THE GALACTIC PILL PEDDLERS
The ship stood tall and straight on her launching pad, with the
afternoon sunlight glinting on her hull. Half a dozen crews of check-out
men were swarming about her, inspecting her engine and fuel supplies,
riding up the gantry crane to her entrance lock, and guiding the great
cargo nets from the loading crane into her afterhold. High up on her
hull Dal Timgar could see a golden caduceus emblazoned, the symbol of
the General Practice Patrol, and beneath it the ship's official name:
GPPS 238
_LANCET_
Dal shifted his day pack down from his shoulders, ridiculously pleased
with the gleaming scarlet braid on the collar and cuff of his uniform,
and lifted Fuzzy up on his shoulder to see. It seemed to Dal that
everyone he had passed in the terminal had been looking at the colorful
insignia; it was all he could do to keep from holding his arm up and
waving it like a banner.
"You'll get used to it," Tiger Martin chuckled as they waited for the
jitney to take them across to the launching pad. "At first you think
everybody is impressed by the colors, until you see some guy go past
with the braid all faded and frazzled at the edges, and then you realize
that you're just the latest greenhorn in a squad of two hundred thousand
men."
"It's still good to be wearing it," Dal said. "I couldn't really believe
it until Black Doctor Arnquist turned the collar and cuff over to me."
He looked suspiciously at Tiger. "You must have known a lot more about
that interview than you let on. Or, was it just coincidence that we were
assigned together?"
"Not coincidence, exactly." Tiger grinned. "I didn't know what was going
to happen. I'd requested assignment with you on my application, and then
when yours was held up, Doctor Arnquist asked me if I'd be willing to
wait for assignment until the interview was over. So I said okay. He
seemed to think you had a pretty good chance."
"I'd never have made it without his backing," Dal said.
"Well, anyway, he figured that if you _were_ assigned, it would be a
good idea to have a friend on the patrol ship team."
"I won't argue about _that_," Dal said. "But who is the Blue Service
man?"
Tiger's face darkened. "I don't know much about him," he said. "He
trained in California, and I met him just once, at a diagnosis and
therapy conference. He's supposed to be plenty smart, according to the
grapevine. I guess he'd have to be, to pass Diagnostic Service finals."
Tiger chuckled. "Any dope can make it in the Medical or Surgical
Services, but diagnosis is something else again."
"Will he be in command?"
"On the _Lancet_? Why should he? We'll share command, just like any
patrol ship crew. If we run into problems we can't agree on, we holler
for help. But if he acts like most of the Blue Doctors I know, he'll
_think_ he's in command."
A jitney stopped for them, and then zoomed out across the field toward
the ship. The gantry platform was just clanging to the ground, unloading
three technicians and a Four-bar Electronics Engineer. Tiger and Dal
rode the platform up again and moments later stepped through the
entrance lock of the ship that would be their home base for months and
perhaps years.
They found the bunk room to the rear of the control and lab sections. A
duffel bag was already lodged on one of the bunks; one of the foot
lockers was already occupied, and a small but expensive camera and a
huge pair of field glasses were hanging from one of the wall brackets.
"Looks like our man has already arrived," Tiger said, tossing down his
own duffel bag and looking around the cramped quarters. "Not exactly a
luxury suite, I'd say. Wonder where he is?"
"Let's look up forward," Dal said. "We've plenty to do before we take
off. Maybe he's just getting an early start."
They explored the ship, working their way up the central corridor past
the communications and computer rooms and the laboratory into the main
control and observation room. Here they found a thin, dark-haired young
man in a bright blue collar and cuff, sitting engrossed with a
tape-reader.
For a moment they thought he hadn't heard them. Then, as though
reluctant to tear himself away, the Blue Doctor sighed, snapped off the
reader, and turned on the swivel stool.
"So!" he said. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to get
here."
"We ran into some delays," Tiger said. He grinned and held out his hand.
"Jack Alvarez? Tiger Martin. We met each other at that conference in
Chicago last year."
