She did not resist as the doctor took her arm and guided her to the
door. At the last moment, though, she paused and looked back at the
lean face on the pillow.
"He looks so peaceful," she said. "He looks so content. Does a dying
man ever dream, doctor?"
* * * * *
Even Marc himself could not have fitted a positive answer to Julie's
question. Did he dream? Or had he merely retreated from the world to a
realm of absolute reality? He didn't know himself.
He remembered passing through caverns of roaring darkness, only
to be caught up by a tongue of searing flame and hurled into some
obscure dimness where it seemed that all the thought, melody, all the
remembered sensation of a lifetime writhed about him like vague forms,
one interposed upon the other, in unpatterned confusion.
But now these entangled vagaries faded away and suddenly he found
himself sitting on a green slope at the outer perimeter of a grove of
graceful trees. A blue mist drifted lightly up the far rise to soften
the horizon. Marc was no stranger to this place for he had visited it
often. He felt no dismay at finding himself again in the valley of his
own mind. Indeed, through the last few years, it had become as familiar
to him as his own home or office. So had the redheaded minx who found
her existence there.
Marc stirred and looked around. The landscape was uninhabited. No
lovely, lightly clad figure appeared on the horizon, no lithe form
emerged from the groves and ran toward him.
Marc frowned anew over the improbable fact of Toffee. Certainly
she existed in his mind, a constant and consistent product of his
imagination. That was perfectly easy to understand. The parts of it,
though, that he never quite got used to were her periods of existence
outside his mind, in the world of actuality.
What Marc had never been able to really comprehend was that his mind
could project into the physical world a physical being--to such an
extent that her existence was not only apparent to himself but also to
everyone else who came within the radius of the mental vibration which
produced the girl.
The question in Marc's mind, then, was whether Toffee really existed,
was truly real, or whether she was merely an hallucination, a sort of
contagious hysteria.
Toffee's personality always got in the way of the answer. The girl was
infinitely distracting, from the pert aliveness of her quick green
eyes to the full redness of her lips. Beyond that there was the almost
shameful perfection of her supple young body. These things blocked
analytical thought. Then, too, there was her unerring instinct for
roaring, bounding madness, and her absolute contempt for the logical,
the moral or the conservative. Toffee, in brief, was at once brash,
embarrassing, impetuous, warm, high-handed, endearing, maddening and
completely unforgettable. So to all practical purposes, then, she was
real; the matter of Toffee's source was pallidly unimportant next to
the vivid fact of Toffee herself.
Marc stretched luxuriously and got to his feet, but as he did so he
peered around toward the green obscurity of the forest. There was still
no movement, no sound. He frowned quizzically. This wasn't at all
usual. Always before Toffee had been there to greet him almost at the
instant of his arrival. Another time she would be swarming all over him
by now.
* * * * *
He shrugged and started aimlessly up the rise. At first he climbed
unhurriedly, but as he drew nearer the trees his gait quickened. At the
outskirts of the forest he found himself pausing to listen, but there
was no sound. The feathery branches swayed in silent grace before him.
A small concern began to trickle into his mind.
The blue mists broke smoothly before his stride as he entered the cool
enclosure of the forest. Again he paused.
"Toffee...?" he found himself calling.
There was no answer.
He shoved ahead, and now there was a sort of anxiety in his step, and
he took care not to break the stillness lest Toffee answer. An odd
feeling of bereavement came over him, though he told himself it was
foolish. After all, the girl was entirely imaginary, and a pack of
trouble into the bargain. Then suddenly he stopped.
An odd murmuring seemed to come from the left. He moved in that
direction, stopped to listen, then hurried on. Ahead he saw a dim
lightness sketched through the trees, a suggestion of a clearing
obscured by the dense branches. He approached it, parted the foliage
and looked out. He stopped short.
Toffee sat in the middle of the clearing, her legs folded under her.
Her eyes were closed and one slender hand was pressed to her forehead
in an attitude of labored concentration. Her slight tunic, an emerald
transparency at best, did little to conceal the impertinent perfection
of her figure. She was leaning forward just a bit, and her flaming hair
hung loose over her shoulders. She seemed to be chanting something to
herself, though Marc couldn't make it out.
