Ole Doc Methuselah (19 page)

 

The
officer of the deck, a commander, had been having his eyes dazzled enough that
day, what with the flood of gold lace coming through the side, and his Marines
and
sideboys
were nearly spent with standing to. The
chief
warrant
bos'n
saw the flashing gold but he could not spot the uniform. The
OOD
saw the strange being coming up with this new “officer” and hurriedly grabbed
a book of traditions, customs and courtesy throughout the galaxies.

Hippocrates
had been there to run the lifeboat back, but when he saw all these cross-belts
and naked swords he became frightened. “I wait,” he said.

“Return
to the ship,” said Ole Doc.

“You
watch the adrenaline!” said Hippocrates, not daring to disobey.

The
chief warrant bos'n took a breath and hoped he would
pipe
whatever was proper on his whistle and then, breath still sucked in, stared and
blew not at all. It was the first time in his life he had ever seen a Soldier
of Light and for the first time that day he was impressed.

“Belay the honors,” said Ole Doc to the now stammering
commander. “I want to attend this conference.”

The
commander gave him a Marine for a guide and then, on second thought, gave him
two more. When the group had gone on, the OOD turned wonderingly back to his
book of courtesy.

“It
won't be there, Commander,” said the chief warrant bos'n, for he had known the
commander as a midshipman and ever afterward treated him with a hint of it, the
way old spacemen will. “That's a Soldier of Light.”

“It
isn't here,” said the commander.

“Neither,”
said the old chief warrant, “is God.”

 

Ole
Doc entered the admiral's quarters just as Garth's fist was coming down to
smite a point into his palm. The fist halted, Garth stared. Twenty-six admirals
stared.

“I
see,” said Ole Doc, ignoring the chair his guide had stiffly pulled up for
him, “that it takes a very large weight of naval metal to sterilize one poor
liner today.”

They
regarded him in confused silence, recognizing the gold gorget, startled by the
obvious youth of this man who stood before them, failing to recognize the arts
which kept him young, failing also to grasp just why they were confused. But
admirals or not, they had been young once. They had heard the legends and
tales. Some of them felt like guilty children.

“Down
there on Green Rivers,” said Ole Doc, “is a fragment of a ship. She is in
trouble. Any still alive aboard her have a right to life.”

Garth
caught his breath. “How did you know,” he roared, “where to find this fleet?”
He could get to the roots of things, Garth. That was why he was a galactic
admiral and the rest here his juniors, even if his seniors in age.

“I
cracked your code,” said Ole Doc. “It was not a very hard code to crack, I
might caution you. But then one does not need much of a code to fool one
battered liner with a cargo of sick and dead.”

Garth's
blue jowl trembled. “Our medical men have already investigated. The disease
cannot be cured. It is unknown. Nothing like it has ever been known. Do you
know what has happened down there?”

Ole
Doc didn't.

“Two
men escaped from your precious liner five minutes after it landed. This morning
there were fifty cases of that disease near Piedmont! There were nine cases in
Hammerford and twelve in Hartisford! The planet lines have not been
interrupted. Not even a road has been blocked. The planet is rotten with it.
That means one thing and one thing only. I am here to give orders. This matter
is well in hand!”

Ole
Doc looked at Garth and suddenly understood why the man was fighting him.
Authority. Garth had battled his way to the height of all naval ambition. Since
the age-old abolition of seniority leadership, the dynamic people got quickly
to the top. And although this was hard on juniors, it was wonderful for
efficiency. Its only flaw was power hunger, but nothing in all the Universe
would work without that.

“What
is the population of Green Rivers?” asked Ole Doc, with a quiet born of his
understanding.

“Nine
million, the whole planet. Thirty cities and two hundred-odd towns. Are you
going to weigh that against the good of all space? No, I think not. I am in
charge here. I will not be bullied by a pill roller. According to regulations,
this system must be sterilized and sterilize we will!”

“By?”
said Ole Doc.

“By
scorching that planet. By leveling everything with rays that will last for ten
years. Be sentimental if you will, surgeon, but there are fifty million men in
these navies. Do you want them to catch this stuff and die, too?”

“Admiral,”
said Ole Doc, “I have no desire to see anyone die. That is my profession. That
is why I am here. The
Star of Space
needs help. She is an Earth ship,
manned by officers and people like yourselves. And she has women and children
aboard.”

“I'd
have been saved all this if she'd been disintegrated at the start!” said
Garth.

“Down
there on this planet, Green Rivers, there are nine million human beings or
breeds. They have homes and farms and children. They have churches and projects
for celebrating the harvest. They have plans and hopes. And they've carved a
wilderness into something of which they are proud. And you,” he said to the
assembled, “are going to destroy it all.”

It
made them uncomfortable. They would not look at his face.

“You've
forgotten,” said Garth, “what happened during the red death. I commanded a
corvette under Van der Ruys. We were at Guyper in Galaxy 809 in '71. I saw what
disease could do when it was not checked. Guyper is still a ruin and the
stories I heard—”

“Are
not half as bad as those which will be told of Green Rivers if you sterilize
it,” concluded Ole Doc.

“We
don't want sickness in our fleets,” said Garth, “and that's final. I give the
orders here. At nineteen hours we cleanse this system. We have no other choice.
You yourself,” he hurled at Ole Doc, “admit that you have no notion of what
this may be.”

“You
must first let me go down there,” said Ole Doc doggedly.

“And
come back to reinfect? No!”

“One
moment,” said Ole Doc. “You have forgotten something.”

Garth
glared.

