Produced by Susan Skinner, Greg Weeks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from an Ace Books paperback, 1973. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.
[Illustration: BADGE OF INFAMY
LESTER DEL REY
EARTHMEN BECOMING MARTIANS]
The computer seemed to work as it should. The speed was
within acceptable limits. He gave up trying to see the
ground and was forced to trust the machinery designed
for amateur pilots. The flare bloomed, and he yanked
down on the little lever.
It could have been worse. They hit the ground, bounced
twice, and turned over. The ship was a mess when
Feldman freed himself from the elastic straps of the
seat. Chris had shrieked as they hit, but she was
unbuckling herself now.
He threw her her spacesuit and one of the emergency
bottles of oxygen from the rack. "Hurry up with that.
We've sprung a leak and the pressure's dropping."
* * * * *
Turn this book over for a second complete novel.
[Transcriber's Note:
The second novel is not present in this etext.]
* * * * *
BADGE OF INFAMY
By LESTER DEL REY
* * * * *
ace books
A Division of Charter Communications Inc.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
BADGE OF INFAMY
Copyright (C) 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
Copyright (C) 1957 by Renown Publications, Inc.
A shorter and earlier version of this story appeared in _Satellite
Science Fiction_ for June, 1957.
* * * * *
_First Ace printing: January, 1973_
* * * * *
THE SKY IS FALLING
Copyright (C) 1954, 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
* * * * *
Printed in U.S.A.
I
Pariah
The air of the city's cheapest flophouse was thick with the smells of
harsh antiseptic and unwashed bodies. The early Christmas snowstorm had
driven in every bum who could steal or beg the price of admission, and
the long rows of cots were filled with fully clothed figures. Those who
could afford the extra dime were huddled under thin, grimy blankets.
The pariah who had been Dr. Daniel Feldman enjoyed no such luxury. He
tossed fitfully on a bare cot, bringing his face into the dim light. It
had been a handsome face, but now the black stubble of beard lay over
gaunt features and sunken cheeks. He looked ten years older than his
scant thirty-two, and there were the beginnings of a snarl at the
corners of his mouth. Clothes that had once been expensive were wrinkled
and covered with grime that no amount of cleaning could remove. His
tall, thin body was awkwardly curled up in a vain effort to conserve
heat and one of his hands instinctively clutched at his tiny bag of
possessions.
He stirred again, and suddenly jerked upright with a protest already
forming on his lips. The ugly surroundings registered on his eyes, and
he stared suspiciously at the other cots. But there was no sign that
anyone had been trying to rob him of his bindle or the precious bag of
cheap tobacco.
He started to relax back onto the couch when a sound caught his
attention, even over the snoring of the others. It was a low wail, the
sound of a man who can no longer control himself.
Feldman swung to the cot on his left as the moan hacked off. The man
there was well fed and clean-shaven, but his face was gray with
sickness. He was writhing and clutching his stomach, arching his back
against the misery inside him.
"Space-stomach?" Feldman diagnosed.
He had no need of the weak answering nod. He'd treated such cases
several times in the past. The disease was usually caused by the absence
of gravity out in space, but it could be brought on later from abuse of
the weakened internal organs, such as the intake of too much bad liquor.
The man must have been frequenting the wrong space-front bars.
Now he was obviously dying. Violent peristaltic contractions seemed to
be tearing the intestines out of him, and the paroxysms were coming
faster. His eyes darted to Feldman's tobacco sack and there was animal
appeal in them.
Feldman hesitated, then reluctantly rolled a smoke. He held the
cigarette while the spaceman took a long, gasping drag on it. He smoked
the remainder himself, letting the harsh tobacco burn against his lungs
and sicken his empty stomach. Then he shrugged and threaded his way
through the narrow aisles toward the attendant.
"Better get a doctor," he said bitterly, when the young punk looked up
at him. "You've got a man dying of space-stomach on 214."
The sneer on the kid's face deepened. "Yeah? We don't pay for doctors
every time some wino wants to throw up. Forget it and get back where you
belong, bo."
"You'll have a corpse on your hands in an hour," Feldman insisted. "I
know space-stomach, damn it."
The kid turned back to his lottery sheet. "Go treat yourself if you
wanta play doctor. Go on, scram--before I toss you out in the snow!"
One of Feldman's white-knuckled hands reached for the attendant. Then he
caught himself. He started to turn back, hesitated, and finally faced
the kid again. "I'm not fooling. And I _was_ a doctor," he stated. "My
name is Daniel Feldman."
The attendant nodded absently, until the words finally penetrated. He
looked up, studied Feldman with surprised curiosity and growing
contempt, and reached for the phone. "Gimme Medical Directory," he
muttered.
Feldman felt the kid's eyes on his back as he stumbled through the
aisles to his cot again. He slumped down, rolling another cigarette in
hands that shook. The sick man was approaching delirium now, and the
moans were mixed with weak whining sounds of fear. Other men had wakened
and were watching, but nobody made a move to help.
The retching and writhing of the sick man had begun to weaken, but it
was still not too late to save him. Hot water and skillful massage could
interrupt the paroxysms. In fifteen minutes, Feldman could have stopped
the attack completely.
He found his feet on the floor and his hands already reaching out.
