05-A Gift From Earth (8 page)

The operating room was big and busy. Against one long wall were twenty small suspended-animation tanks mounted on wheels, for moving medical supplies to and from the room next door. Doctors and internes worked quietly and skillfully at a multitude of operating tables. There were cold baths: open tanks of fluid kept at a constant 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Beside the door was a twenty-gallon tank half full of a straw-colored fluid.

Two internes wheeled the convict into the operating room, and one immediately injected a full pint of the straw-colored fluid into his arm. They moved the table next to one of the cold baths. A woman moved over to help, carefully fastening a breathing mask over the man's face. The internes tilted the table. The convict slid into the bath without a splash.

"That's the last " said one. "Oh, boy, I'm beat."

The woman looked at him with concern, a concern that might have showed in her mouth behind the mask but that could not show in her eyes. Eyes have no expression. The interne's voice had shown almost total exhaustion. "Take off, the both of you," she said. "Sleep late tomorrow. We won't need you."

When they finished with this convict, the organ banks would be full. In law he was still alive. But his body temperature fell fast, and his heartbeat was slowing. Eventually it stopped. The patient's temperature continued to fall. In two hours it was well below freezing, yet the straw-colored fluid in his veins kept any part of him from freezing.

In law he was still alive. Prisoners had been reprieved at this point and revived without medical ill effects, though they walked in terror for the rest of their days.

Now they lifted the convict onto an operating table. His skull was opened; an incision was made in his neck, cutting the spinal cord just below the brain stem. The brain was lifted out, carefully, for the membranes surrounding it must not be damaged. Though the doctors might deny it, there was a kind of reverence attached to the human brain, and to this moment. At this moment the convict became legally dead.

In a New York hospital a cardiectomy would have been performed first, and the prisoner would have been dead when it was over. On We Made It he would have been dead the moment his body temperature reached 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a legal point. You had to draw the line somewhere.

They flash-burned his brain and saved the ashes for urn burial. His skin came next, removed in one piece, still living. Machines did most of the work, but the machines of the Plateau were not advanced enough to work without human control. The doctors proceeded as if they were disassembling a delicate, very valuable, vastly complex jigsaw puzzle. Each unit went into a suspended-animation tank. Someone then took a tiny sample with a hypodermic, and tested it for a wide variety of rejection reactions. A transplant operation was never cut-and-dried. A patient's body would reject foreign parts unless each rejection reaction was balanced by complex biochemicals. When the tests were over, each unit was labeled in full detail and wheeled next door, into the organ banks.

Matt was lost. He wandered through the halls looking for a door labeled Vivarium. Some of the doors he passed had labels; some did not. The Hospital was huge. Chances were, he could wander for days without finding the vivarium the gateman had mentioned.

Solitary individuals passed him in the corridors, in police uniforms or in white gowns and white masks pulled down around their necks. if he saw someone coming, Matt shrank against the wall and remained perfectly still until the intruder passed. Nobody noticed him. His strange invisibility protected him well.

But he wasn't getting anywhere.

A map, that's what he needed.

Some of these doors must lead to offices. Some or all offices must have maps in them, perhaps built into wall or desk. After all, the place was so complicated. Matt nodded to himself. Here was a door, now, with a strange symbol and some lettering: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Maybe ...

He opened the door. And froze halfway through it, shocked to the core.

Glass tanks filled the room like floor-to-ceiling aquarium tanks, each subdivided into compartments. They were arranged like a labyrinth, or like the bookcases in a public library. In the first moments Matt couldn't recognize anything he saw in those tanks, but in their asymmetrical shapes and in their infinite dark shades of red, their nature was unmistakable.

He stepped all the way inside. He had abandoned control of his legs, and they moved of themselves. These flattish dark-red objects, those translucent membranes, the soft-looking blobs of alien shapes, the great transparent cylindrical tanks filled with bright-red fluid ... Yes, these had been human beings. And there were epitaphs:

Type AB, RH+. Glucose content .... Rd Corp count ...