"Yes, I remember," the Blue Doctor said. "You found some holes in a
paper I gave. Matter of fact, I've plugged them up very nicely since
then. You'd have trouble finding fault with the work now." Jack Alvarez
turned his eyes to Dal. "And I suppose this is the Garvian I've been
hearing about, complete with his little pink stooge."
The moment they had walked in the door, Dal had felt Fuzzy crouch down
tight against his shoulder. Now a wave of hostility struck his mind like
a shower of ice water. He had never seen this thin, dark-haired youth
before, or even heard of him, but he recognized this sharp impression of
hatred and anger unmistakably. He had felt it a thousand times among his
medical school classmates during the past eight years, and just hours
before he had felt it in the council room when Black Doctor Tanner had
turned on him.
"It's really a lucky break that we have Dal for a Red Doctor," Tiger
said. "We almost didn't get him."
"Yes, I heard all about how lucky we are," Jack Alvarez said sourly. He
looked Dal over from the gray fur on the top of his head to the spindly
legs in the ill-fitting trousers. Then the Blue Doctor shrugged in
disgust and turned back to the tape-reader. "A Garvian and his Fuzzy!"
he muttered. "Let's hope one or the other knows something about
surgery."
"I think we'll do all right," Dal said slowly.
"I think you'd better," Jack Alvarez replied.
Dal and Tiger looked at each other, and Tiger shrugged. "It's all
right," he said. "We know our jobs, and we'll manage."
Dal nodded, and started back for the bunk room. No doubt, he thought,
they would manage.
But if he had thought before that the assignment on the _Lancet_ was
going to be easy, he knew now that he was wrong.
Tiger Martin may have been Doctor Arnquist's selection as a crewmate for
him, but there was no question in his mind that the Blue Doctor on the
_Lancet_'s crew was Black Doctor Hugo Tanner's choice.
* * * * *
The first meeting with Jack Alvarez hardly seemed promising to either
Dal or Tiger, but if there was trouble coming, it was postponed for the
moment by common consent. In the few days before blast-off there was no
time for conflict, or even for much talk. Each of the three crewmen had
two full weeks of work to accomplish in two days; each knew his job and
buried himself in it with a will.
The ship's medical and surgical supplies had to be inventoried, and
missing or required supplies ordered up. New supplies coming in had to
be checked, tested, and stored in the ship's limited hold space. It was
like preparing for an extended pack trip into wilderness country; once
the _Lancet_ left its home base on Hospital Earth it was a world to
itself, equipped to support its physician-crew and provide the necessary
equipment and data they would need to deal with the problems they would
face. Like all patrol ships, the _Lancet_ was equipped with automatic
launching, navigation and drive mechanisms; no crew other than the
three doctors was required, and in the event of mechanical failures,
maintenance ships were on continual call.
The ship was responsible for patrolling an enormous area, including
hundreds of stars and their planetary systems--yet its territory was
only a tiny segment of the galaxy. Landings were to be made at various
specified planets maintaining permanent clinic outposts of Hospital
Earth; certain staple supplies were carried for each of these check
points. Aside from these lonely clinic contacts, the nearest port of
call for the _Lancet_ was one of the hospital ships that continuously
worked slow orbits through the star systems of the confederation.
But a hospital ship, with its staff of Two-star and Three-star
Physicians, was not to be called except in cases of extreme need. The
probationers on the patrol ships were expected to be self-sufficient.
Their job was to handle diagnosis and care of all but the most difficult
problems that arose in their travels. They were the first to answer the
medical calls from any planet with a medical service contract with
Hospital Earth.
It was an enormous responsibility for doctors-in-training to assume, but
over the years it had proven the best way to train and weed out new
doctors for the greater responsibilities of hospital ship and Hospital
Earth assignments. There was no set period of duty on the patrol ships;
how long a young doctor remained in the General Practice Patrol depended
to a large extent upon how well he handled the problems and
responsibilities that faced him; and since the first years of Hospital
Earth, the fledgling doctors in the General Practice Patrol--the
self-styled "Galactic Pill Peddlers"--had lived up to their
responsibilities. The reputation of Hospital Earth rested on their
shoulders, and they never forgot it.