"Toffee...?" he said, and stepped forward to brace himself against the
inevitable rush of brash affection.
The girl opened her eyes and looked around hastily.
"Sit down somewhere," she said, "and be quiet."
"Huh?" Marc asked.
Toffee didn't answer. Instead, she closed her eyes, swayed back lightly
on her shapely haunches and began the muttered chant anew.
Marc swayed a trifle himself, with astonishment--and perhaps a tinge of
disappointment. This wasn't like Toffee at all, not by a long shot. He
moved slowly to her side and gazed down at her intent, upturned face.
"Toffee...?" he hazarded.
She didn't open her eyes. Her lips moved. "Molecules," she said.
"What?" Marc asked.
"Molecules," Toffee repeated. "Molecules ... molecules...."
"Molecules?" Marc said. "What are you talking about?"
Toffee opened her eyes at this and looked up at him with anxious
irritation.
"Please be still," she said. "I've got to think about molecules
exclusively. It isn't helping any, your gabbing away in my ear."
"But why?" Marc asked. "What about molecules?"
"Everything depends on them, that's all," Toffee said impatiently.
"Now, just...."
"But wait a min--!"
"Quiet," Toffee said. "Don't you realize that you're tottering on the
brink of death at this very moment? Me, too, for that matter."
"Death?" Marc asked. "What are you talking about?"
* * * * *
Toffee looked at him aghast. "Don't you remember?" she asked. "Have you
actually forgotten about being shot in the studio?"
Marc stared down at her in growing horror. A small, agonized memory
screamed out of the dark inner shadows of his awareness.
"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "I'm dying!"
"And if those licensed butchers get to hacking you up, you're a goner,"
Toffee said anxiously. "I have the inside information. There isn't much
time. I've got to concentrate like wild."
"But...!"
"Quiet!" Toffee broke in. "Please be quiet," she closed her eyes again
and her lips began to move as before. "Molecules," she murmured.
Marc remained rigid at her side. Panic rose inside him and filled his
throat. His impulse was to turn and run blindly--perhaps back to that
dying mortal body--but his terror held him transfixed. Staring down at
Toffee, he felt he might go mad in the next moment. In the next moment
he was certain he had.
Just in front of Toffee, close to the mossy greenness, he caught sight
of a quick flicker of light, a strange disembodied illumination that
was at once its own source and product. As he watched it flickered
again, grew brighter and became a steady radiance. He glanced back at
Toffee, but her face had become fixed and masklike. Her lips no longer
moved.
The radiance grew swiftly, to an almost unbearable brightness. In it
there was a cold hard suggestion of metal. Then it began to take form
and solidify. Marc blinked as the thing, whatever it was, grew slowly
out of the gleaming brilliance.
First a cylinder emerged, about a foot long and four or five inches in
diameter. For a moment the object seemed to have completed itself,
but then, one at either end, a pair of funnel-shaped openings emerged.
These completed, a small, two-way switch arrangement appeared at the
top and in the center of the cylinder. After that, the radiance was
gone and only the strange instrument remained, lying on the grass
before Toffee as though cast there by a careless hand.
"What--!" Marc gasped.
Toffee's perky features relaxed. She opened her eyes.
"Did it turn out all right?" she asked brightly. "Is it finished?"
"Huh?" Marc asked. He pointed. "You mean _that_?"
"Oh, wonderful!" Toffee cried, delighted. "It's rather pretty the way
it shines, isn't it?"
"What is it?"
"How should I know?" Toffee said blandly. "Just a gadget. There's never
been one before."
"You mean you just developed it out of your mind?"
"Sure," Toffee said. "It's a thought product--like me. Now if it only
works right...." Picking up the instrument, she looked at it carefully
and nodded with satisfaction. "It should be simple to operate."
"But what's it for?"
"I'll show you," Toffee said. She pointed to a nearby tree. "See that?"
Marc nodded. "Keep looking at it."
* * * * *
Turning to the tree, she held the cylinder toward it, so that one of
the funnels was aimed squarely in its direction.
"Now watch," she said, and pressed the switch.
Marc, staring at the tree in rapt attention, started with surprise.
Suddenly the tree was gone with no sign that it had ever been there.
