Ole
Doc pulled down his helmet to cover his face and walked forward. He rolled over
the senseless antique of sixty-five winters and examined him for anything
discoverable.
He
examined several more and from the eighth, who just that instant was half blind
with airlessness and the flash of Ole Doc's
UMS
gorget
, flicked out a specimen of spittle and passed it to
Hippocrates.
“Culture
it,” said Ole Doc.
“Negative,”
said Hippocrates six minutes later, still carrying 'scope and speed culture
flask. “Bacteriologically negative.”
“Air!”
screamed the old man, reviving. And an instant later she went down on her face
and didn't move.
Ole
Doc had her in the ship in about ten seconds. Hippocrates threw a force cordon
around the rest and four-handedly went through them, spraying a sterilizer all
over them with two hands and breaking their chains apart with the remaining
sets of fingers.
“Air!”
they whined and gasped. “Air, air, air!”
Ole
Doc looked sadly down at the girl on the table. She was fragile and lovely,
stretched there on the whiteness of the
Morgue
's operating room. She was
in odd contrast to all these brilliant tubes and trays, these glittering rods
and merciless meters. Ole Doc sighed and then shook off the trance and became a
professional.
“There's
such a thing as malnutrition,” he said to Hippocrates. “But I never heard of
mal-oxygenation. Her chestâ Here, what's this?”
The
tag had been clipped solidly through her ear and it read, “Property of Air,
Limited. Repossessed Juduary 43rd, '53. By order of Lem Tolliver, President,
Air, Limited.”
That
offended Ole Doc for some reason. He tore it off and put a heal compress on the
small, handsome ear. When he removed it five seconds later there were no scars.
Ole
Doc read the tag again and then angrily stamped it underfoot. He turned to his
job and shortly had a mask on the girl which fed her oxygen in proper
pulsations and gave her a little ammonia and psi-ionized air in the bargain.
He
was just beginning to take satisfaction in the way her lovely eyes were
flickering as she came around when Hippocrates leaped in, excited.
“Ship
landing!” blurted the little fellow. “Guns ready. Tell me when to shoot.”
“Whoa,”
said Ole Doc. “Force screen them off until you see what they are at least. Now,
there you are, my dear.”
She
struggled up and pulled off the mask. She looked, mystified, at her
surroundings until she heard others calling for air outside. Then she flicked
her eyes at Ole Doc and it was his turn to sigh.
“Ugh!”
said Hippocrates. “Nicotine, women! You never
live to be ten thousand,
I
bet. Next, rum!”
“Fine
idea,” said Ole Doc. “My dear, if you'd like to step this wayâ”
Hippocrates
watched him open doors for her. He knew Ole Doc would take her to a stateroom
where she could shower and shift into Ole Doc's robe. And then in the salon
that Michalo had newly designed, they'd sit in soft lights and talk above the
whine of violins.
Ugh!
It had been exactly nineteen years and six days
since Ole Doc had shown any interest in a womanâ The little slave paused. He
grinned. After all, this was Ole Doc's birthday. It was hard enough to live
hundreds of years with nothing ever exciting anymore. Hippocrates knew; for his
people, gypsum metabolism though they were, normally went
utterly stale at twelve thousand and faded into complete boredom. Humans lived
faster in the headâ
He
grinned and swung up into a gun turret. Let him have his
birthday and three cheers for it.
But
the ship called Hippocrates back sharply. And he was again intensely annoyed
with Ole Doc. Women. Now look at the trouble that was coming. The ship was a
Scoutcraft Raider for atmosphere travel and it had enough armament to slaughter
a city and it was manned with humans who, even at this distance, looked
extremely unreliable. It landed on the edge of the screen and five guards
leaped down, blasters ready to cover the debark of a huge-shouldered,
black-garbed man. Hippocrates was reminded of a vulture and almost whiffed the
odor that always clings to those birds. He turned on the near screen and
disregarded the fact that its force kicked about twenty slaves a dozen feet or
more outward from the
Morgue.
