"Afraid so."
"But he'll never fit in on Deneb!"
"You did," Dr. Lowell said.
Dr. Kalmar tried to smile modestly. "I realized immediately how little I
knew and how much more experience you had. I was willing to learn. Why,
I used to listen to you and watch you work and try to see your reasons
for doing things--"
"You think so?" asked Dr. Lowell.
Dr. Kalmar glanced at him in astonishment. "You know I did. I still do,
for that matter."
"When you landed on Deneb," said Dr. Lowell, "you were the most
stubborn, opinionated young ass I'd ever met."
Dr. Kalmar's smile became an appreciative grin. "Damn, I wish I had that
light touch of yours!"
"You were so dogmatic and argumentative that Dr. Hoyt is a suggestible
schoolboy in comparison."
"Well, you don't have to go that far," Dr. Kalmar said. "I get what
you're driving at--every intern needs orientation and I should be more
patient and understanding."
"Then you don't follow me at all," stated Dr. Lowell. "Invite Dr. Hoyt,
Miss Dupont and me to your house for dinner tonight and maybe you'll get
a better idea of what I mean."
"Anything for a free meal, eh?"
"And to keep a doctor here on Deneb that we'd lose otherwise."
"Implying that I can't do it."
"Isn't that the decision you'd come to?"
"Yes, I guess it is," Dr. Kalmar confessed. "All right, how about dinner
at my house tonight? I'll round up the other two and call Harriet so
she'll expect us."
"Delighted to come," said Dr. Lowell. "Nice of you to ask me."
Miss Dupont was elated at the invitation and Dr. Hoyt said he had
nothing else to do anyway. On the videophone Mrs. Kalmar was dismayed
for a moment, until Dr. Lowell told her to put through an emergency
order to Central Commissary and he'd verify it.
That was when Dr. Kalmar realized how serious the old man was. On a raw
planet where crises were everyday routine, a situation had to be
catastrophic before it could be called an emergency.
* * * * *
Dinner on Deneb was the same as anywhere else in the Galaxy. To free
women for other work, food was delivered weekly in cooked form. A
special messenger from Central Commissary had brought the emergency
rations and Mrs. Kalmar had simply punctured the self-heat cartridges
and put the servings in front of each guest; the containers were
disposable plates and came with single-use plastic utensils. No garbage,
no preparation, no cleaning up afterward, except to toss them all into
the converter furnace. Dr. Hoyt was still not accustomed to wholly grown
foods; he'd been raised on synthetics, of course, which were the staples
on Earth.
"Well, that was good," said Dr. Lowell, getting up from the table with
his round little belly comfortably expanded. "Now, let's have a few
drinks before we start a professional bull session. Where do you keep
your liquor? I'd like to mix my special so Dr. Hoyt can see we colonials
are not so provincial."
"Good Lord, I haven't had your special for years!" exclaimed Dr. Kalmar.
"Since about the time I came to Deneb, in fact."
"That's why it's a special. Reserved for state occasions, such as
arrivals of colleagues from our dear old home planet."
"Oh, you don't have to go to all that bother," said Dr. Hoyt. "You'd
have to make it twice--once now and once when I leave."
"That won't be for quite a while, will it?" Miss Dupont asked anxiously.
"As soon as I finish my internship. No more alien worlds for me. I like
Earth."
Mrs. Kalmar got him to talk about it, which was much easier than getting
him to stop, while Dr. Kalmar showed the old man where the liquor stock
and fixings were kept. Watching him mix the ingredients with a chemist's
care, Dr. Kalmar felt a glow of nostalgia. He recalled the celebration
at Dr. Lowell's house, several months after he had come from Earth, when
he'd enjoyed himself so much that he'd passed out. It was one of the
pleasanter memories of his start on Deneb.
"Can't mix them all in a single batch," Dr. Lowell explained, bringing
the drinks over one at a time as he finished preparing them. "Mrs.