As he worked on his inventories, Dal Timgar thought of Doctor Arnquist's
words to him after the council had handed down its decision. "Remember
that judgment and skill are two different things," he had said. "Without
skill in the basic principles of diagnosis and treatment, medical
judgment isn't much help, but skill without the judgment to know how and
when to use it can be downright dangerous. You'll be judged both on the
judgment you use in deciding the right thing to do, and on the skill you
use in doing it." He had given Dal the box with the coveted collar and
cuff. "The colors are pretty, but never forget what they stand for.
Until you can convince the council that you have both the skill and the
judgment of a good physician, you will never get your Star. And you will
be watched closely; Black Doctor Tanner and certain others will be
waiting for the slightest excuse to recall you from the _Lancet_. If you
give them the opportunity, nothing I can do will stop it."
And now, as they worked to prepare the ship for service, Dal was
determined that the opportunity would not arise. When he was not working
in the storerooms, he was in the computer room, reviewing the thousands
of tapes that carried the basic information about the contract planets
where they would be visiting, and the races that inhabited them. If
errors and fumbles and mistakes were made by the crew of the _Lancet_,
he thought grimly, it would not be Dal Timgar who made them.
The first night they met in the control room to divide the many
extracurricular jobs involved in maintaining a patrol ship.
Tiger's interest in electronics and communications made him the best man
to handle the radio; he accepted the post without comment. "Jack, you
should be in charge of the computer," he said, "because you'll be the
one who'll need the information first. The lab is probably your field
too. Dal can be responsible for stores and supplies as well as his own
surgical instruments."
Jack shrugged. "I'd just as soon handle supplies, too," he said.
"Well, there's no need to overload one man," Tiger said.
"I wouldn't mind that. But when there's something I need, I want to be
sure it's going to be there without any goof-ups," Jack said.
"I can handle it all right," Dal said.
Jack just scowled. "What about the contact man when we make landings?"
he asked Tiger.
"Seems to me Dal would be the one for that, too," Tiger said. "His
people are traders and bargainers; right, Dal? And first contact with
the people on unfamiliar planets can be important."
"It sure can," Jack said. "Too important to take chances with. Look,
this is a ship from Hospital Earth. When somebody calls for help, they
expect to see an Earthman turn up in response. What are they going to
think when a patrol ship lands and _he_ walks out?"
Tiger's face darkened. "They'll be able to see his collar and cuff,
won't they?"
"Maybe. But they may wonder what he's doing wearing them."
"Well, they'll just have to learn," Tiger snapped. "And you'll have to
learn, too, I guess."
Dal had been sitting silently. Now he shook his head. "I think Jack is
right on this one," he said. "It would be better for one of you to be
contact man."
"Why?" Tiger said angrily. "You're as much of a doctor from Hospital
Earth as we are, and the sooner we get your position here straight, the
better. We aren't going to have any ugly ducklings on this ship, and we
aren't going to hide you in the hold every time we land on a planet. If
we want to make anything but a mess of this cruise, we've got to work as
a team, and that means everybody shares the important jobs."
"That's fine," Dal said, "but I still think Jack is right on this point.
If we are walking into a medical problem on a planet where the patrol
isn't too well known, the contact man by rights ought to be an
Earthman."
Tiger started to say something, and then spread his hands helplessly.
"Okay," he said. "If you're satisfied with it, let's get on to these
other things." But obviously he wasn't satisfied, and when Jack
disappeared toward the storeroom, Tiger turned to Dal. "You shouldn't
have given in," he said. "If you give that guy as much as an inch,
you're just asking for trouble."
"It isn't a matter of giving in," Dal insisted. "I think he was right,
that's all. Don't let's start a fight where we don't have to."