Thyroid gland, male. Rejection classes C, 2, pn, 31. Overactive for body weight less than ...

Left humerus, live. Marrow type 0, Rh-, N, 02. Length ... IMPORTANT: Test for fit in sockets before using.

Matt closed his eyes and rested his head against one of the tanks. The glass surface was cold. It felt good against his perspiring forehead. He had always had too much empathy. Now there was a grief in him, and he needed time to mourn these strangers. Mist Demons grant they were strangers.

Pancreas. Rejection classes F, 4, pr, 21. DIABIETIC TENDENCIES: Use for pancreatic fluid secretion only. DO NOT TRANSPLANT

A door opened.

Matt slid behind the tank and watched from around the corner. The woman wore gown and mask, and she pushed something on wheels. Matt watched her transfer things from the cart into various of the larger tanks.

Somebody had just died
.

And the woman in the mask was a monster. If she'd taken off her mask to reveal foot-long poison-dripping fangs, Matt couldn't have feared her more.

Voices came through the open door.

"We can't use any more muscle tissue." A woman's voice, high and querulous, with a crew lilt. The lilt didn't quite ring true, though Matt couldn't have said where it failed.

A sarcastic male voice answered. "What shall we do, throw it away?"

"Why not?"

Seconds of silence. The woman with the cart finished her work and moved toward the door. Then: "I've never liked the idea. A man
died
to give us healthy, living tissue, and you want to throw it away like — ' The closing door cut him off.

Like the remnants of a ghoul's feast
, Matt finished for him.

He was turning toward the hall door when his eye caught something else. Four of the tanks were different from the others. They sat near the hall door, on flooring whose scars and shaded color showed where suspended-animation tanks had stood. Unlike the suspended-animation tanks, these did not have heavy machinery-filled bases. Instead, machinery rested in the tanks themselves, behind the transparent walls. It might have been aerating machinery. The nearest tank contained six small human hearts.

Unmistakably they were hearts. They beat. But they were tiny, no bigger than a child's fist. Matt touched the surface of the tank, and it was blood warm. The tank next to it held five-lobed objects which had to be livers; but they were small, small.

That did it.
In what seemed one leap, Matt was out in the hall. He leaned against the wall, gasping, his shoulders heaving, his eyes unable to see anything but those clusters of small hearts and livers.

Someone rounded the corner and came to an abrupt stop.

Matt turned and saw him: a big, soft man in an Implementation-police uniform. Matt tried his voice. It came out blurred but comprehensible: "Where's the vivarium?"

The man stared, then pointed. "Take a right and you'll find a flight of stairs. Up one flight, take a right, then a left, and watch for the sign. It's a big door with an alarm light; you can't miss it."

"Thanks." Matt turned toward the stairs. His stomach hurt, and there was a shivering in his hands. He wished he could drop where he was, but he had to keep going.

Something stung his arm.

Matt turned and raised his arm in the same instant. Already the sting was gone; his arm was as numb as a haunch of meat. Half a dozen tiny red drops bedewed his wrist.

The big, soft man regarded Matt with a puzzled frown. His gun was in his hand.

The galaxy spun madly, receding.

Corporal Halley Fox watched the colonist fall, then bolstered his gun. What was the world coming to? First the ridiculous secrecy about the ramrobot. Then, two hundred prisoners swept up in one night, and the whole Hospital going crazy trying to cope. And now! A colonist wandering the Hospital corridors, actually asking for the vivarium!

Well, he'd get it. Halley Fox lifted the man and slung him over his shoulder, grunting with the effort. Only his face was soft.
Report it and forget it
. He shifted his burden and staggered toward the stairs.

At dawn the graded peak of Mount Lookitthat swam beneath a sea of fog. For those few who were already abroad, the sky merely turned from black to gray. This was not the poison mist below the void edge but a continuous cloud of water vapor, thick enough to let a blind man win a shooting match. Crew and colonists, one and all, as they stepped outside their homes, their homes vanished behind them. They walked and worked in a universe ten yards in diameter.