The
five scouted the grass, found the holes where the guards had been and fished up
bits of melted brass. They stood and glared at the slaves who, seeing the ship,
had begun to howl and plead and creep toward that as they had toward
Hippocrates. The big human stopped and looked at the
Morgue.
Its stern
was toward him and he didn't see the crossed ray rods on the nose or the
meaningful letters UMSS
Morgue, Ole Doc Methuselah.
“You
better stop,” said Hippocrates in the high turret.
The
men stopped.
The
big human looked up at the turret. He signaled his men to fan out and for his
ship to depress its heaviest cannon. Hippocrates shivered a little, for he was
not sure his screen would hold against the size of those muzzles.
“I'm
Big Lem Tolliver!” shouted the human. “This is Air, Limited talking and if you
got a good reason why my Persephons ain't alive, spill it, for I ain't
withholding my fire long.”
“You
better go away!” yelled Hippocrates in derision. “If my master sees you, he'll
cut you open to see the size of your liver or drill holes in your skull to
equalize the vacuum. You better go!”
“Only
a hundred and fifteen in this gang,” said a shrunken human being who reached
only to Tolliver's elbow but who served him as a lieutenant of sorts.
“According to the radio report, that's one missing.”
“Search
the ship!” said Big Lem Tolliver.
Hippocrates
swooped down with his 600-mm. “Stop and go away. This is the UMSS
Morgue
and we specialize in dead men named Lem Tolliver.”
He
thought this was pretty apt. After all, he'd never imagined being able to
convert lines from
Tales of the Early Space Pioneers.
He was a success.
It stopped them.
“Spacecrap!”
said Lem Tolliver in a moment. “That's no UMS ship! You'd never steal a slave
if you were.”
“Slaves
are UMS business, pardner,” said Hippocrates. “And even if they weren't, we'd
make it our business, son. You going to go along and tell your mama to wipe
your nose or am I going to have to wipe it myselfâwith 'sploders? Now git!” He
was certainly converting well today.
“Up
there, Tinoi. Search it and if they've got the missing one, haul her out. And
then we'll see about the murder that's been done here amongst our people.”
Tinoi,
the shrunken one, hung back. He'd never had a taste for 600-mm stuff himself.
Let them as would be heroes; he valued his daily issue of
doi.
Hippocrates
saw the hesitation and grew very brave. He spanged a dozen 'sploders into the
earth before the group and would have shot a thousand more as warning if the
Scoutcraft Raider, ordered so, had not replied with a resounding vomit of fire.
The
Morgue
reeled as the screen folded. The top turret caved into tangled
smoke. The side port fused and dripped alloy gone molten. And Big Lem Tolliver
looked on in some annoyance, for there went his chance of recovering the
missing repossessed slave.
The
men went about collecting the hundred and fifteen and forming them into lines.
They were bitter because they could not imagine what had burst these perfectly
good chains and they had to tie lines through the broken links.
“Air!”
moaned the prisoners.
“Stow it,” said Big Lem. “We'll teach you to breathe air you didn't pay for. Form 'em up,
boys, and get them on their way. That spaceship, or what's left of it, is a shade
too hot for me.”
“You
ain't goin' to make me escort them,” said Tinoi. “It's a heck of a walk to
Minga. I bought them Persephon-castes to do the walking.”
“If
I say walk, you'll walk,” said Big Lem. “And if I say walk straight out into
space, you'll walk. And if I say hoof it from here to Galactropolis, you'll
walk every condemned light-year of it barefoot. If I can't have my orders
obeyed, who can? And if you can't obey Big Lem Tolliver, you can't obey nobody.
Who thought up this company? Who makes it work? Who handles all the paperwork
and hires politicians and abdicates kings when he chooses? Who keeps the whole
confounded planet running and your belly full? Lem Tolliver, that's who. And
what's Air, Limited but Lem Tolliver? And what's Arphon but Lem Tolliver? And
that makes me a planet.”