"What...!"
"The next part is more important," Toffee said.
"Next part?" Marc said dazedly. "But where is it? Where...?"
"See there?" Toffee said, and this time she pointed to the center of
the clearing. "Watch."
Holding the cylinder so that the opposite end was pointed to the
clearing, she pressed the switch in the other direction. Instantly the
tree shot into being exactly at the spot she had indicated.
Marc stared. It was the same tree--the one that had disappeared--and
yet it was subtly different. It seemed greener now, more alive.
"What happened?" he asked. "What did you do to it?"
"Molecules," Toffee said, smiling. "I broke it down into molecules,
then projected it again. The machine absorbed the tree in molecules,
compressed them, reconstructed the faulty or destroyed ones, eliminated
all harmful matter and retained the count to reestablish it in perfect
balance and health. It worked fine."
"My gosh!" Marc said.
Drawing close to him, Toffee twined her arms around his neck with
knowing deliberation and drew his surprised face down close to hers.
"I'm going to save your stodgy life with molecules, you skinny old,
care-worn wraith," she breathed. "Then you'll be in my pay for the rest
of your days. Just keep it in mind later when things begin to happen."
"Huh?" Marc said. "What things?"
"You'll see," Toffee said. "Wow!"
Marc drew himself up stiffly. "Now, look here," he said sternly, "you
can just get this wow business right out of your head...."
"And if that doesn't work," Toffee said, "I've been studying hypnotism.
I can transfix a snake at fifty yards." She brushed her cheek lightly
against his. "Just think of that, you scaly old reptile."
"Just a second," Marc said. "If you think for one sec--"
But the sentiment was lost as Toffee renewed her hold on his neck and
kissed him warmly and at considerable length on the mouth.
"That," she whispered, "is just a token payment in advance. Just wait
till the mortgage comes due!"
[Illustration: TOFFEE]
"Why, you little hussy...!" Marc wheezed. "You haven't the moral sense
of a brickbat!"
He stopped short, for suddenly the forest had begun to darken and a
sharp wind came alive in the trees. He glanced around, startled, as the
earth began to tremble beneath them. Instinctively, he whirled about,
looking for an escape from the forest, but suddenly, with a groan of
dismay, the world went black, and he was only aware of Toffee's arms
closing tight about his neck....
* * * * *
The orderly was a pale, antiseptic type. And he was resentful. Wheeling
Marc along the hallway toward Surgery, he looked down at the drawn face
beneath him with a twinge of pique. He strongly resented the fact that
the face was not behaving at all as the face of a true corpse-elect
should.
According to the orderly, a dying man had no right to twitch and
flutter his eyelids the way this one was doing, let alone showing signs
of coming completely to life. It made the orderly nervous and upset.
[Illustration: MARC PILLSWORTH]
For a moment the orderly almost succumbed to an impulse to walk off
and leave the patient to shift for himself. It was what he deserved if
he was going to act that way. Nonetheless, he remained. Consequently,
Marc's first vision, upon returning to consciousness, was of a pale,
fretful face with white eyelashes and thin lips. He had expected
something better.
"Who are you?" he asked weakly. "Are you the doctor?"
The orderly shook his head sullenly. "I'm the orderly. The doctor's
waiting."
"They mustn't operate," Marc murmured. "I'll die...." He stopped as a
pert face suddenly blurred into view just behind that of the orderly.
A slender hand brushed back a wayward lock of red hair. Toffee smiled
and winked.
Marc moaned. "Oh, so it's you, is it?" he sighed. "What are you so
happy about? I feel awful."
"I'm not happy, sir," the orderly said, mystified. "I'm not happy
at all. In fact, if you want the truth...." He paused, and the
apprehensive expression of one who detects an unseen presence behind
him overtook his face. Very slowly, he turned around.
It would be difficult to say what the orderly expected to find behind
him: a fanged reptile might have made a good guess, a slavering fiend
another. It is certain, however, judging from his reaction, that on the
list of things he did not expect to find, a scantily clad redhead was
number one. Toffee, her legs crossed to perfection, the cylinder-like
gadget under her arm, sat jauntily on the edge of the cart, smiling a
bright greeting. The young man leaped backwards and froze in a transfix
of amazement.