At seven o'clock Implementation police moved into the trapped forest, a squad at each end. Yellow fog lights swept the tongue of forest from the nearest sections of wall. The light barely reached the trees. Since the men who had been on watch that night had gone home, the searchers had no idea what animal they were searching for. Some thought it must be colonists.

At nine they met in the middle, shrugged it each other and left. Nothing human or animal lived in the trapped woods, nothing bigger than a big insect. Four aircars nevertheless rose into the fog and sprayed the wood from end to end.

At nine-thirty ...

Jesus Pietro cut the grapefruit in half and held one half upside down. The grapefruit meat dropped in sections into his bowl. He asked, "Did they ever find that rabbit?"

Major Jansen stopped with his first sip of coffee halfway to his lips. "No, sir, but they did find a prisoner."

"In the woods?"

"No, sir. He was pounding on the gate with a rock. The gate man took him inside the Hospital, but from there it becomes a little unclear — "

"Jansen, it's already unclear. What was this man doing pounding on the gate?" A horrible thought struck him. "Was he a crew?"

"No, sir. He was Matthew Keller. Positive identification."

Grapefruit juice spilled on the breakfast rack. "Keller?"

"The same."

"Then who was in the car?"

"I doubt we'll ever know, sir. Shall I ask for volunteers to examine the body?"

Jesus Pietro laughed long and loud. Jansen was pure colonist, though he and his ancestors had been in service so long that their accents and manners were almost pure crew. It would never do for him to joke with his superiors in public. But in private he could be amusing ... and he had the sense to know the difference.

"I've been trying to think of a way to shake up Implementation," said Jesus Pietro. "That might do it. Well. Keller came up to the gate and began pounding on it with a rock?"

"Yes, sir. The gateman took him in charge after calling Watts. Watts waited half an hour before he called the gatehouse again. The gateman couldn't remember what happened after he and the prisoner reached the Hospital. He was back on duty, and he couldn't explain that either. He should have reported to Watts, of course. Watts put him under arrest."

"Watts shouldn't have waited half an hour. Where was Keller all this time?"

"A Corporal Fox found him outside the door to the organ banks, shot him, and carted him off to the vivarium."

"Then he and the gateman are both waiting for us. Good. I'll never sleep again until I get this straightened out." Jesus Pietro finished his breakfast in a remarkable hurry.

Then it occurred to him that the mystery was deeper than that. How had Keller reached Alpha Plateau at all? The guards wouldn't have let him past the bridge.

By car? But the only car involved —

Hobart was scared. He was as frightened as any suspect Jesus Pietro had seen, and he took no interest in hiding it. "I don't
know!
I took him through the door, the big door. made him walk ahead so he couldn't jump me."

"And did he?"

"I can't remember anything like that."

"A bump on the head might have given you amnesia. Sit still." Jesus Pietro walked around the chair to examine Hobart's scalp. His impersonal gentleness was frightening in itself. "No bumps, no bruises. Does your head hurt?"

"I feel fine."

"Now, you walked in the door. Were you talking to him?"

The man bobbed his graying head. "Uh-huh. I wanted know what he was doing banging on the gate. He wouldn't say."

"And then?"

"All of a sudden I — " Hobart stopped, swallowed convulsively.

Jesus Pietro put an edge in his voice. "Go on."

Hobart started to cry.

"Stop that. You started to say something. What was it?"

"All of a sudden I — gulp — remembered I was s'posed t'be at the gate."

"But what about Keller?"

"Who?"

"What about your prisoner?"

"I can't remember!"

"Oh, get out of here." Jesus Pietro thumbed a button. "Take him back to the vivarium. Get me Keller."

Up a flight of stairs, take a right then a left —

VIVARIUM

Behind the big door were rows of contour couches, skimpily padded. All but two couches had occupants. There were ninety-eight prisoners here, of all ages from fifteen to fifty-eight, and all were asleep. Each was wearing, a headset. They slept quietly, more quietly than the usual sleeper, breathing shallowly, their peaceful expressions untroubled by bad dreams. It was a strangely restful place. They slept in rows of ten, some snoring gently, the rest silent.