Savagely he pulled himself back. Sure, he could save the man--and wind
up in the gas chamber! There'd be no mercy for his second offense
against Lobby laws. If the spaceman lived, Feldman might get off with a
flogging--that was standard punishment for a pariah who stepped out of
line. But with his luck, there would be a heart arrest and another juicy
story for the papers.
Idealism! The Medical Lobby made a lot out of the word. But it wasn't
for him. A pariah had no business thinking of others.
As Feldman sat there staring, the spaceman grew quieter. Sometimes, even
at this stage, massage could help. It was harder without liberal
supplies of hot water, but the massage was the really important
treatment. It was the trembling of Feldman's hands that stopped him. He
no longer had the strength or the certainty to make the massage
effective.
He was glaring at his hands in self-disgust when the legal doctor
arrived. The man was old and tired. Probably he had been another
idealist who had wound up defeated, content to leave things up to the
established procedures of the Medical Lobby. He looked it as he bent
over the dying man.
The doctor turned back at last to the attendant. "Too late. The best I
can do is ease his pain. The call should have been made half an hour
earlier."
He had obviously never handled space-stomach before. He administered a
hypo that probably held narconal. Feldman watched, his guts tightening
sympathetically for the shock that would be to the sick man. But at
least it would shorten his sufferings. The final seizure lasted only a
minute or so.
"Hopeless," the doctor said. His eyes were clouded for a moment, and
then he shrugged. "Well, I'll make out a death certificate. Anyone here
know his name?"
His eyes swung about the cots until they came to rest on Feldman. He
frowned, and a twisted smile curved his lips.
"Feldman, isn't it? You still look something like your pictures. Do you
know the deceased?"
Feldman shook his head bitterly. "No. I don't know his name. I don't
even know why he wasn't cyanotic at the end, _if_ it was space-stomach.
Do you, doctor?"
The old man threw a startled glance at the corpse. Then he shrugged and
nodded to the attendant. "Well, go through his things. If he still has a
space ticket, I can get his name from that."
The kid began pawing through the bag that had fallen from the cot. He
dragged out a pair of shoes, half a bottle of cheap rum, a wallet and a
bronze space ticket. He wasn't quick enough with the wallet, and the
doctor took it from him.
"Medical Lobby authorization. If he has any money, it covers my fee and
the rest goes to his own Lobby." There were several bills, all of large
denominations. He turned the ticket over and began filling in the death
certificate. "Arthur Billings. Space Lobby. Crewman. Cause of death,
idiopathic gastroenteritis _and_ delirium tremens."
There had been no evidence of delirium tremens, but apparently the
doctor felt he had scored a point. He tossed the space ticket toward the
shoes, closed his bag, and prepared to leave.
"Hey, doc!" The attendant's voice was indignant. "Hey, what about my
reporting fee?"
The doctor stopped. He glanced at the kid, then toward Feldman, his face
a mixture of speculation and dislike. He took a dollar bill from the
wallet. "That's right," he admitted. "The fee for reporting a solvent
case. Medical Lobby rules apply--even to a man who breaks them."
The kid's hand was out, but the doctor dropped the dollar onto Feldman's
cot. "There's your fee, pariah." He left, forcing the protesting
attendant to precede him.
Feldman reached for the bill. It was blood money for letting a man
die--but it meant cigarettes and food--or shelter for another night, if
he could get a mission meal. He no longer could afford pride. Grimly, he
pocketed the bill, staring at the face of the dead man. It looked back
sightlessly, now showing a faint speckling of tiny dots. They caught
Feldman's eyes, and he bent closer. There should be no black dots on the
skin of a man who died of space-stomach. And there should have been
cyanosis....
He swore and bent down to find the wrecks of his shoes. He couldn't
worry about anything now but getting away from here before the attendant
made trouble. His eyes rested on the shoes of the dead man--sturdy boots
that would last for another year. They could do the corpse no good;
someone else would steal them if he didn't. But he hesitated, cursing
himself.
The right boot fitted better than he could have expected, but something
got in the way as he tried to put the left one on. His fingers found the
bronze ticket. He turned it over, considering it. He wasn't ready to
fraud his identity for what he'd heard of life on the spaceships, yet.
But he shoved it into his pocket and finished lacing the boots.
Outside, the snow was still falling, but it had turned to slush, and the
sidewalk was soggy underfoot. There was going to be no work shoveling
snow, he realized. This would melt before the day was over. Feldman
hunched the suitcoat up, shivering as the cold bit into him. The boots
felt good, though; if he'd had socks, they would have been completely
comfortable.
He passed a cheap restaurant, and the smell of the synthetics set his
stomach churning. It had been two days since his last real meal, and the
dollar burned in his pocket. But he had to wait. There was a fair
chance this early that he could scavenge something edible.
He shuffled on. After a while, the cold bothered him less, and he passed
through the hunger spell. He rolled another smoke and sucked at it,
hardly thinking. It was better that way.
It was much later when the big caduceus set into the sidewalk snapped
him back to awareness of where he'd traveled. His undirected feet had
led him much too far uptown, following old habits. This was the Medical
Lobby building, where he'd spent more than enough time, including three
weeks in custody before they stripped him of all rank and status.
His eyes wandered to the ornate entrance where he'd first emerged as a
pariah. He'd meant to walk down those steps as if he were still a man.
