here.”

  “I still don’t follow.”

  Don said, “Somewhere I’ve heard that there are more than forty times ten to the six-hundredth power ways of arranging the components that compose the hemoglobin molecule—and of that monstrous figure, only one way has ever been found in life. Mightn’t a mirror image of the real thing be equal to one of the wrong ways?”

  “We’ll look into that when we have better time,” said Doctor Farnum. “But since we now have complete compatibility”—he held up the blood sample under test—“let’s get along with this.”

  “One moment,” Jeffrey Franks interrupted. “You claim the facilities are superior on Terra?”

  “That’s undeniably true.”

  “Then think of this,” said Jeffrey slowly and calmly. “I’m the only one present that has total authority. No matter what you decide to do for the twins, my permission must be received. It is to my best interest to see them alive and healthy, and it is your medical opinion that they’ll receive superior care on Terra. We’ll take the chance. Double-zap the twins to Terra.”

  -

  And so the first to survive the zap from Pluto to Triton to Earth were the twin grandchildren of the men and women who once manned the Venus Equilateral Relay Station, beaming radio communications among the inner planets. To do so, they traversed two nearly equal legs of what Keg Johnson promptly called “The External Triangle.”

  -

  Interlude

  The true matter transmitter, better called a “teleport,” changed the mass-transportation habits of the Solar System, just as the matter duplicator had during the days of Venus Equilateral. But the changing life-style caused by the duplicator was still in change: the work started by the duplicator had not quite been completed. There was still to come a changed attitude in the thinking habits of the human race.

  Indeed, the change continued for decades, so long indeed that historians misplaced the discovery of identium into a span of years called the “Period of Dup
lication,” during which it became evident that a person’s own unique personality was the most important thing in life.

  -

  Epilogue:—Identity

  Cal Blair paused at the threshold of the Solarian Medical Association and held the door while four people came out. He entered, and gave his name to the girl at the reception desk and then, though he had the run of the place on a visitor basis, he waited until the girl nodded that he should go on into the laboratories.

  Cal’s nose wrinkled with the smell of neoform, and he shuddered at the white plastic walls. He came to the proper door and entered without knocking. He stood in the center of the room, as far from the shelves of dangerous-looking bottles on one wall as he could get—without getting too close to the preserved specimens of human viscera on the other wall. A cabinet, with its glint of chrome-indium surgical tools, seemed to be like a monster loaded to the vanishing point with glittering teeth.

  In here, the odor of neoform was slightly tainted with a gentle aroma of perfume.

  Cal looked around at the empty room and then opened the tiny door at one side. He. had to pass between a portable radiology machine and a case of anatomical charts, both of which made his hackles tingle. Then he was inside the smaller room, and the sight of Tinker Elliot’s small, desirable head bent over the binocular microscope made him forget his fears. He stepped forward and kissed her on the ear.

  She gasped, startled, and squinted at him through half-closed eyelids.

  “Nice going,” she said sharply.

  “Thought you liked it,” he said.

  “I do. Want to try it again?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then don’t bother going out and coming in again. Just stay here.”

  Cal listened to the words but not the tone.

  “Don’t mind if I do. Shall we neck in earnest?”

  “I’d as soon that as having you pop in and out, getting my nerves all upended by kissing me on the ear.”

  “I like kissing you on the ear.”

  Tinker came forward and shoved him onto a tall laboratory chair. “Good. But you’ll do it at my convenience, next time.”