Even the guard looked sleepy. He sat in a more conventional chair to one side of the door, with his double chin drooping on his chest, his arms folded in his lap.

More than four centuries ago, at some time near the middle of the nineteen hundreds, a group of Russian scientists came up with a gadget that might have made sleep obsolete. In some places it did. By the twenty-fourth century it was a rare corner of the known universe that did not know of the sleepmaker.

Take three electrodes, light electrodes. Now pick a guinea pig, human, and get him to lie down with his eyes closed. Put two electrodes on his eyelids, and tape the third to the nape of his neck. Run a gentle, rhythmic electric current from eyelids to nape, through the brain. Your guinea pig will drop off immediately. Turn the current off in a couple of hours, and he will have had the equivalent of eight hours' sleep.

You'd rather not turn off the current? Fine. It won't hurt him. He'll just go on sleeping. He'll sleep through a hurricane. You'll have to wake him occasionally to eat, drink, evacuate, exercise. If you don't plan to keep him long, you can skip the exercise.

Suspects weren't kept long in the vivarium.

Heavy footsteps sounded outside the door. The vivarium guard jerked alert. When the door opened, he was at attention.

"Sit down there," said one of Hobart's escorts. Hobart sat. Tears had streaked his sunken cheeks. He donned his own headset, dropped his head back, and was asleep. Peace spread across his face. The bigger guard asked, "Which one is Keller?"

The vivarium guard consulted a chart. "Ninety-eight."

"Okay." Instead of taking off Keller's headset, the man moved to a panel of one hundred buttons. He pushed number ninety-eight. As Keller began to stir, they both moved in to attach handcuffs. Then they lifted the headset.

Matt Keller's eyes opened.

His new escorts lifted him to his feet with a practiced motion. "On our way," one said cheerfully. Bewildered, Matt followed the pull on his arms. In a moment they were in the hall. Matt snatched one look behind him before the door closed.

"Wait a minute," he protested, predictably jerking back against the handcuffs.

"Man wants to ask you a few questions. Look, I'd rather carry you than do this. You want to walk?"

The threat usually quieted them down — as it did now. Matt stopped pulling. He'd expected to wake up dead; these moments of consciousness were a free bonus. Someone must have gotten curious.

"Who wants to see me?"

"A gentleman named Castro," the bigger guard tossed off. The dialogue was following its usual pattern. If Keller was an average suspect, the Head's dread name would paralyze his brain. If he kept his wits, he'd still choose to use this time in preparation for his interview, rather than risk a sonic now. Both guards had been doing this for so long that they'd come to see prisoners as faceless, interchangeable.

Castro
. The name echoed between Matt's ears.

What did you think you were doing, Keller? You came in here like you had an engraved invitation. Thought you had a secret weapon, did you, Keller? What did you think you were doing, Keller? WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU--

One instant the suspect was walking between them, lost in his own fears. The next, he had jerked back like a fish hooked on two lines. The guards instantly pulled apart to string him between them, then regarded him in sheer disgust. One said, "Stupid!" The other pulled out his gun.

They stood there, one with a sonic loose in his hand, looking about them in apparent bewilderment. Matt jerked again, and the smaller guard looked in shocked surprise at his own wrist. He fumbled in his belt, got out a key, and unlocked the handcuff.

Matt threw all his weight on the other steel chain. The bigger guard yelled in anger and pulled back. Matt flew into him, inadvertently butting him in the stomach. The guard hit him across the jaw with a backhand swing of his arm. Momentarily unable to move, Matt watched the guard take a key from his pocket and unlock the remaining handcuff from his own wrist. The guard's eyes were strange.

Matt backed away with two sets of handcuffs dangling from his arms. The guards looked after him, not at him but in his general direction. Something was very wrong with their eyes. Fruitlessly, Matt tried to remember where he'd seen that look before. The gateman last night?

The guards turned and sauntered away.

Matt shook his head, more baffled than relieved, and turned back the way he had come. There was the vivarium door. He'd had only one backward glimpse, but he was sure he'd seen Harry Kane in there.