But each step had drained his resolution, until he'd finally covered his
face and slunk off, knowing himself for what the world had branded him.
He stood there now, staring at the smug young medical politicians and
the tired old general practitioners filing in and out. One of the latter
halted, fumbled in his pocket and drew out a quarter.
"Merry Christmas!" he said dully.
Feldman fingered the coin. Then he saw a gray Medical policeman watching
him, and he knew it was time to move on. Sooner or later, someone would
recognize him here.
He clutched the quarter and turned to look for a coffee shop that sold
the synthetics to which his metabolism had been switched. No shop would
serve him here, but he could buy coffee and a piece of cake to take out.
A flurry of motion registered from the corner of his eye, and he glanced
back.
"Taxi! Taxi!"
The girl rushing down the steps had a clear soprano voice, cultured and
commanding. The gray Medical uniform seemed molded to her shapely figure
and her red hair glistened in the lights of the street. Her snub nose
and determined mouth weren't the current fashion, but nobody stopped to
think of fashions when they saw her. She didn't have to be the daughter
of the president of Medical Lobby to rule.
It was Chris--Chris Feldman once, and now Chris Ryan again.
Feldman swung toward a cab. For a moment, his attitude was automatic and
assured, and the cab stopped before the driver noticed his clothes. He
picked up the bag Chris dropped and swung it onto the front seat. She
was fumbling in her change purse as he turned back to shut the door.
"Thank you, my good man," she said. She could be gracious, even to a
pariah, when his homage suited her. She dropped two quarters into his
hand, raising her eyes.
Recognition flowed into them, followed by icy shock. She yanked the cab
door shut and shouted something to the driver. The cab took off with a
rush that left Feldman in a backwash of slush and mud.
He glanced down at the coins in his hand. It was his lucky day, he
thought bitterly.
He moved across the street and away, not bothering about the squeal of
brakes and the honking horns. He looked back only once, toward the
glowing sign that topped the building. _Your health is our business!_
Then the great symbol of the health business faded behind him, and he
stumbled on, sucking incessantly at the cigarettes he rolled. One hand
clutched the bronze badge belonging to the dead man and his stolen
boots drove onward through the melting snow.
It was Christmas in the year 2100 on the protectorate of Earth.
II
Lobby
Feldman had set his legs the problem of heading for the great spaceport
and escape from Earth, and he let them take him without further
guidance. His mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past--his past and
that of the whole planet. Both pasts had in common the growth and sudden
ruin of idealism.
Idealism! Throughout history, some men had sought the ideal, and most
had called it freedom. Only fools expected absolute freedom, but wise
men dreamed up many systems of relative freedom, including democracy.
They had tried that in America, as the last fling of the dream. It had
been a good attempt, too.
The men who drew the Constitution had been pretty practical dreamers.
They came to their task after a bitter war and a worse period of wild
chaos, and they had learned where idealism stopped and idiocy began.
They set up a republic with all the elements of democracy that they
considered safe. It had worked well enough to make America the number
one power of the world. But the men who followed the framers of the new
plan were a different sort, without the knowledge of practical limits.
The privileges their ancestors had earned in blood and care became
automatic rights. Practical men tried to explain that there were no such
rights--that each generation had to pay for its rights with
responsibility. That kind of talk didn't get far. People wanted to hear
about rights, not about duties.
They took the phrase that all men were created equal and left out the
implied kicker that equality was in the sight of God and before the law.
They wanted an equality with the greatest men without giving up their
drive toward mediocrity, and they meant to have it. In a way, they got
it.
They got the vote extended to everyone. The man on subsidy or public
dole could vote to demand more. The man who read of nothing beyond sex
crimes could vote on the great political issues of the world. No ability
was needed for his vote. In fact, he was assured that voting alone was
enough to make him a fine and noble citizen. He loved that, if he
bothered to vote at all that year. He became a great man by listing his
unthought, hungry desire for someone to take care of him without
responsibility. So he went out and voted for the man who promised him
most, or who looked most like what his limited dreams felt to be a
father image or son image or hero image. He never bothered later to see
how the men he'd elected had handled the jobs he had given them.
Someone had to look, of course, and someone did. Organized special
interests stepped in where the mob had failed. Lobbies grew up. There
had always been pressure groups, but now they developed into a third arm
of the government.
The old Farm Lobby was unbeatable. The big farmers shaped the laws they
wanted. They convinced the little farmers it was for the good of all,
and they made the story stick well enough to swing the farm vote. They
made the laws when it came to food and crops.
The last of the great lobbies was Space, probably. It was an accident
that grew up so fast it never even knew it wasn't a real part of the
government. It developed during a period of chaos when another country
called Russia got the first hunk of metal above the atmosphere and when
the representatives who had been picked for everything but their grasp
of science and government went into panic over a myth of national
prestige.
The space effort was turned over to the aircraft industry, which had
never been able to manage itself successfully except under the stimulus
of war or a threat of war. The failing airplane industry became the
space combine overnight, and nobody kept track of how big it was, except
a few sharp operators.
They worked out a system of subcontracts that spread the profits so wide
that hardly a company of any size in the country wasn't getting a share.
Thus a lot of patriotic, noble voters got their pay from companies in
the lobby block and could be panicked by the lobby at the first mention
of recession.