Tiger yielded the point, but when Jack returned, Tiger avoided him,
keeping to himself the rest of the evening. And later, as he tried to
get to sleep, Dal wondered for a moment. Maybe Tiger was right. Maybe he
was just dodging a head-on clash with the Blue Doctor now and setting
the stage for a real collision later.
Next day the argument was forgotten in the air of rising excitement as
embarkation orders for the _Lancet_ came through. Preparations were
completed, and only last-minute double-checks were required before
blast-off.
But an hour before count-down began, a jitney buzzed across the field,
and a Two-star Pathologist climbed aboard with his three black-cloaked
orderlies. "Shakedown inspection," he said curtly. "Just a matter of
routine." And with that he stalked slowly through the ship, checking the
storage holds, the inventories, the lab, the computer with its
information banks, and the control room. As he went along he kept firing
medical questions at Dal and Tiger, hardly pausing long enough for the
answers, and ignoring Jack Alvarez completely. "What's the normal range
of serum cholesterol in a vegetarian race with Terran environment? How
would you run a Wenberg electrophoresis? How do you determine individual
radiation tolerance? How would you prepare a heart culture for cardiac
transplant on board this ship?" The questions went on until Tiger and
Dal were breathless, as count-down time grew closer and closer. Finally
the Black Doctor turned back toward the entrance lock. He seemed vaguely
disappointed as he checked the record sheets the orderlies had been
keeping. With an odd look at Dal, he shrugged. "All right, here are your
clearance papers," he said to Jack. "Your supply of serum globulin
fractions is up to black-book requirements, but you'll run short if you
happen to hit a virus epidemic; better take on a couple of more cases.
And check central information just before leaving. We've signed two new
contracts in the past week, and the co-ordinator's office has some
advance information on both of them."
When the inspector had gone, Tiger wiped his forehead and sighed. "That
was no routine shakedown!" he said. "What _is_ a Wenberg
electrophoresis?"
"A method of separating serum proteins," Jack Alvarez said. "You ran
them in third year biochemistry. And if we _do_ hit a virus epidemic,
you'd better know how, too."
He gave Tiger an unpleasant smile, and started back down the corridor as
the count-down signal began to buzz.
But for all the advance arrangements they had made to divide the ship's
work, it was Dal Timgar who took complete control of the _Lancet_ for
the first two weeks of its cruise. Neither Tiger nor Jack challenged his
command; not a word was raised in protest. The Earthmen were too sick to
talk, much less complain about anything.
For Dal the blast-off from the port of Seattle and the conversion into
Koenig star-drive was nothing new. His father owned a fleet of Garvian
trading ships that traveled to the far corners of the galaxy by means of
a star-drive so similar to the Koenig engines that only an electronic
engineer could tell them apart. All his life Dal had traveled on the
outgoing freighters with his father; star-drive conversion was no
surprise to him.
But for Jack and Tiger, it was their first experience in a star-drive
ship. The _Lancet_'s piloting and navigation were entirely automatic;
its destination was simply coded into the drive computers, and the ship
was ready to leap across light years of space in a matter of hours. But
the conversion to star-drive, as the _Lancet_ was wrenched, crew and
all, out of the normal space-time continuum, was far outside of normal
human experience. The physical and emotional shock of the conversion hit
Jack and Tiger like a sledge hammer, and during the long hours while the
ship was traveling through the time-less, distance-less universe of the
drive to the pre-set co-ordinates where it materialized again into
conventional space-time, the Earthmen were retching violently, too sick
to budge from the bunk room. It took over two weeks, with stops at half
a dozen contract planets, before Jack and Tiger began to adjust
themselves to the frightening and confusing sensations of conversion to
star-drive. During this time Dal carried the load of the ship's work
alone, while the others lay gasping and exhausted in their bunks, trying
to rally strength for the next shift.