“I
am not under your orders, Admiral.”

“Your
ship is staying where it is,” said Garth. “When you go back you will find a
cruiser alongside.”

“He'll
not dare detain me,” said Ole Doc.

Garth
was dangerously angry. Authority was as precious as blood to him. “If you defy
me—”

Ole
Doc said, “Admiral, I am leaving.” He shook out a handkerchief and delicately
fanned the air before his face and then restored it. “We've got warm in here,
haven't we?”

 

Ole
Doc left, went by the speechless men on the deck and was taken in a gig back to
the
Morgue.

How
very small the portable little hospital looked amid all this naval might,
thought Ole Doc. The
Morgue
was tiny against the side of the attending
cruiser which, it must be admitted, was having a very hard time due to an
incessant demand to shift bumpers from a little four-armed being on parade.

Ole
Doc went through the lock and into the cruiser. He found the commanding officer
very nervous with his duty.

“I
say, sir,” said the captain to Ole Doc, “you've a very devil aboard, you know.
He's made us do everything but wrap ourselves in silk to keep from scratching
his precious ship. We've been awfully decent about it—”

“I
want permission to leave,” said Ole Doc. “I ask it as a formality, because I
am going to leave anyway.”

The
captain was shocked. “But you can't! You absolutely can't! I've got orders to
stay right where I am and to keep you hard alongside. The second you were
sighted lying here, Admiral Garth sent me a positive injunction—” He fumbled
on his mess table for it and found the radioscript.

“You
would fire on a Soldier of Light?” said Ole Doc, dangerous.

“No,
heavens no! But . . . well, sir, you haven't the power to pull us around and
I'm afraid the grapplers are sealed.”

Ole
Doc looked calculatingly at the man. In Ole Doc's pocket was a hypo gun that
would make this captain agree the stars were all pink with yellow circles. The
second button of Ole Doc's cloak, if lighted, would fix said captain in his
tracks. A capsule in Ole Doc's kit released into one ventilator of the ship
would immobilize the whole crew for hours.

But
Ole Doc sighed. It was so flagrantly against the UMS code to interfere with an
official vessel in performance of its ordered duty. And if the young man
disobeyed, it would be his finish in the Navy. Ole Doc took a cup of coffee
from a very deferential and grateful captain. A little later he went back to
his ship.

 

At
eighteen-thirty sgt, Ole Doc awoke from a short nap. He looked out of the port
and saw the lovely green of the planet through its clouds. He frowned, looked
at his watch and then went into the operating room.

He
gargled and blew antiseptic jets into his nose and dusted himself off with a
sweet-smelling light which incidentally washed his face and hands. He puttered
for a while with a new lancet Soldier Isaac had given him last Christmas and
then made short passes with it in the air as though he was cutting somebody's
jugular—not Garth's, of course.

Orders.
Orders were inexorable soulless things which temporarily divorced a man from
rationality and made him an extension of another brain. Orders. Born out of
inorganic matter contained in some passionless book, they yet had more force
than all the glib conversations of a thousand philosophers. Orders. They made
men slaves. Garth was a slave. A slave to his own orders.

Ole
Doc opened a text on electro-deductive psychiatric diagnosis and turned to
“paranoia.” It was eighteen-fifty. If Garth was going to blast at nineteen—

The
command speaker barked up. “Galactic Admiral Garth to UMS
Morgue.
Galactic Admiral Garth to UMS
Morgue.
” It came over the commercial
channel as well and was echoing up there in the control room.

Ole
Doc went to his communications panel. He turned a switch and swung a dial. “
Morgue
to Garth. Over.”

“
Morgue.
Urgent. The disease has reached the fleet. Something must be done. What can you
do? Please do something! Anything!”

“Coming
aboard,” said Ole Doc and shut off his panel.

 

They
almost mobbed him trying to get him aboard this time. They rushed him to the
cabin. They saluted and bowed and pushed him in.

During
the few hours which had elapsed, a considerable change had taken place in
Garth.

The
admiral was pale. Five admirals attended him and they were pale.

Garth
was courageous.

“I
suppose this means we are doomed,” he said, trying to keep his hand away from
his throat, which ached frighteningly. “The scout vessels which approached the
Star
of Space
must have been infected in the air. Their captain reported to me here.
He must have been the carrier. I . . . I have infected the officers who were
with me today. They, returning to their ships, have exposed their crews. My own
medical officer”—and it was easy to tell how difficult this was for Garth to
beg a favor—“has no idea of what this can be. You must do something. You have
asked for a case so that you could study symptoms. You have that case,
Doctor.”

Ole
Doc sat on the edge of the desk and swung a boot. He shrugged. “When you deal
with diseases which have not been studied over a full course of sickness, you
can form no real judgment. I am sorry, Admiral, but there is nothing much which
can be done just now.”

“They've
got full courses on Green Rivers,” said Garth.

“Ah,
yes,” said Ole Doc. “But I am, unfortunately, forbidden—”

Garth
was steady and stern. How he hated asking this! How he despised this pill
roller despite the present plight! “I will release you from that. If you care
to risk the sickness, you are free to study it.”

Ole
Doc handed up an order blank from the desk and Garth wrote upon it.

“If
it were not for the sake of my officers and men,” said Garth, “I would not
bother with this. I do not believe anything can be done. I act only on the
recommendation of naval surgeons. Is that clear?”

“Orders
again,” murmured Ole Doc.

“What?”
said Garth.

“In
case of sickness, the medical corps, I think, orders the line. Well, I'll see
if I know anything. Good day.”