So Space Lobby took over completely in its own field. It developed
enough pressure to get whatever appropriations it wanted, even over
Presidential veto. It created the only space experts, which meant that
the men placed in government agencies to regulate it came from its own
ranks.
The other lobbies learned a lot from Space.
There had been a medical lobby long before, but it had been a
conservative group, mostly concerned with protecting medical autonomy
and ethics. It also tried to prevent government control of treatment and
payment, feeling that it couldn't trust the people to know where to
stop. But its history was a long series of retreats.
It fought what it called socialized medicine. But the people wanted
their troubles handled free--which meant by government spending, since
that could be added to the national debt, and thus didn't seem to cost
anything. It lost, and eventually the government paid most medical
costs, with doctors working on a fixed fee. Then quantity of treatment
paid, rather than quality. Competence no longer mattered so much. The
Lobby lost, but didn't know it--because the lowered standards of
competence in the profession lowered the caliber of men running the
political aspects of that profession as exemplified by the Lobby.
It took a world-wide plague to turn the tide. The plague began in old
China; anything could start there, with more than a billion people
huddled in one area and a few madmen planning to conquer the world. It
might have been a laboratory mutation, but nobody could ever prove it.
It wiped out two billion people, depopulated Africa and most of Asia,
and wrecked Europe, leaving only America comparatively safe to take
over. An obscure scientist in one of the laboratories run by the Medical
Lobby found a cure before the first waves of the epidemic hit America.
Rutherford Ryan, then head of the Lobby, made sure that Medical Lobby
got all the credit.
By the time the world recovered, America ran it and the Medical Lobby
was untouchable. Ryan made a deal with Space Lobby, and the two
effectively ran the world. None of the smaller lobbies could buck them,
and neither could the government.
There was still a president and a congress, as there had been a Senate
under the Roman Caesars. But the two Lobbies ran themselves as they
chose. The real government had become a kind of oligarchy, as it always
did after too much false democracy ruined the ideals of real and
practical self-rule. A man belonged to his Lobby, just as a serf had
belonged to his feudal landlord.
It was a safe world now. Maybe progress had been halted at about the
level of 1980, but so long as the citizens didn't break the rules of
their lobbies, they had very little to worry about. For that, for
security and the right not to think, most people were willing to leave
well enough alone.
Some rules seemed harsh, of course, such as the law that all operations
had to be performed in Lobby hospitals. But that could be justified; it
was the only safe kind of surgery and the only way to make sure there
was no unsupervised experimentation, such as that which supposedly
caused the plague. The rule was now an absolute ethic of medicine. It
also made for better fees.
Feldman's father had stuck by the rule but had questioned it. Feldman
learned not to question in medical school. He scored second in Medical
Ethics only to Christina Ryan.
He had never figured why she singled him out for her attentions, but he
gloried in both those attentions and the results. He became
automatically a rising young man, the favorite of the daughter of the
Lobby president. He went through internship without a sign of trouble.
Chris humored him in his desire to spend three years of practice in a
poor section loaded with disease, and her father approved; such selfless
dedication was the perfect image projection for a future son-in-law. In
return, he agreed to follow that period by becoming an administrator. A
doctor's doctor, as they put it.
They were married in April and his office was ready in May, complete
with a staff of eighty. The publicity releases had gone out, and the
Public Relations Lobby that handled news and education was paid to begin
the greatest build-up any young genius ever had.
They celebrated that, with a little party of some four hundred people
and reporters at Ryan's lodge in Canada. It was to be a gala weekend.
It was then that Baxter shot himself.
Baxter had been Feldman's closest friend in the Lobby. He'd come along
to handle press relations and had gotten romantic about the countryside,
never having been out of a city before. He hired a guide and went
hunting, eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization. Somehow,
he got his hand on a gun, though only guides were supposed to touch
them, managed to overcome its safety devices, and then pulled the
trigger with the gun pointed the wrong way.
Chris, Feldman and Harnett from Public Relations had accompanied him on
the trip. They were sitting in a nearby car while Feldman enjoyed the
scenery, Chris made further plans, and Harnett gathered material. There
was also a photographer and writer, but they hadn't been introduced by
name.
Feldman reached Baxter first. The man was moaning and scared, and he was
bleeding profusely. Only a miracle had saved him from instant death. The
bullet had struck a rib, been deflected and robbed of some of its
energy, and had barely reached the heart. But it had pierced the
pericardium, as best Feldman could guess, and it could be fatal at any
moment.
He'd reached for a probe without thinking. Chris knocked his hand aside.
She was right, of course. He couldn't operate outside a hospital. But
they had no phone in the lodge where the guide lived and no way to
summon an ambulance. They'd have to drive Baxter back in the car, which
would almost certainly result in his death.
When Feldman seemed uncertain, Harnett had given his warning in a low
but vehement voice. "You touch him, Dan, and I'll spread it in every one
of our media. I'll have to. It's the only way to retain public
confidence. There'd be a leak, with all the guides and others here, and
we can't afford that. I like you--you have color. But touch that wound
and I'll crucify you."
Chris added her own threats. She'd spent years making him the outlet for
all her ambitions, denied because women were still only second-rate
members of Medical Lobby. She couldn't let it go now. And she was
probably genuinely shocked.
