The Rangers Are Coming (44 page)

From about the middle a gallery a middle-aged man stood up.  Dr. Rippert, I think I speak for us all when I say we have all just taken a giant leap into the medical future.  I admit, I am afraid, but with your help, I’m willing to be taught.”

“Good show, old man!” said Rippert, Come on down here and walk into history.”

Rippert got fresh boiling water and supervised while the doctor, whose name was Crane, scrubbed up.  He had to do it three times before he passed Rippert’s inspection.  Then Rippert handed him a towel to dry his hands, put on a new pair of gloves, and held another pair instructing Dr. Crane to push his hand into the glove smartly to make sure of a good fit.  He tore up two pairs of gloves getting the hang of it.  Then Rippert put on Cranes’ surgical mask and one of his own, explaining as he did that you always use new gloves and new masks every time.

Dr. Clay came into the room, smiling, and lay down on the table.  Rippert rolled the new IV bag over to the edge of the table with a new plastic tube, port, and a shielded needle at the end. 

He had Crane, tie the elastic round Clay’s arm, and swab him with alcohol.  Then both of them got close and Rippert pushed gently on Clay’s arm.  “See the vein,” said Rippert, “Put the needle right in the middle of it.”

              Dr. Crane would be forever grateful his hand was steady and he hit the vein on his first try.  Then he got the second syringe, inserted the needle in the top of the bottle, and drew out the exact amount Rippert said to take.  He pushed the needle into the port and said, “Count backwards from a hundred.”  Crane only got to 98 before he was unconscious.  “This anesthetic is for use when time is short, like you have a man with a belly wound and he’s about to bleed out on you.”

He held up the syringe and said, “Whose next?”  This time there were several volunteers.  Ripley picked a young man and sent him through the entire routine until Dr. Harris came into the room and went out cold, right on schedule.

“I don’t think you will have trouble getting volunteers now,” said Rippert, “tomorrow we will begin again, and each of you will do this routine until it becomes like second nature.”

Rippert was mobbed by applauding doctors who wanted to get their hands on all that strange equipment they’d seen.  They asked a hundred questions, oblivious to the three sleeping men on the tables.

The stiff British reserve was gone.  Dr. Don, as he came to be called and the rest of his staff worked diligently for two weeks to insure that no less than 200 doctors had mastered the technique and learned to wash their hands before they operated.  They worked in harmony and an air of the unknown.  Exactly what was the nature of medicine in the United States if the docs could answer any question put to them, no matter what the subject?  It gave the British physicians a profound respect for what America must be doing in other areas if they had come so far in medicine.

The American Ambassador to England dropped by one day to say that the results in the other countries was much the same.

When the mission was over, a great party was held.  One of the highlights of the party was  Dr. Don drinking a glass of water Dr. Dobkins gave him.  He said that it was part of a batch of water that was boiled especially for the occasion.  The water wasn’t cold, and there were no ice cubes in the glass, but it was a very satisfying drink for Dr. Don.

The team left ample enough supplies to conduct several hundred operations.  The British government ordered an entire shipload of the things they needed to keep the anesthesia running.  All the other countries did the same, and a pharmaceutical company in Virginia had a windfall of profits.

    40

Washington, D.C.

              Arcadia sat at her computer in her big Georgetown house.  The computer was transferring the image onto the big monitor that covered most of a wall in her large office.  The other walls were mostly a collection of photographs of the important events of America, going back to 1770.  Now, in 1850, Arcadia was reviewing the land use planning maps she and her urban designers conceived when the North American continent was secure.

                 The nice thing about having a big empty space like she did with Alaska, Canada, the original United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean as a palette was that the planners could make the most efficient use of the land for all the purposes that  would emerge in a modern country.  In the original United States, growth had produced a hodge-podge of land uses that put industrial areas too close to residential areas, did not make the best use of the agricultural lands, or provide for the proper growth planning that would emerge with population growth.

              The states had mostly the same boundaries as before, with some major differences.  California, for example, became two states, north, and south.  Of course, the state of Sioux had wiped out North and South Dakota and Nebraska and increased the size of Kansas.  The National Parks and Federal land in forests and unique geographical places were kept clear of all development, except the service centers for visitors.  Transportation corridors for rail, and highways, were also planned for expansion and growth as the population increased.  The electrical power grids were interconnected and all buried in steel pipes.  The dams that were built, took into consideration the environmental impact along with the commercial uses in hydroelectric power, and the land that could turned into agricultural uses, along with their natural flood control component.

              As immigrants were admitted to the country, they could be disbursed to the regions, most like their former homes.  They were kept in large enough groups to help maintain their culture, but not big enough to dominate a region.

              Thus, when the flood of Irish began to arrive because of the potato famine, they were divided by their work skills and transported to that part of the country where that activity was underway.  Farmers went to farmland and received free land, factory workers went to the one of the many assembly line production centers.  It was not unusual for groups of Irish to end up in the state of Alberta for farming, or Guadalajara for work in an aircraft plant.

              The school system was completely accustomed to bringing in illiterate people or those who did not speak English and transform them into useful workers, farmers, or students in just a couple of years.  At the heart of all things in America was the Christian ethic that asked people to live their lives as much as possible as Jesus did, with love, charity, and moral integrity in regards to honesty and strong family units.