"Auk!" he exclaimed.
Toffee turned to Marc. "Is he doing a bird imitation?" she asked.
"Should I applaud?"
"Don't be funny," Marc said feebly. "I feel terrible."
"I know," Toffee said. "I got here just in time."
"For what?" Marc asked apprehensively. "What are you going to do?"
Toffee patted the cylinder. "I'm going to save your life," she said.
"Don't you remember?"
Marc looked at her through heavy lids. "That's silly," he murmured.
"Just go 'way and let me die in peace."
Unmindful, Toffee leaped lightly to the floor, stood back and aimed the
gadget at Marc. "All set?" she said.
"Here!" the attendant said, suddenly recovering the faculty of speech.
"What are you doing?"
"Advancing medical science a mile a minute," Toffee said. "Don't
interrupt."
"But...!"
* * * * *
Toffee placed her hand menacingly on her hip and fixed the young man
with a steely eye. "Am I going to have to deal with you?" she asked,
"Or are you going to button your lip like a good child?"
The orderly spoke no further.
Toffee raised the cylinder, sighting the length of Marc's lean,
sheet-covered body. Then she pressed the switch.
The orderly stared, wide-eyed, and repeated his bird imitation. The
place where Marc had lain was suddenly as bare as a banquet board after
the feast. Where a moment before there had been a long thin man, now
there was only a long, thin sheet.
"Hey!" the orderly bleated. "Ho!"
"So long, phrasemaker," Toffee said, and tucking the cylinder under
her arm, moved off quickly down the hall and around the corner.
It was just as the orderly observed the last flirt of Toffee's hip that
the doctor appeared from the door of the operating room and looked
distractedly in his direction.
"Good grief, man!" he said, "haven't you brought Pillsworth with you?"
The orderly started nervously and looked around.
"He ... he ... he...!" he gibbered. "That is, she ... she...!" He
pointed in hopeless confusion down the hall.
"What are you babbling about?" the doctor enquired shortly. "Where is
Pillsworth?"
"He.... He's gone, sir!" the attendant blurted.
"Gone?" the doctor said. "Where did he go?"
The orderly looked away down the hall. "There was this girl, see ...
she had red hair and a can...."
"Now, just a minute, orderly," the doctor said measuredly. "If you
think you can distract me with the depressing details of your sex
life...."
"But you don't understand! She was holding this thing ... and she told
me to shut up ... and then Mr. Pillsworth wasn't there any more. That's
the truth!"
"Let me impress it upon you," the doctor said, "that this is a very
serious incident. I can't imagine how a half-dead patient managed to
get away from you, but you'll find him instantly and deliver him to
surgery if you know what's good for you. Meanwhile, I'll have the alarm
sent out to all the wards and offices. I hope you realize that your
carelessness has undoubtedly cost the patient his last chance for life.
Without the slightest doubt I can pronounce Marc Pillsworth dead right
now."
As the doctor spoke these last words, a small gust of wind--or at least
what could easily have passed for a small gust of wind--eddied around
the corner at the end of the hall. It was this slight disturbance which
marked the arrival of George on Earth.
At the sound of the doctor's voice, the ghost stopped, listened, then
clasped his hands together in a transport of joy. He had arrived just
in time to receive the happy news! Marc was dead and he, George, had at
last secured his permanent residency on Earth. Out of sheer exuberance
the delighted spectre let out a little moan of delight.
The orderly, who was watching the doctor gloomily out of sight, turned
sharply.
"Mr. Pillsworth?" he quavered thinly. "Mr. Pillsworth, please...?"
* * * * *
Meanwhile Toffee had progressed busily along the corridors of the
hospital in search of some private--and preferably secluded--place
in which to reconstruct Marc. Finally, rounding a corner, she found
herself abreast of a pair of swinging doors and started toward them.
She stopped, however, and turned in retreat as the doors suddenly
parted and a doctor and nurse, deep in conversation, came into view.
She started back the way she had come, but was stopped again by an
approaching nurse pushing an elderly female patient in a wheel chair
flanked on either side by a crutch. Looking for an avenue of escape,
Toffee spotted a white linen screen against the wall and darted quickly
behind it to bide her time till the traffic had subsided.