The door was locked.

Mist Demons, here we go again
. Matt raised his hand, changed his mind, changed it again, and slapped the palm three times against the door. It opened at once. A round, expressionless face looked through and suddenly acquired an expression. The door started to close. Matt pulled it open and went in.

The round guard with the round face genuinely didn't know what to do. At least he hadn't forgotten that Matt was here. Matt was grateful. He swung joyfully at the guard's double chin. When the guard didn't fold, Matt hit him again. The man finally reached for his gun, and Matt took a firm grip on the appropriate wrist, holding the gun in its holster, and swung once more. The guard slid to the floor.

Matt took the guard's sonic and put it in his pants pocket. His hand hurt. He rubbed it against his cheek, which also hurt, and ran his eyes down the row of sleepers. There was Laney! Laney, her face pale, with one thin scratch from temple to chin, her auburn hair concealing the three-pronged headset, her deep breasts hardly moving as she slept. And there was Hood, looking like a sleeping child. Something began to unwind inside Matt Keller, a warmth uncoiling to spread through his limbs. For hours he had been all alone with death. There was the tall man who'd spelled him for bartender that night.
Night before last!
There was Harry Kane, a cube of a man, strong even in sleep.

Polly wasn't there.

He looked again, carefully, and she still wasn't there.

Where was she?
Instantly the aquarium tanks of the organ bank flashed into his mind's eye. One tank had held skins, whole human skins with barely room between them for the clear conducting nutrient fluid. The scalps had some hair, short and long, blond and black and red, hair that waved in a cold fluid breeze.
Rejection classes C, 2, nr, 34
. He couldn't remember seeing the space-blackness of Polly's hair. It might or might not have been waving in the aquarium tank. He hadn't been looking for it.

Convulsively he made himself look about him. That bank of buttons? He pushed one. It popped out at the touch of a finger. Nothing else happened.

Oh, well, what the hell ... He started pushing them all, letting his forefinger run down a row of ten, down the next row, and the next. He had released sixty when he heard motion. The sleepers were waking.

He released the rest of the buttons. The murmur of awakening grew louder: yawning, confused voices, clatterings, gasps of dismayed shock when prisoners suddenly realized where they were. A clear voice calling, "Matt? Matt!"

"Here, Laney!"

She wove her way toward him through people climbing groggily out of their contour couches. Then she was in his arms, and they clung to each other as if a tornado were trying to pluck them apart and whirl them away. Matt felt suddenly weak, as if he could afford weakness now. "So you didn't make it," he said.

"Matt, where
are
we? I tried to get to the void edge — "

Somebody bellowed, "We are in the Hospital vivarium!" The voice cut like an ax through the rising pandemonium. Harry Kane, Leader, assumed his proper role.

"That's right," Matt said gently.

Her eyes were two inches from his, dead level. "
Oh
. Then you didn't make it either."

"Yes I did. I had to get here on my own."

"What —
how
?"

"Good question. I don't know exactly."

Laney began to chuckle.

Shouting from the back of the room. Somebody had noticed an Implementation uniform on one of the newly awakened. A scream of pure terror changed to a yell of agony and died abruptly. Matt saw jerking heads, heard sounds he tried to ignore. Laney wasn't laughing anymore. The disturbance subsided.

Harry Kane had mounted a chair, He cupped his hands and bellowed, "Shut up, all of you! Everyone who knows the map of the Hospital, get over here! Gather round me!" There was a shifting in the mass. Laney and Matt still clung to each other, but not desperately now. Their heads turned to watch Harry, acknowledging his leadership. "Take a look, the rest of you!" Harry shouted. "These are the people who can lead you out of here. In a minute we're going to have to make our break. Keep your eyes on — " He named eight names. Hood's was one. "Some of us are going to get shot. As long as one of these eight is still moving, follow him! Or her. If all eight are down, and I am too"— He paused for emphasis. "Scatter! Make as much trouble as you can! Sometimes the only sensible thing to do is panic!