Baxter groaned again and started to bleed more profusely.
There wasn't much equipment. Feldman operated with a pocketknife
sterilized in a bottle of expensive Scotch and only anodyne tablets in
place of anesthesia. He got the bullet out and sewed up the wound with a
bit of surgical thread he'd been using to tie up a torn good-luck
emblem. The photographer and writer recorded the whole thing. Chris
swore harshly and beat her fists against the bole of a tree. But Baxter
lived. He recovered completely, and was shocked at the heinous thing
that had been done to him.
They crucified Feldman.
III
Spaceman
Most crewmen lived rough, ugly lives--and usually, short ones.
Passengers and officers on the big tubs were given the equivalent of
gravity in spinning compartments, but the crews rode "free". The lucky
crewmen lived through their accidents, got space-stomach now and then,
and recovered. Nobody cared about the others.
Feldman's ticket was work-stamped for the _Navaho_, and nobody
questioned his identity. He suffered through the agony of acceleration
on the shuttle up to the orbital station, then was sick as acceleration
stopped. But he was able to control himself enough to follow other
crewmen down a hall of the station toward the _Navaho_. The big ships
never touched a planet, always docking at the stations.
A checker met the crew and reached for their badges. He barely glanced
at them, punched a mark for each on his checkoff sheet, and handed them
back. "Deckmen forward, tubemen to the rear," he ordered. "_Navaho_
blasts in fifteen minutes. Hey, you! You're tubes."
Feldman grunted. He should have expected it. Tubemen had the lowest lot
of all the crew. Between the killing work, the heat of the tubes, and
occasional doses of radiation, their lives weren't worth the metal value
of their tickets.
He began pulling himself clumsily along a shaft, dodging freight the
loaders were tossing from hand to hand. A bag hit his head, drawing
blood, and another caught him in the groin.
"Watch it, bo," a loader yelled at him. "You dent that bag and they'll
brig you. Cantcha see it's got a special courtesy stripe?"
It had a brilliant green stripe, he saw. It also had a name, printed in
block letters that shouted their identity before he could read the
words. _Dr. Christina Ryan, Southport, Mars._
And he'd had to choose this time to leave Earth!
Suddenly he was glad he was assigned to the tubes. It was the one place
on the ship where he'd be least likely to run into her. As a doctor and
a courtesy passenger, she'd have complete run of the ship, but she'd
hardly bother with the dangerous and unpleasant tube section.
He dragged his way back, beginning to sweat with the effort. The
_Navaho_ was an old ship. A lot of the handholds were missing, and he
had to throw himself along by erratic leaps. He was gaining proficiency,
but not enough to handle himself if the ship blasted off. Time was
growing short when he reached the aft bunkroom where the other tubemen
were waiting.
"Ben," one husky introduced himself. "Tube chief. Know how to work
this?"
Feldman could see that they were assembling a small still. He'd heard of
the phenomenal quantities of beer spacemen drank, and now he realized
what really happened to it. Hard liquor was supposed to be forbidden,
but they made their own. "I can work it," he decided. "I'm--uh--Dan."
"Okay, Dan." Ben glanced at the clock. "Hit the sacks, boys."
By the time Feldman could settle into the sacklike hammock, the
_Navaho_ began to shake faintly, and weight piled up. It was mild
compared to that on the shuttle, since the big ships couldn't take high
acceleration. Space had been conquered for more than a century, but the
ships were still flimsy tubs that took months to reach Mars, using
immense amounts of fuel. Only the valuable plant hormones from Mars made
commerce possible at the ridiculously high freight rate.
Three hours later he began to find out why spacemen didn't seem to fear
dying or turning pariah. The tube quarters had grown insufferably hot
during the long blast, but the main tube-room was blistering as Ben led
the men into it. The chief handed out spacesuits and motioned for Dan.
"Greenhorn, aincha? Okay, I'll take you with me. We go out in the tubes
and pull the lining. I pry up the stuff, you carry it back here and
stack it."
They sealed off the tube-room, pumped out the air, and went into the
steaming, mildly radioactive tubes, just big enough for a man on hands
and knees. Beyond the tube mouth was empty space, waiting for the man
who slipped. Ben began ripping out the eroded blocks with a special
tool. Feldman carried them back and stacked them along with others. A
plasma furnace melted them down into new blocks. The work grew
progressively worse as the distance to the tube-room increased. The tube
mouth yawned closer and closer. There were no handholds there--only the
friction of a man's body in the tube.
Life settled into a dull routine of labor, sleep, and the brief relief
of the crude white mule from the still.
They were six weeks out and almost finished with the tube cleaning when
Number Two tube blew. Bits of the remaining radioactive fuel must have
collected slowly until they reached blow-point. Feldman in Number One
would have gone sailing out into space, but Ben reacted at once. As the
ship leaped slightly, Feldman brought up sharply against the chief's
braced body. For a second their fate hung in the balance. Then it was
over, and Ben shoved him back, grinning faintly.
He jerked his thumb and touched helmets briefly. "There they go, Dan."
The two men who had been working in Number Two were charred lumps,
drifting out into space.
No further comment was made on it, except that they'd have to work
harder from now on, since they were shorthanded.
