Benj leaped to his feet, his hand swinging one of the three-foot
welding irons. He saw Cal, and with his other hand he whipped out the
needle beam and fired. The beam seared the air beside Cal's thigh.
Cursing Benj tried again, but nothing came from the beam. He hurled the
useless weapon into the swamp and came forward in a crouch, waving the
welding iron before him.
Cal ducked the first swing and caught Benj in the face with a fist. It
hurtled Benj back, but he came forward again, waving the white-hot,
needle-sharp iron before him.
Cal couldn't face that unarmed. He dropped below the thrust, and his
hand fastened on the matching iron to the pair that went in every flier
repair-kit. He flung himself back, and came up in a crouch as his thumb
found the switch that heated his own point.
* * * * *
Silently, their feet making soggy sounds in the swamp, Cal and Benj
crossed points in a guard of hatred.
Benj lunged in a feint, first. That started it. Cal blocked the feint
swiftly and then crossed his iron down to block the real lunge that
came low. While Benj recovered, Cal thrust and missed by inches. Benj
brought the hot tip up and passed at Cal's face. Cal wiped the iron
aside with a circular motion and caught Benj on the crook of the elbow.
Smoke curled from the burn and Benj howled. It infuriated him and he
pressed forward, engaging Cal's point. Cal blocked another thrust,
parried a low swing, and drove Benj's point high. He dropped under
the point and lunged in a thrust that almost went home. Benj dropped
his white-hot iron and deflected the thrust. He jabbed forward as Cal
regained his balance, and pressed forward again before Cal could get
set.
The mugginess caught Benj's feet and slowed him. Cal was slowed too,
but his backward scramble to regain balance was swifter than Benj's
advance. The white-hot points made little circles in the foggy murk as
they swung and darted.
Benj wound Cal's point in a circular motion and then disengaged to
lunge forward. His point caught Cal in the thigh and the sear burned
like live flame, laming Cal slightly. Cal parried, and then pressed
forward with a bit of the fastest handwork Benj had ever seen. By sheer
luck, Benj blocked and parried this encounter. The final lunge found
Benj retreating fast enough to evade the thrust that might have caught
him fair had he been slow in retreat.
He regained and forced Cal back. His dancing point kept Cal too busy
blocking to counterthrust, and Cal fought a stubborn retreat. The
ground behind him grew harder as he went back, and so he took a full
backward step to get the benefit of hard, dry ground. He made his stand
on the bit of dry knoll, and fought Benj to a standstill.
He fought defensively, waiting for Benj to come close enough to hit.
Their irons danced in and out, and Benj circled Cal slowly. Part way
around, Benj forced Cal's point up and rushed him. Cal backed away
three steps--and tripped over Tinker's hips. He went rolling in a heap,
curling his feet and legs up into his stomach.
Benj leaped over Tinker and rushed down on Cal, who kicked out with
both feet and caught Benj hard enough to send him flying back.
Both men jumped to their feet, circled each other warily, waiting for
an opening. Benj rushed forward and Cal went to meet the charge. The
ring of the irons came again and the white-hot points fenced in and out.
Benj thrust forward, high, and Cal blocked him with the shaft of the
iron. Their arms went up, shaft across shaft, and shoulder to shoulder
they strived in a body-block.
"Steal my identity, will you?" snarled Cal.
"Destroy it," rasped Benj. "You've been asking for this."
Cal's mind flashed, irrelevantly, to books and pictures he had
seen. In such, the villain always spit in the hero's face in such a
body-block. Cal snarled, pursed his lips and spat in Benj's face. Then
with a mighty effort, Cal shouldered Benj back a full three feet and
crossed points with him again.
Benj wiped his face on his shirt sleeve and raving mad, he drove
forward, his point making wicked arcs. Cal parried the dancing point,
engaged Benj in a thrust and counterthrust, and then with Benj's point
blocked high, he drilled forward.
The white-hot point quenched itself in Benj's throat with a nauseating
hiss.
Cal stood there, shaking his head at the sight, and retching slightly.
His face, which had been set like granite, softened. He dropped his
iron and turned away.
* * * * *
"Tink!" he cried.
"Nice job, Cal," she said with a strained smile.
"But you?"
"I'm in no pain."
"But what's wrong?"
"Fractured vertebra, I think. I'm paralyzed from the waistline down.
That crash--"
"Bad. Now what?"
"Where's your ship?"
"Back there a half-mile or so," said Cal.
"Don't carry me," she warned as he tried to lift her. "Go back there
and either bring it here or get something to strap me on."
"It'll take hours. The ship won't fly. I'll have to radio back to
Northern Landing for help."
"I ... won't last."
"You--" the meaning hit him then. "You won't last?"
"Not unless that vertebra is repaired."
"Then what can we do?"
"Cal ... where's Murdoch's Hoard?"
"Nearby, but you're more important than anything that might be in
Murdoch's Hoard."
"No, Cal. No."
"Look, Tink, you mean more to me than--"
"I know that, Cal. But don't you see?"
"See what?"
"What could possibly be of value?"
"No. Nothing that I have any knowledge of."
"That's it! Knowledge! All of the advanced work in neurosurgery is
there. All in colored, detailed three-dimensional pictures with a
running comment by Murdoch himself. Things that we cannot do today. Get
it, Cal. It'll tell you how to fix this crushed spinal cord."
Cal knew she was right. Murdoch, in his illegal surgery had advanced
a thousand years beyond his fellow surgeons who could legally work on
nothing but cadavers or live primates while Murdoch had worked on the
delicate nervous system of mankind itself. Murdoch's Hoard was a board
of information--invaluable to the finder and completely unique and
non-duplicative. At least until it was found.
"I can't leave you."
"You must ... if you want me! I'm good for six or seven hours. Go and
get that information, Cal."
"But I'm no physician. Much less a surgeon. Even less a neurosurgeon."
"Murdoch's records are such that a deft and responsible child could
follow them. According to history, his hoard is filled with instruments
and equipment. Cal--"
"Yes?"
"Cal. _This is the place where Murdoch worked on living nerves!_"
* * * * *
Tinker Elliott closed her eyes and tried to rest. She did not sleep,
nor did she feel faint. But her closed eyes were a definite argument
against objection on Cal's part. Worrying, he left her and went back to
his flier. He called for help and then he went to work on the Key.
Cal does not remember the next four hours. It was a whirling montage of
dismal swamp and winking pilot lights and thrumming whistles. It was a
lonely boulder with a handle on it that Cal lifted out of the ground
with ease. It was an immaculate hospital driven deep into the murky
ground of Venus. Three hundred and fifty years ago, Dr. Allison Murdoch
worked here and today his refrigerating plants started to function as
soon as Cal snapped the main switch.
On a stretcher that must have held many a torn and mangled set of
nerves before, Cal trundled Tinker through the muggy swamp of Venus and
lowered her into Murdoch's hospital.
In contrast, the next few hours will live forever in Cal's mind. He
came to complete awareness when he realized that he did not know his
next move.
"Tinker?" he asked softly.
"Here ... and still going," she said. "Ready?"
Cal swallowed deep. "Yes," he said hoarsely.
"In that case over there ... see it? Take an ampule of local--it's
labeled Neo-croalaminol-opium, ten percent. Get a needle and put three
cubic centimeters of it into space between the sixth and seventh
cervical vertebra. Go in between four and five millimeters below the
surface of the bone. Can do?"
"I ... I can't."
"You must! How I wish we had a duplicator."