To his horror, Dal discovered that the first planetary stop-over was
traditionally a hazing stop. It had been a well-kept patrol secret; the
outpost clinic on Tempera VI was waiting eagerly for the arrival of the
new "green" crew, knowing full well that the doctors aboard would hardly
be able to stumble out of their bunks, much less to cope with medical
problems. The outpost men had concocted a medical "crisis" of staggering
proportions to present to the _Lancet_'s crew; they were so clearly
disappointed to find the ship's Red Doctor in full command of himself
that Dal obligingly became violently ill too, and did his best to mimick
Jack and Tiger's floundering efforts to pull themselves together and do
_something_ about the "problem" that suddenly descended upon them.
Later, there was a party and celebration, with music and food, as the
clinic staff welcomed the pale and shaken doctors into the joke. The
outpost men plied Dal for the latest news from Hospital Earth. They were
surprised to see a Garvian aboard the _Lancet_, but no one at the
outpost showed any sign of resentment at the scarlet braid on Dal's
collar and cuff.
Slowly Jack and Tiger got used to the peculiarities of popping in and
out of hyperspace. It was said that immunity to star-drive sickness was
hard to acquire, but lasted a lifetime, and would never again bother
them once it was achieved. Bit by bit the Earthmen crept out of their
shells, to find the ship in order and a busy Dal Timgar relieved and
happy to have them aboard again.
Fortunately, the medical problems that came to the _Lancet_ in the first
few weeks were largely routine. The ship stopped at the specified
contact points--some far out near the rim of the galactic
constellation, others in closer to the densely star-populated center. At
each outpost clinic the _Lancet_ was welcomed with open arms. The
outpost men were hungry for news from home, and happy to see fresh
supplies; but they were also glad to review the current medical problems
on their planets with the new doctors, exchanging opinions and arguing
diagnosis and therapy into the small hours of the night.
Occasionally calls came in to the ship from contract planets in need of
help. Usually the problems were easy to handle. On Singall III, a tiny
planet of a cooling giant star, help was needed to deal with a new
outbreak of a smallpox-like plague that had once decimated the
population; the disease had finally been controlled after a Hospital
Earth research team had identified the organism that caused it,
determined its molecular structure, and synthesized an antibiotic that
could destroy it without damaging the body of the host. But now a
flareup had occurred. The _Lancet_ brought in supplies of the
antibiotic, and Tiger Martin spent two days showing Singallese
physicians how to control further outbreaks with modern methods of
immunization and antisepsis.
Another planet called for a patrol ship when a bridge-building disaster
occurred; one of the beetle-like workmen had been badly crushed under a
massive steel girder. Dal spent over eighteen hours straight with the
patient in the _Lancet_'s surgery, carefully repairing the creature's
damaged exoskeleton and grafting new segments of bone for regeneration
of the hopelessly ruined parts, with Tiger administering anaesthesia and
Jack preparing the grafts from the freezer.
On another planet Jack faced his first real diagnostic challenge and met
the test with flying colors. Here a new cancer-like degenerative disease
had been appearing among the natives of the planet. It had never before
been noted. Initial attempts to find a causative agent had all three of
the _Lancet_'s crew spending sleepless nights for a week, but Jack's
careful study of the pattern of the disease and the biochemical
reactions that accompanied it brought out the answer: the disease was
caused by a rare form of genetic change which made crippling alterations
in an essential enzyme system. Knowing this, Tiger quickly found a drug
which could be substituted for the damaged enzyme, and the problem was
solved. They left the planet, assuring the planetary government that
laboratories on Hospital Earth would begin working at once to find a way
actually to rebuild the damaged genes in the embryonic cells, and thus
put a permanent end to the disease.
These were routine calls, the kind of ordinary general medical work that
the patrol ships were expected to handle. But the visits to the various
planets were welcome breaks in the pattern of patrol ship life. The
_Lancet_ was fully equipped, but her crew's quarters and living space
were cramped. Under the best conditions, the crewmen on patrol ships got
on each other's nerves; on the _Lancet_ there was an additional focus of
tension that grew worse with every passing hour.