That rest period Feldman came down with a mild attack of
space-stomach--which meant no more drinking for him--and was off work
for a day. Then the pace picked up. The tubes were cleared and they
began laying the new lining for the landing blasts. There was no time
for thought after that. Mars' orbital station lay close when the work
was finished.
Ben slapped Feldman on the back. "Ya ain't bad for a greenie, Dan. We
all get six-day passes on Mars. Hit the sack now so you won't waste time
sleeping then. We'll hear it when the ship berths."
Feldman didn't hear it, but the others did. He felt Ben shaking his
shoulder, trying to drag him out of the sack. "Grab your junk, Dan."
Ben picked up Feldman's nearly empty bag and tossed it toward him,
before his eyes were fully open. He grabbed for it and missed. He
grabbed again, with Ben's laughter in his ears. The bag hit the wall and
fell open, spilling its contents.
Feldman began gathering it up, but the chief was no longer laughing. A
big hand grabbed up the space ticket suddenly, and there was no
friendliness now on Ben's face.
"Art Billing's card!" Ben told the other tubemen. "Five trips I made
with Art. He was saving his money, going to buy a farm on Mars. Five
trips and one more to go before he had enough. Now you show up with his
ticket!"
The tubemen moved forward toward Feldman. There was no indecision. To
them, apparently, trial had been held and sentence passed.
"Wait a minute," Feldman began. "Billings died of--"
A fist snaked past his raised hand and connected with his jaw. He
bounced off a wall. A wrench sailed toward him, glanced off his arm, and
ripped at his muscles. Another heavy fist struck.
Abruptly, Ben's voice cut through their yells. "Hold it!" He shoved
through the group, tossing men backwards. "Stow it! We can take care of
him later. Right now, this is captain's business. You fools want to lose
your leave?" He indicated two of the others. "You two bring him
along--and keep him quiet!"
The two grabbed Feldman's arms and dragged him along as the chief began
pulling his way forward through the tubes up towards the control section
of the ship. Feldman took a quick glance at their faces and made no
effort to resist; they obviously would have enjoyed any chance to subdue
him.
They were stopped twice by minor officers, then sent on. They finally
found the captain near the exit lock, apparently assisting the
passengers to leave. Most of them went on into the shuttle, but Chris
Ryan remained behind as the captain listened to Ben's report and
inspected the false ticket.
Finally the captain turned to Feldman. "You. What's your name?"
Chris' eyes were squarely on Feldman, cold and furious. "He _was_ Doctor
Daniel Feldman, Captain Marker," she stated.
Feldman stood paralyzed. He'd been unwilling to face Chris. He wanted to
avoid all the past. But the idea that she would denounce him had never
entered his head. There was no Medical rule involved. She knew that as a
pariah he was forbidden to board a passenger ship, of course. But she'd
been his wife once!
Marker bowed slightly to her. "Thank you, Dr. Ryan. I should take this
criminal back to Earth in chains, I suppose. But he's hardly worth the
freightage. You men. Want to take him down to Mars and ground him
there?"
Ben grinned and touched his forelock. "Thank you, sir. We'd enjoy that."
"Good. His pay reverts to the ship's fund. That's all, men."
Feldman started to protest, but a fist lashed savagely against his
mouth.
He made no other protests as they dragged him into the crew shuttle that
took off for Southport. He avoided their eyes and sat hunched over. It
was Ben who finally broke the silence.
"What happened to Art's money? He had a pile on him."
"Go to hell!"
"Give, I said!" Ben twisted his arm back toward his shoulder, applying
increasing pressure.
"A doctor took it for his fee when Billings died of space-stomach. Damn
you, I couldn't help him!"
Ben looked at the others. "Med Lobby fee, eh? All the market will take.
Umm. It could be, maybe." He shrugged. "Okay, reasonable doubt. We
won't kill you, bo. Not quite, we won't."
The shuttle landed and Ben handed out the little helmets and aspirators
that made life possible in Mars' thin air. Outside, the tubemen took
turns holding Feldman and beating him while the passengers disembarked
from their shuttle. As he slumped into unconsciousness, he had a picture
of Chris Ryan's frozen face as she moved steadily toward the port
station.
IV
Martian
It was night when Feldman came to, and the temperature was dropping
rapidly. He struggled to sit up through a fog of pain. Somewhere in his
bag, he should have an anodyne tablet that would kill any ache. He
finally found the pill and swallowed it, fumbling with the aspirator lip
opening.
The aspirator meant life to him now, he suddenly realized. He twisted to
stare at the tiny charge-indicator for the battery. It showed
half-charge. Then he saw that someone had attached another battery
beside it. He puzzled briefly over it, but his immediate concern was for
shelter.
Apparently he was still where he had been knocked out. There was a light
coming from the little station, and he headed toward that, fumbling for
the few quarters that represented his entire fortune.
Maybe it would have been better if the tubemen had killed him. Batteries
were an absolute necessity here, food and shelter would be expensive,
and he had no skills to earn his way. At most, he had only a day or so
left. But meantime, he had to find warmth before the cold killed him.
The tiny restaurant in the station was still open, and the air was warm
inside. He pulled off the aspirator, shutting off the battery.
The counterman didn't even glance up as he entered. Feldman gazed at the
printed menu and flinched.
"Soup," he ordered. It was the cheapest item he could find.