This
syllogism caused a return of good humor. He expanded, rocked on his heels and
looked down at Tinoi. “Yessir. That makes me Arphon, or mighty doggone near.
Well, Tinoi, do you walk?”
“Guess
so, Arphon,” grumped Tinoi and appeared very beaten about it. He knew better
than to appear elated. Somebody else would have got the detail if he hadn't
objected and it would be fine to breathe something else besides the ozone stink
of the Scoutcraft Raider. Too, he could always sell a slave or two to some farm
and turn in a death report. “Guess I'll have to,” mumbled Tinoi, “but I'll
need two gunners and a marine off the ship, and don't go making me take Connoly
along.”
“That's
Connoly and two marines you'll get,” said Tolliver. “Now line 'em up and
getâ”
“Wait,”
said Tinoi, forgetting his elation about Connoly who could surely build them
litters for the slaves to pack. He stared at the smoking side of the spaceship.
“There's somebody alive.”
And
indeed it appeared to be the truth. Crawling backwards out of the smoke came a
seared being, tugging at the boot of a second. Tinoi was all action. He swooped
in, holding his breath against the fumes, and snatched up the obviously live
one.
Coughing
and beating out a burning spot on his coat, he let her slide into the grass.
“There's the missing one,” he said. “Now we can get on our way.”
Big
Lem looked down at her and made a disdaining face. She was very badly singed
property, an enormous burn blotting out almost all of her face and destroying
one eye. Wounded and bedraggled, it was plain that she would no longer gladden
the eyes of man.
Tinoi
looked at her tag, the one around her ankle, and then stared at the ear where
the repossession tag should have been and was not. He looked at his boss. “This
is Dotty Grennan, the one they picked up 'specially for you. She sure is
spoiled for looks.”
“Throw
her into the line. Some men will buy anything,” said Big Lem.
“Don't
guess she'll be able to walk much,” said Tinoi.
“What's
that to me? Throw her in. Captain! Captain! Here, you, Foster. Get up there and
tell my captain to send Connoly and two marines out here and stand by to take
off.”
The
man named Foster leaped up into the Scoutcraft Raider with the message and came
back shortly, eating a chocolate bar, to walk the lineup.
“Air,”
moaned the slaves. “Air!”
“Shut
up, you repossessed mothers' sons,” said Tinoi, beating them into line with
the butt of his blastick. “Form up, form up, or I'll give you a lot more air
than you'll ever be able to use.” He tried four times to make an old man stand
on his feet and then left off profanity, and held an open hand toward Tolliver.
“I'll
have to have a few charges,” said Tinoi. “After all, it's bad enough to walk
to Minga without having to drag a hundred and sixteen passed-out
repossessions.”
“It's
a waste of company money,” said Big Lem. But he signaled Connoly as the big
gunner came out of the Raider and Connoly went back for charges.
These
were small cylinders with “AL” painted in red on them, and when they were
exploded around the slaves, sent off a greenish spray which hung foggily about
them. Tinoi stepped clear and waited for the murk to dissipate and then, when
the slaves had revived, turned to and lined them up without further delay.
Big
Lem watched the crowd move off. He knew Tinoi would probably be carried most of
the way in litters made by Connoly and he understood what would happen to a
couple of those younger girls. And he knew a dozen would be sold and reported
dead. But Lem Tolliver could appreciate that kind of loyalty and wouldn't ever
have understood another kind of man. He grinned as the last of them disappeared
in the trees and without another look at the smoking spaceship, boarded the
Scoutcraft Raider and took off.
Â
An
hour later Ole Doc came to himself lying in the grass where the girl had pulled
him. For a little while he lay there and enjoyed the cool fragrance of the soft
blades around him. It was quite novel to be alive and to be so glad to be
alive.