Kalmar ... Miss Dupont ... our gracious host, Dr. Kalmar ... and now Dr.
Hoyt and myself." He lifted his glass at Dr. Hoyt. "Welcome to our
latest associate--product, like ourselves, of the great medical schools
of Earth. It's a forlorn hope, but may he learn as much from us about
our peculiar methods as we learn from him about the latest terrestrial
advances."
Dr. Hoyt, smiling as if he didn't think it possible, stood up when
they'd downed their toast to him. "To Earth," he said. "May I get back
in record time." He gulped it, said, "Delicious--for a colonial drink,"
and froze with his smile as fixed as if it had been painted on.
"Leo!" Miss Dupont cried, and shook him, but he stayed frozen.
"The man's allergic to alcohol!" said Dr. Kalmar, astonished.
"Do something!" Mrs. Kalmar begged. "Don't let him stand there like
that! He--he looks like a petrified man!"
"Don't get panicky," said Dr. Lowell in a quiet, confident voice.
"That's when you passed out, Dr. Kalmar. Right after your first taste of
my special."
"But _we_ haven't," Dr. Kalmar objected.
"Naturally. Your drinks weren't drugged."
"Drugged?" shrieked Miss Dupont. "You doped him?"
"That's rather obvious, isn't it?"
"But--what for?" Dr. Kalmar stammered.
"Same reason I slipped you a mickey not long after you got here. We
can't take any chances that he'll ship back to Earth. You see?"
"I don't," raged Miss Dupont. "I think it's a cheap, dirty, foul trick
and it won't work, either. You can't _keep_ him drugged."
"I don't like you talking to Dr. Lowell like that," said Dr. Kalmar
indignantly.
"You should be the last one to object," Mrs. Kalmar pointed out. "He
said he drugged you, too."
"I know," Dr. Kalmar said blankly. "I don't understand--"
"You will," promised Dr. Lowell. "Just come along and don't interfere.
Better give him the order; it'll keep things straighter."
Mrs. Kalmar was grimly disapproving and Miss Dupont was close to
hysteria. Only Dr. Kalmar retained his awed respect for Dr. Lowell. If
the old man said it was all right, it was, even if he couldn't see the
reason.
"Go ahead," urged Dr. Lowell.
"Dr. Hoyt!"
"Yes, Dr. Kalmar?"
"You will come with us!"
"Yes, Dr. Kalmar."
Dr. Lowell took them back to the hospital.
"Now what?" asked Dr. Kalmar.
"You actually don't know?" Miss Dupont demanded. "He wants to put Leo
through the Ego Alter."
"That's absurd," Dr. Kalmar said angrily, "and an outright slander. Dr.
Lowell wouldn't consider such a thing--the boy didn't ask for it and it
wasn't authorized by Social Control."
Dr. Lowell smiled genially and opened the door to the Ego Alter room. "I
hate to disillusion you, Dr. Kalmar. That's exactly what I have in
mind--the same thing I did to you."
"That's absurd," Dr. Kalmar repeated, but with less conviction and more
confusion than before.
"It worked. Tell him to sit down."
Dr. Kalmar did, and automatically fitted the wired plastic helmet to Dr.
Hoyt's head.
"You can't!" cried Miss Dupont as he reached for the dials on the
control console. "It's not fair!"
"Let's not get involved in a discussion on ethics," Dr. Lowell said.
"Deneb can't afford to lose him; we need every doctor we have. If he
goes back to Earth it may be years before we get a replacement."
"But you can't do it without his consent!"
"There's time for that later," the old man grinned. "Keep his eyes on
you, Dr. Kalmar, while you build up his father image. Cut down on
hostility, aggression and power drive. Boost social responsibility and
adventurousness. But make sure he's looking at you constantly."
"I won't allow it," said Mrs. Kalmar flatly. "You won't make my husband
violate his oath."
"I did it to him, didn't I?" Dr. Lowell replied jovially. "It got you a
husband."