The counterman stared at him, obviously spotting his Earth origin. "You
adjusted to synthetics?"
Feldman nodded. Earth operated on a mixed diet, with synthetics for all
who couldn't afford the natural foods there. But Mars was all synthetic.
Many of the chemicals in food could exist in either of two forms, or
isomers; they were chemically alike, but differently crystallized.
Sometimes either form was digestible, but frequently the body could use
only the isomer to which it was adjusted.
Martian plants produced different isomers from those on Earth. Since the
synthetic foods turned out to be Mars-normal, that was probably the more
natural form. Research designed to let the early colonists live off
native food here had turned up an enzyme that enabled the body to handle
either isomer. In a few weeks of eating Martian or synthetic food, the
body adapted; without more enzyme, it lost its power to handle
Earth-normal food.
The cheapness of synthetics and the discovery that many diseases common
to Earth would not attack Mars-normal bodies led to the wide use of
synthetics on Earth. No pariah could have been expected to afford
Earth-normal.
Feldman finished the soup, and found a cigarette that was smokable. "Any
objections if I sit in the waiting room?"
He'd expected a rejection, but the counterman only shrugged. The waiting
room was almost dark and the air was chilly, but there was normal
pressure. He found a bench and slumped onto it, lighting his cigarette.
He'd miss the smokes--but probably not for long. He finished the
cigarette reluctantly and sat huddled on the bench, waiting for morning.
The airlock opened later, and feet sounded on the boards of the
waiting-room floor, but he didn't look up until a thin beam of light hit
him. Then he sighed and nodded. The shoes, made of some odd fiber,
didn't look like those of a cop, but this was Mars. He could see only a
hulking shadow behind the light.
"You the man who was a medical doctor?" The voice was dry and old.
"Yeah," Feldman answered. "Once."
"Good. Thought that space crewman was just lying drunk at first. Come
along, Doc."
"Why?" It didn't matter, but if they wanted him to move on, they'd have
to push a little harder.
The light swung up to show the other. He was the shade of old leather
with a bleached patch of sandy hair and the deepest gray eyes Feldman
had ever seen. It was a face that could have belonged to a country
storekeeper in New England, with the same hint of dry humor. The man was
dressed in padded levis and a leather jacket of unguessable age. His
aspirator seemed worn and patched, and one big hand fumbled with it.
"Because we're friends, Doc," the voice drawled at him. "Because you
might as well come with us as sit here. Maybe we have a job for you."
Feldman shrugged and stood up. If the man was a Lobby policeman, he was
different from the usual kind. Nothing could be worse than the present
prospects.
They went out through the doors of the waiting room toward a rattletrap
vehicle. It looked something like a cross between a schoolboy's jalopy
and a scaled-down army tank of former times. The treads were caterpillar
style, and the stubby body was completely enclosed. A tiny airlock
stuck out from the rear.
Two men were inside, both bearded. The old man grinned at them. "Mark,
Lou, meet Doc Feldman. Sit, Doc. I'm Jake Mullens, and you might say we
were farmers."
The motor started with a wheeze. The tractor swung about and began
heading away from Southport toward the desert dunes. It shook and
rattled, but it seemed to make good time.
"I don't know anything about farming," Feldman protested.
Jake shrugged. "No, of course not. Couple of our friends heard about you
where a spaceman was getting drunk and tipped us off. We know who you
are. Here, try a bracky?"
Feldman took what seemed to be a cigarette and studied it doubtfully. It
was coarse and fibrous inside, with a thin, hard shell that seemed to be
a natural growth, as if it had been chopped from some vine. He lighted
it, not knowing what to expect. Then he coughed as the bitter, rancid
smoke burned at his throat. He started to throw it down, and hesitated.
Jake was smoking one, and it had killed the craving for tobacco almost
instantly.
"Some like 'em, most don't," Jake said. "They won't hurt you. Look--see
that? Old Martian ruins. Built by some race a million years ago. Only
half a dozen on Mars."
It was only a clump of weathered stone buildings in the light from the
tractor, and Feldman had seen better in the stereo shots. It was
interesting only because it connected with the legendary Martian race,
like the canals that showed from space but could not be seen on the
surface of the planet.
Feldman waited for the other to go on, but Jake was silent. Finally, he
ground out the butt of the weed. "Okay, Jake. What do you want with me?"
"Consultation, maybe. Ever hear of herb doctors? I'm one of them."
Feldman knew that the Lobby permitted some leniency here, due to the
scarcity of real medical help. There was only one decent hospital at
Northport, on the opposite side of the planet.
Jake sighed and reached for another bracky weed. "Yeah, I'm pretty good
with herbs. But I got a sick village on my hands and I can't handle it.
We can't all mortgage our work to pay for a trip to Northport.
Southport's all messed up while the new she-doctor gets her metabolism
changed. Maybe the old guy there would have helped, but he died a couple
months ago. So it looks like you're our only hope."
"Then you have no hope," Feldman told him sickly. "I'm a pariah, Jake. I
can't do a thing for you."
"We heard about your argument with the Lobby. News reaches Mars. But
these are mighty sick people, Doc."
Feldman shook his head. "Better take me back. I'm not allowed to
practice medicine. The charge would be first-degree murder if anything
happened."
Lou leaned forward. "Shall I talk to him, Jake?"