From the first Jack Alvarez had made no pretense of pleasure at Dal's
company, but now it seemed that he deliberately sought opportunities to
annoy him. The thin Blue Doctor's face set into an angry mold whenever
Dal was around. He would get up and leave when Dal entered the control
room, and complained loudly and bitterly at minor flaws in Dal's
shipboard work. Nothing Dal did seemed to please him.
But Tiger had a worse time controlling himself at the Blue Doctor's digs
and slights than Dal did. "It's like living in an armed camp," he
complained one night when Jack had stalked angrily out of the bunk
room. "Can't even open your mouth without having him jump down your
throat."
"I know," Dal said.
"And he's doing it on purpose."
"Maybe so. But it won't help to lose your temper."
Tiger clenched a huge fist and slammed it into his palm. "He's just
deliberately picking at you and picking at you," he said. "You can't
take that forever. Something's got to break."
"It's all right," Dal assured him. "I just ignore it."
But when Jack began to shift his attack to Fuzzy, Dal could ignore it no
longer.
One night in the control room Jack threw down the report he was writing
and turned angrily on Dal. "Tell your friend there to turn the other way
before I lose my temper and splatter him all over the wall," he said,
pointing to Fuzzy. "All he does is sit there and stare at me and I'm
getting fed up with it."
Fuzzy drew himself up tightly, shivering on Dal's shoulder. Dal reached
up and stroked the tiny creature, and Fuzzy's shoe-button eyes
disappeared completely. "There," Dal said. "Is that better?"
Jack stared at the place the eyes had been, and his face darkened
suspiciously. "Well, what happened to them?" he demanded.
"What happened to what?"
"To his eyes, you idiot!"
Dal looked down at Fuzzy. "I don't see any eyes."
Jack jumped up from the stool. He scowled at Fuzzy as if commanding the
eyes to come back again. All he saw was a small ball of pink fur. "Look,
he's been blinking them at me for a week," he snarled. "I thought all
along there was something funny about him. Sometimes he's got legs and
sometimes he hasn't. Sometimes he looks fuzzy, and other times he hasn't
got any hair at all."
"He's a pleomorph," Dal said. "No cellular structure at all, just a
protein-colloid matrix."
Jack glowered at the inert little pink lump. "Don't be silly," he said,
curious in spite of himself. "What holds him together?"
"Who knows? I don't. Some kind of electro-chemical cohesive force. The
only reason he has 'eyes' is because he thinks I want him to have eyes.
If you don't like it, he won't have them any more."
"Well, that's very obliging," Jack said. "But why do you keep him
around? What good does he do you, anyhow? All he does is eat and drink
and sleep."
"Does he have to do something?" Dal said evasively. "He isn't bothering
you. Why pick on him?"
"He just seems to worry you an awful lot," Jack said unpleasantly.
"Let's see him a minute." He reached out for Fuzzy, then jerked his
finger back with a yelp. Blood dripped from the finger tip.
Jack's face slowly went white. "Why, he--he _bit_ me!"
"Yes, and you're lucky he didn't take a finger off," Dal said, trembling
with anger. "He doesn't like you any more than I do, and you'll get bit
every time you come near him, so you'd better keep your hands to
yourself."
"Don't worry," Jack Alvarez said, "he won't get another chance. You can
just get rid of him."
"Not a chance," Dal said. "You leave him alone and he won't bother you,
that's all. And the same thing goes for me."
"If he isn't out of here in twelve hours, I'll get a warrant," Jack said
tightly. "There are laws against keeping dangerous pets on patrol
ships."
Somewhere in the main corridor an alarm bell began buzzing. For a
moment Dal and Jack stood frozen, glaring at each other. Then the door
burst open and Tiger Martin's head appeared. "Hey, you two, let's get
moving! We've got a call coming in, and it looks like a tough one. Come
on back here!"
They headed back toward the radio room. The signal was coming through
frantically as Tiger reached for the pile of punched tape running out on
the floor. But as they crowded into the radio room, Dal felt Jack's hand
on his arm. "If you think I was fooling, you're wrong," the Blue Doctor
said through his teeth. "You've got twelve hours to get rid of him."