This ruse, on the face of it, hadn't a flaw and should have worked
like a charm. It should have that is, if Toffee, in her haste, hadn't
plumped against the wall and unknowingly pressed the button of the
gadget.
The result of this little accident was that the doctor and the nurse
approaching from one direction, and the nurse and the patient coming
from the other--all four of them suddenly found themselves confronted
by a tall, thin man standing bewilderedly in the center of the hall
with nothing to grace his long frame but an extremely brief linen shift
loosely attached at the back. Toffee had released Marc into reality and
good health, but costumed only for the operating table.
No one was more acutely aware of this deficiency than Marc himself.
Looking around unhappily at his stunned beholders and taking in his
slight coverage all in a single glance, he was taken with a seizure of
shocked modesty. Hunkering down into a squat he clutched the hem of his
gown desperately to his knees.
"My word!" the elderly patient said, leaning forward in her chair.
"What in the world does that man think he's doing!"
"I don't like to think," the nurse said, looking away. "It's bound to
be something disgusting."
"Here you!" the doctor called from the other end of the corridor. "You
can't do that! Why are you crouched down in that obscene way?"
"I'm naked!" Marc wailed. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I'm
downright exposed!"
"There's no reason to whisper about it," the doctor said nastily. "We
can all see."
"Oh, my gosh!" Marc cried. Looking around for a retreat, his frantic
gaze fell on the screen. Still in a squat, he hobbled swiftly toward it.
"Look at him!" the patient cried, rising slightly in her chair. "Here,
you! Stop doing that, for heaven's sake! You look like an ailing duck!"
"That's nothing to what I'd look like if I stood up," Marc panted in
one last sprint for the screen. "That would be worse."
* * * * *
It was not until this point in the proceedings that Toffee began to
realize what had happened. Listening to the voices in the hall, it had
struck her that one of them had a dreadfully familiar ring to it. It
was much to her dismay that, in peering around the edge of the screen,
she suddenly found herself practically eyeball to eyeball with Marc.
She let out a small, strangled cry.
"Oh, my gosh!" she said.
"For Pete's sake, let me in there!" Marc said.
"But how did you get out there?"
"How should I know? Never mind that, let me in. They're all _looking_!"
"At what?"
"I shudder to think. Please let me in!"
"But why are you all doubled up like that?"
Tired of words, Marc reached up to the screen to pull it away so he
could get behind it. Unfortunately, it was at this same instant that
Toffee decided to shove it open to make room. With their combined
efforts, the screen buckled, folded, teetered and fell, cracking Marc
solidly on the head. The next moment found him in an unconscious sprawl
on the floor. The area behind the screen was starkly deserted. The
observers crowded in swiftly to see what had happened.
"Good God!" the doctor cried, staring down at Marc. "It's Pillsworth,
the man they're looking for in Surgery!"
"Is he dead?" the nurse asked.
The doctor shook his head. "He's breathing. Run and call an orderly to
take him along instantly. Hurry!"
As the nurse hurried off, the elderly patient removed one of the
crutches from the side of her chair and passed it experimentally
through the vacant area beyond the screen. She shook her head in
perplexity.
"By golly," she said, "I could have _sworn_ he was talkin' to somebody
back there."
* * * * *
While this untimely denouement was rounding out in the hallway, a mad
drama of another sort was beginning to ferment in the Pharmacy.
Olliphant Gunn, the rotund and habitually foggy keeper of the dopes
and drugs, had been watching it for several minutes; there was trouble
brewing in the Salts and Syrups--trouble of a most mysterious and
upsetting nature. The containers, for all the world as though they had
suddenly been endowed with some idiotic life of their own, had begun to
shift about all by themselves. Watching a jar of salts hurl itself to
the floor and splash its contents out in a whitish mess, Olliphant Gunn
concluded definitely that there was some sort of flimflam afoot.
This conclusion was stoutly strengthened as he witnessed the progress
of his private bottle from its hiding place amongst the medicants to
a position in mid-air in front of the shelves. Olliphant began to
quiver about the dewlaps. He quivered even more as the bottle uncapped
itself, tilted upward and emptied a noticeable portion of its contents
into--into absolutely nothing at all!