              With the titanic industrial, scientific, and agricultural output of the United States dominating the world marketplace, America just grew more prosperous and poured the money back into more infrastructure, research and development, and the quality of life of the people.  The flat tax system brought in more than enough money to fund all government activities.  The actual size of the Federal government was kept small and the states played a bigger role in the administration of their business.  However, the states themselves left a great deal of latitude for individuals to prosper and excel in whatever enterprise they desired.

              The states followed the lead of the Federal government in preserving important sites, and making sure that large parks, walkways, and recreational areas were in plenty.

              President Charles Gallagher was proving to be a very able leader.  Arcadia believed he understood the “Big Picture” better than anyone who had ever held the office.  He was constantly consulting with Arcadia over some adjustment he could make in policy today that would be valuable a hundred years from now.

              “The problem, Chuck,” said Arcadia at one their private meetings at the White House, “are the radical Muslims.  However, they aren’t radical yet.  Most of the Middle East is still dominated by the Ottoman Empire or the Europeans.  The issue of oil is not yet an issue.  There are plenty of Jews living in Palestine, but they are at peace with the Palestinians.  The real boundary lines of all the countries in the Middle East haven’t even been drawn yet.”

              “Looks like your current plan of trying to reset history by working through Europe is still the right plan,” said the President.

              “The wave of nationalism among the major European powers begins about 1870.  Not only do the Europeans start trying to see how much of the world they can annex to each country, they will get the idea their country, their culture, their politics, their national priorities are better than any other country.  It’s like 10 big bullies living on the same block.  They hate each other and often fight one on one.  Then five bullies get together and start picking on the others individually.  Of course the remaining five bullies make an alliance of their own, and the two gangs fight it out, regardless of the collateral damage to the neighborhood or its poor people.  That’s the situation forming in Europe.  It’s currently 1850 we have 20 years to become so strong that a gentle suggestion by us is translated into an order for everyone else.  Moreover, we have to do this without taking a single action outside our borders.”

              “Most of the Europe nations are so dependent on our trade now, we can call the shots,” said Gallagher.

              “That’s actually not true,” said Arcadia, “if we cut off trade to any block of countries, we invite an open invasion of the United States.  Bear in mind, we have more borders to guard than any one, are protected by one division of Rangers, and are outnumbered ten to one by the Europeans.  We need to convince them that what we have is so valuable they will pay any price get it.  We need to kill them with kindness and generosity.  They need to like and admire us so much they want to be like us.”

              “How much do you think we can accomplish in 20 years,” asked Gallagher?

              “A lot, an awful lot,” said Arcadia.  “We are pouring money and resources into our research and development centers at the Universities and some of the bigger companies.  There are two main areas where we can make the biggest difference…microelectronics, and the generation of power that is independent from oil.  We are closest in electronics.  The discovery of the transistor has started several companies working on ways to miniaturize the transistor and then to mass-produce them into what are known in my time as ‘Mother Boards’.  That’s the technology you are borrowing with our big plasma screens and the computers that run them.  If we can get that done, then we can put plasma screens in every home in America and broadcast live programming, entertainment, education, news, weather, whatever you want.  Moreover, we can produce real computers for personal use.  That technology is only about a dozen or so years away.  I’ve been getting regular reports and the news is very encouraging.  Best of all, it is real Americans, not my bunch, who are making the discoveries.”

              “Amazing,” said the President, “What about power?”

“You would ask that question,” said Arcadia.  “What I am proposing we do is develop technology that doesn’t even exist in this form in my time.  Fortunately, we don’t have to complete this project, just demonstrate its existence, and mobilize the rest of the world to help us complete it.”

              “What is it,” asked Gallagher with eagerness?

              “Solar Power,” said Arcadia.  “Eventually the world will turn to this anyway.”

              “I don’t understand,” said Gallagher.

              “Look out the window, Chuck,” said Arcadia.  “What’s the biggest thing in the sky?”

              “The sun?”

              “Right, the sun shines all the time, and delivers an endless supply of energy to the earth.  We collect solar power in my time with big panels that turn the power into electricity.  If we had the means to collect solar power all the time, we could deliver an unlimited amount of power to every corner of the earth.”

              “How would you do that,” asked the President?

              “By collecting solar power in space and broadcasting it back to earth and into our power grids.  Trust me the technology exists to do this in my time.  It’s just no single country can afford it.  We can’t either, by the way, as rich as we are.  However, there is something we can do that will fire the imagination of every person in the world.”

              “I have a team working down in Florida.  You know on the 4
^th
of July we launch rockets that fly up into the air and blow up in pretty patterns?”

              “Yes, of course,” said Gallagher.

              “That’s what these guys are doing.  They’re building rockets, bigger and bigger and launching them into space.  In 20 years, they’ll have a full blown space program developed and we will launch one of those rockets, with men aboard, to fly to the moon.”

              “Are you in earnest,” said the President, or is this a joke?”

              “No joke, Chuck, I’m deadly serious.  Furthermore, people in America will be able to watch the whole thing on television screens.”

              “It can’t be possible,” said the President.

              “We’ve already done it,” said Arcadia, “starting in 1969, just a little over a hundred years from now, we sent several manned missions to the moon, and brought the men all back alive.  We have walked on the moon.”

              “That would be quite something to see,” said Gallagher.

              “How impressive would it be to a European leader who has never even seen a diesel locomotive or a truck driving on a highway at 70 miles an hour,” asked Arcadia?