The old man grimaced. "Time enough. Let him see what we got first."
Sand howled against the windshield and the tractor bumped and surged
along. Feldman took another of the weeds and tried to estimate their
course. But he had no idea where they were when the tractor finally
stopped. There was a village of small huts that seemed to be merely
entrances to living quarters dug under the surface. They led him into
one and through a tunnel into a large room filled with simple cots and
the unhappy sounds of sick people.
Two women were disconsolately trying to attend to the half-dozen
sick--four children and two adults. Their faces brightened as they saw
Jake, then fell. "Eb and Tilda died," they reported.
Feldman looked at the two figures under the sheets and whistled. The
same black specks he had seen on the face of Billings covered the skins
of the two old people who had died.
"Funny," Jake said slowly. "They didn't quite act like the others and
they sure died mighty fast. Darn it, I had it figured for that stuff in
the book. Infantile paralysis. How about it, Doc? Sort of like a cold,
stiff sore neck."
It was clearly polio--one of the diseases that could attack Mars-normal
flesh. Feldman nodded at the symptoms, staring at the sick kids. He
shrugged, finally. "There's a cure for it, but I don't have the serum.
Neither do you, or you wouldn't have brought me here. I couldn't help if
I wanted to."
"That old book didn't list a cure," Jake told him. "But it said the kids
didn't have to be crippled. There was something about a Kenny treatment.
Doc, does the stuff really cripple for life?"
Feldman saw one of the boys flinch. He dropped his eyes, remembering the
Lobby's efficient spy service on Earth and wondering what it was like
here. But he knew the outcome.
"Damn you, Jake!"
Jake chuckled. "Thought you would. We sure appreciate it. Just tell us
what to do, Doc."
Feldman began writing down his requirements, trying to remember the
details of the treatment. Exercise, hot compresses, massage. It was
coming back to him. He'd have to do it himself, of course, to get the
feel of it. He couldn't explain it well enough. But he couldn't turn his
back on the kids, either.
"Maybe I can help," he said doubtfully as he moved toward a cot.
"No, Doc." Jake's voice wasn't amused any longer, and he held the
younger man back. "You're doing us a favor, and I'll be darned if I'll
let you stick your neck out too far. You can't treat 'em yourself. Mars
is tougher than Earth. You should live under Space Lobby _and_ Medical
Lobby here a while. Oh, maybe they don't mind a few fools like me being
herb doctors, but they'd sure hate to have a man who can do real
medicine outside their hands. You let me do it, or get in the tractor
and I'll have Lou drive you back. Once you start in here, there'll be no
stopping. Believe me."
Feldman looked at him, seeing the colonials around him for the first
time as people. It had been a long time since he'd been treated as a
fellow human by anyone.
Jake was right, he knew. Once he put his hand to the bandage, eventually
there'd be no turning back from the scalpel. These people needed medical
help too desperately. Eventually, the news would spread, and the Lobby
police would come for him. Chris couldn't afford to shield him. In fact,
he was sure now that she'd hunt him night and day.
"Don't be a fool, Jake," he ordered brusquely. He handed his list to one
of the women. "You'll have to learn to do what I do," he told the people
there. "You'll have to work like fools for weeks. But there won't be
many crippled children. I can promise that much!"
He blinked sharply at the sudden hope in their eyes. But his mind went
on wondering how long it would be before the inevitable would catch up
with him. With luck, maybe a few months. But he hadn't been blessed with
any superabundance of luck. It would probably be less time than he
thought.
V
Surgery
Doc Feldman's luck was better than he had expected. For an Earth year,
he was a doctor again, moving about from village to village as he was
needed and doing what he could.
The village had been isolated during the early colonization when Mars
made a feeble attempt to break free of Space Lobby. Their supplies had
been cut off and they had been forced to do for themselves. Now they
were largely self-sufficient. They grew native plants and extracted
hormones in crude little chemical plants. The hormones were traded to
the big chemical plants for a pittance to buy what had to come from
Earth. Other jury-rigged affairs synthesized much of their food. But
mostly they learned to get along on what Mars provided.
Doc Feldman learned from them. Money was no longer part of his life. He
ate with whatever family needed him and slipped into the life around
him.
He was learning Martian medicine and finding that his Earth courses were
mostly useless. No wonder the villagers distrusted Lobby doctors. Doc
had his own little laboratory where he had managed to start making
Mars-normal penicillin--a primitive antibiotic, but better than nothing.
Jake had come to remind him that it was his first anniversary, and now
they were smoking bracky together.
"Sheer luck, Jake," Doc repeated. "You Martians are tough. But some day
someone is going to die under my care, with the little equipment I have.
Then--"
Jake nodded slowly. "Maybe, Doc. And maybe some day Mars will break free
of the Lobbies. You'd better pray for that."
"I've been--" Doc stopped, realizing what he'd started to say. The old
man chuckled.
"You've been talking rebellion for months, Doc. I hear rumors. Whenever
you get mad, you want us to secede. But you don't really mean it yet.
You can't picture any government but the one you're used to."
Doc grinned. Jake had a point, but it was not as strong as it would have
been a few months before. The towns under the Lobby were cheap
imitations of Earth, but here, divorced to a large extent from the
lobbies, the villages were making Mars their own. Their ways might be
strange; but they worked.