Olliphant fell back in his chair, slack of jaw, and it is doubtful, had
anyone been able to apprise him of the truth of the matter, that he'd
have felt any better about it. To a man in his cups, as Olliphant was,
the news does not come lightly that he is in the company of a thirsty
ghost, with an unerring nose for whiskey, and a predisposition for
celebration.
Olliphant watched in bleary disbelief as the bottle repeated the
tilting and emptying process. Then his mood began to change. Regardless
of what this obviously demented bottle thought it was up to, it had
no right to deplete his private reserves in this callous fashion. The
slack jaw of Olliphant Gunn hitched itself up and became firm.
"Stop that!" Olliphant roared. "You stop that right now, damnit!"
For a moment the bottle wavered, as though startled, then defiantly
upended a third time and brought the level of the coveted liquor down
still further. Quite as though to rub salt in the wound, it burped with
grandiose satisfaction.
"Damnation!" Olliphant gasped. "I'll teach you, you blathering bottle!"
Heaving his considerable bulk up out of his chair, he hurled himself
bodily toward the object of his wrath.
* * * * *
The laws of nature, however, were against Olliphant from the very
beginning. As the bottle darted out of his reach, sheer momentum
carried him headlong into the dim reaches of Salts and Syrups. Gravity
delivered him along with a quantity of gummy liquid and gritty
crystallines to the floor. Settled in a sticky puddle of wreckage,
Olliphant glanced around with a reddish, enraged expression. Besides
salt and syrup, there was blood in his eye.
At a distance sufficiently out of reach, yet insultingly near, the
bottle was bobbing about amusedly. Indeed, Olliphant distinctly heard a
soft chuckling sound coming from its direction. With a jungle roar he
surged up from the floor and launched a second attack. This netted him
another disastrous collision, this time with the glassware department.
The Pharmacy was swiftly being transformed into a scene of chaos.
In the interval, the bottle had retreated to a position by the
doorway and was humming maddeningly to itself. Suddenly it burst into
full-throated song.
"Goin' to Louisiana," it warbled, "for a case of good whis-kee! Goin'
to Louisiana with a hussy on mah knee!"
Olliphant settled himself sadly on an untidy mound of rubble and began
to brood. There was no use denying it; the thing was just too much for
him. As he watched the bottle bob back and forth in time with the
idiot song, a large tear trickled down his cheek. Olliphant Gunn was
just a broken reed in the holocaust of Life, and his ruination had come
about through a mere mad bottle. The man began to blubber hopelessly.
It was during this heart-rending climax that the nurse, a small blonde,
appeared at the doorway and stared into the pharmacy with large
wondering blue eyes.
The invisible George, who had been enjoying his own singing to the
utmost, stopped at the sight of the newcomer in mid verse. Things, he
decided, were beginning to look up. Warmed by the liquor, George was
dazzled and enchanted.
Unfortunately the nurse was neither of these. Striding through the
door, she stepped into a trickle of syrup and skidded dangerously
toward Olliphant. George, feeling that things were moving in the wrong
direction entirely, seized upon the floundering blonde with one deft
swoop of his invisible arm and lifted her to dry ground. It was a
moment before he was able to account for the girl's shrill screams.
A period of stupefied silence followed as the nurse glanced around
suspiciously. As a girl who, in line of business, had experienced
considerable traffic with men, she was disposed to know to the exact
moment when she had been forcibly clutched by a masculine hand. Also,
which only made matters worse, she was a girl who knew where she had
been clutched and why.
* * * * *
In looking around for masculine hands available for clutching, a quick
survey told the nurse that the room inventoried two and both of them
were the exclusive property of Olliphant Gunn. Geographically it seemed
impossible that either of these hands could have performed the recent
clutching, but in her anger the nurse was not the one to quibble over
details. Seizing up a large crystal beaker she unhesitatingly smashed
it to splinters on Olliphant's skull with one smart whack. Olliphant
looked up through his tears.
"What you wanna do that for, lady?" he sobbed.