Miss Dupont grabbed at Dr. Kalmar's hand, but he had already turned on
the current.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Well, he has to get married, of course," Dr. Lowell said. "Let him look
at Miss Dupont--she's scheduled for this year, isn't she?--while you
give him a shot of mating urge. Now, wipe out the memory of this
incident and put him on a joy jag. We can validate that by liquoring him
up afterward. When you're finished, bring him to."
Dr. Hoyt came out of it almost with a whoop. He lurched out of the
insulated seat, stared at Miss Dupont for a moment with eyes that almost
glittered, and seized and kissed her.
"My goodness!" she gasped.
"Now, what were you saying about ethics?" Dr. Lowell asked.
There was no answer. Both Miss Dupont and Mrs. Kalmar had frozen.
"You drugged them, too?" Dr. Kalmar weakly wanted to know.
"A bit slower-acting," admitted the old man. "All you have to do with
them is wipe out the last half hour. Don't want any witnesses to an
unethical act, you know. Oh, and put them on a jag also."
Dr. Kalmar followed instructions.
Finished, they left the three uproariously drunk in the waiting room and
went to wash up. Dr. Kalmar went along bewilderedly. The old man was as
unconcerned as if he did this sort of thing daily.
"I was as arrogant and belligerent as this squirt was?"
"Worse," Dr. Lowell said. "He was willing to finish out his internship.
You weren't. Still worried about the ethics?"
"Yes. Naturally."
"All right, apply some logic, then. Are you happier on Deneb than you'd
have been on Earth?"
"Well, certainly. I'd have been lucky to get a job doctoring in a summer
camp. I wouldn't trade a roomy planet like this for the jammed cubicles
of Earth. And I like our methods better than terrestrial dogma. But
those are my preferences. I can't inflict them on anybody else."
"The hell they were your preferences. You bickered more about our
methods and longed more loudly for the tenements of Earth than this lad
ever did. All it took was a slight Ego Alter and you have a happier life
than you would have had. Right?"
Dr. Kalmar felt his tension ease. If the old man said it was right, it
was. He became momentarily resentful when he realized that that reaction
had been installed by Dr. Lowell, but then he smiled. It really was
right. A bit arbitrary, perhaps, but for the good of Dr. Hoyt and Deneb
in the long run, just as it had been for himself.
"Look," he said, drying his arms. "I've been wanting my wife to go
through a slight rephysical."
"Why don't you ask her?"
"The fact is that I'm afraid she'll think I'm dissatisfied and I don't
want her to get resentful."
"Maybe she'd like you to do some changing, too."
"What for? I'm all right."
"She probably feels the same way about herself."
"But all I want are a few changes in her. She's as high as a space pilot
now. It would be a cinch to--"
Dr. Lowell flung down the towel and gave him an outraged glare. "There's
such a thing as professional ethics, Dr. Kalmar!"
"But you--"
"That's different. It was a social decision, not a selfish one. If you
ask her and she agrees, that's up to her. But you can't take advantage
of her in an egocentric, arbitrary way. You just try it and I'll have
you sent back to Earth."
Dr. Kalmar felt his knees grow weak in alarm. "No, no. It's not that
important. Just an insignificant kind of wish."
And it was, he discovered when they went out to the waiting room. Unused
to jags, Mrs. Kalmar was more affectionate than she'd been since they
were first married; he'd have to remember to go on them periodically
with her. Miss Dupont, unwilling to budge out of Dr. Hoyt's tight arms,
had glassily joyous eyes. Dr. Hoyt didn't let her go until he caught
sight of Dr. Kalmar.
"Greatest doctor I ever met," he said enthusiastically. "Won'ful planet,
Deneb. Just wanna marry Miss Dupont, stay here and learn at your feet.
Okay?"
Dr. Kalmar's glance at the old man was no less worshipful. "It couldn't
be okayer," he said.