"You know what for," the nurse gritted, looking around for further
ammunition. "And that's only the beginning. If you ever...." She
stopped as she suddenly encountered the floating bottle. Instinctively,
or perhaps out of sheer surprise, she grabbed for it. At any rate, it
was not until she had gotten a grip on the thing that she realized that
this was a bottle not properly on the up and up. This fact was brought
home to her even more clearly when the bottle refused to budge in her
grasp and even showed a definite tendency to pull away.
For a long moment the nurse merely stared at the bottle with a
wondering gaze. Then slowly an expression of determination came into
her pretty face. Squaring her stance, she took hold of the offending
container with both hands.
"It's no use," Olliphant said from the floor. "That bottle's mean."
Heedless, the nurse braced herself and tugged with all her strength.
The bottle gave by a foot, then lurched drunkenly in her grasp. Down on
the floor the rivulet of syrup became disturbed, as though feet were
churning through it desperately seeking to regain lost traction.
Suddenly the bottle gave way and the nurse toppled backwards into
Olliphant's lap. Olliphant received this new burden with resignation
and a grunt. Across the room, however, there was another sound, as of a
body coming in swift contact with the floor.
"Damn!" the nurse said hotly, turning to Olliphant. "Keep your big
oafish hands off me! Stop reaching."
"I'm only reaching for the bottle," Olliphant said. "It's mine."
"It didn't feel like it," the nurse retorted. "It felt more like...."
She hesitated as from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a
long body sprawled on the floor. At first glimpse it seemed that the
body had no head, but as she looked more closely she saw that it did,
though she had the peculiar sensation that it had just come into being.
Handing Olliphant the bottle she got to her feet and approached the
prone figure. Noting that it was dressed for surgery, she stood staring
down at it quizzically for a moment.
"Holy smoke!" she breathed. "It's Pillsworth!" She turned to Olliphant.
"Come on and help me. We've got to get him down to Surgery right away!"
* * * * *
Marc felt himself rising through the last shredded mists of
unconsciousness. He tried to open his eyes but a glaring light made the
attempt too painful.
"Give him the anaesthetic," a voice said close by.
Panic pulsed through Marc's body. They were going to operate! Necessity
gave him a surge of strength and he sat up, staring wildly at the three
doctors gathered over him.
"No!" he said. "Don't! I'm all right!"
"Lie down, Mr. Pillsworth," the doctor nearest advised. "Just lie down
and it will all be over with in a minute."
"But I'm all right!" Marc said desperately. He glared around at the
nurse holding the mask for the anaesthetic. "Get away from me!"
"Hysteria," the doctor said. "Quite understandable after what he's been
through. He'll have to be restrained."
The other two nodded in agreement. Watching Marc closely, they took up
positions on either side of him. The first doctor moved to a place at
Marc's feet.
"When I give the signal," he whispered, "we'll all grab at once."
"I heard that!" Marc yelled. "Stay away from me, you croakers, or
I'll...!"
"Okay!" the doctor cried. "Grab!"
The scene over the operating table, for a moment thereafter, was a
living abstraction in flailing arms and legs. Though Marc managed at
one point to insert his thumb into the eye of the first doctor and his
foot into the mouth of the second, the odds were too great against him.
In the end he found himself pinioned helplessly to the table.
"All right, nurse," the doctor said, "fit the mask to his face. As soon
as the body's relaxed...."
"You leave that body alone," a pert feminine voice said tartly. "That
body happens to belong to me, for what it's worth, and I don't want it
tampered with. I particularly don't want it relaxed. I want it alert
and twitching in every fibre, and if you don't leave it alone I'm going
to lay into the bunch of you bare fisted!"
A tense silence overtook the group around the operating table. The
doctors looked at each other, then turned to observe the dismaying
redhead who had mysteriously appeared just behind them.
"How did you get in here?" the first doctor said uncertainly.
"I'm the owner of that body you are flinging about there," Toffee said
hotly, shifting the gadget under her arm and placing a hand on her hip.
"That body's mine right down to the last molecule and I've come to
fight for it if I have to."
* * * * *
Marc sat up under the relaxed grips of the doctors, his face scarlet.
"Why do you have to go around telling people things like that?" he
asked plaintively.
"I could put it another way," Toffee said. "Dirtier. For instance...."
"No!" Marc cried. "It's dirty enough already."