It was well past 9:00 in the evening when Billy Gimp stepped down from the monorail two blocks from the Health Control Hospital No. 7 and made his way on foot through the thinning Upper City crowds toward the cavernous hospital entrance. Back in his room he had found that the bug was still there, and decided against spending any more time there than was necessary. After a quick shower and change of clothes he checked to be sure he had Parrot’s locker key in his pocket. Then he headed for a nearby Lower City bar and grill for dinner.
Two other bladerunners were just leaving as he reached the place, and they paused to talk a moment, but neither of them had been bothered with bugs and neither of them was aware of any special increase in Health Control alertness. Once inside with a hamburger and French fries in front of him, Billy turned his conversation with Parrot over and over in his mind as he ate.
There was no reason to doubt what Parrot and Phil Hawk had told him — yet the information made no sense to Billy. If more and more bladerunners were being bugged for some reason, then why were there not more arrests? The Health Control laws, passed almost twenty years before, were perfectly explicit. All forms of legal health care were provided in the government-operated Hospitals, Emergency Rooms and Outpatient Clinics, and only those patients who could qualify under the Eugenics Control laws were eligible for health care at all. The whole vast underworld of black-market medicine, of which bladerunners like Billy were such an integral part, had grown up in the wake of those Eugenics Control laws, bringing totally illegal health care services to the multitudes of people who could not — or would not — qualify for health care on a legal basis. Hardly a doctor could be named who had not taken a hand in underground medicine at one time or another, despite the watchful eye of Health Control police and the heavy penalties that could be levied when a physician or a bladerunner was caught and convicted — yet Health Control, to date, had been able to curb only a small fraction of the total amount of illegal medical practice. There were occasional arrests, widely publicized in the press and on TV, and even occasional convictions, but the Secretary of Health Control himself made no pretense that the practice of illegal medicine was declining.
Considering all this, it was not surprising that Health Control police might be engaged in an increasing pattern of screening sweeps in search of new evidence of illicit medical activities. Nor was there any better way of gathering such evidence than by bugging bladerunners. No one was more deeply involved in all the illegal aspects of underground medicine; indeed, without bladerunners the whole intricate system of illicit medical practice would fall apart at the seams. The Health Control snoopers knew perfectly well that a bladerunner caught and hung with a transponder, so that he was continuously spied upon, was a bladerunner — and a doctor — out of the business of underground medicine, at least for a while. But if arrests were not being made, what was the purpose of the increasing surveillance?
It made no sense to Billy, and he finished his meal in a gloom of depression. He could not throw off the premonition that there was more to his own bugging than met the eye, that dangerous trouble was somehow impending. Yet he stubbornly refused to allow it to worry him into immobility. It was, after all, as much Doc’s worry as it was his, and Doc had a case tonight and required Billy’s help. Maybe he would have some idea what had brought the bug about, or what Billy might do about it At any rate, until he saw Doc, his evening’s work was cut out for him. Checking the time, he paid his bill with a legitimate credit card and stepped out on the street to hail a ground-cab.
The procedure he followed was so familiar that he could have done it in his sleep. At his direction the ground-cab found a nearby Lower City arterial and began working its way up ramps and viaducts into the heavy Upper City traffic. Catching a north-south freeway, the cab sped northward to a Center City heli-cab station, as Billy kept a watchful eye out the back window. Satisfied that he had not been followed, he paid off the cabbie at the passenger loading ramp of the station and made his way back to the banks of twenty-four-hour baggage lockers. Here he inserted Parrot’s key unhesitatingly into a locker near the floor and drew out the small blue flight bag he found inside. He did not know precisely how Parrot got the surgical packs transported from his shop to the baggage lockers, and he did not care to know; Parrot never failed to provide them on time by this indirect means, nor had he ever failed to pick up the used instruments Billy would leave there when the surgery was over. This was the way Parrot chose to work, and the less detail he knew about it, Billy thought, the better. With the flight bag securely under his arm he had walked outside the station, crossed the freeway on a pedestrian ramp and caught a southbound monorail for downtown and Hospital No. 7.
It was getting late, and he had been moving briskly, but now, half a block from the Hospital entrance, he slowed up and peered ahead. The sidewalk and street in front of the Hospital were filled with a milling throng of people, and a block away Billy could hear the shouted slogans and sing-song chants of a demonstration going on. Several dozen people were crowding the street and blocking traffic, their heads and beards half shaved, placards waving, long flowing robes sweeping the ground. Some of the demonstrators were stopping passersby, handing out literature and calling attention to their placards. DESTROY THE CLINICS!!! one sign said in vivid orange letters. DOWN WITH HEALTH CONTROL! another implored. TRUST NATURE, NOT DOCTORS. As Billy approached, a wild-eyed man in a ground-length robe bore down on him, thrusting a wad of printed sheets into his hand. “No medicine is good medicine, brother!” the man shouted. “Boycott the doctors now!”
At the Hospital entrance a handful of Health Control guards stood by with tear-gas guns at ready, keeping the crowd of demonstrators out of the Hospital doorway by main force and watching for any disruption that might spark violence. Billy ducked past one of the guards and walked into the main lobby of the Hospital building. It was a huge concourse, with admission offices to one side and several banks of elevators to the Hospital inpatient rooms and outpatient clinics against a far wall. Most of the lobby, however, was filled with chairs and benches, as droves of potential patients stolidly waited their turn at the authentication desks. Occasionally white-coated doctors or nurses with tip-tilted caps passed through; an elevator opened to discharge a man in a wheelchair into the lobby, followed by an attendant. Billy crossed the lobby to an alcove where magazines and books were for sale and began leafing through a paperback as he kept his eyes on the bank of elevators.
As usual, he was early, and as usual, he saw three or four other bladerunners enter the the lobby, taking seats or stopping at one of the shopping stalls. They saw him, but by common code there was no acknowledgment other than the slightest narrowing of eyes or lowering of eyelids. Certainly it appeared that the screening sweeps were not interfering much with business, yet Billy felt himself growing more and more nervous as he waited. Then, with a sigh of relief he saw a tall, gray-haired man step from the elevator with a crowd of people and make his way across the lobby toward the door. As the man passed the magazine stand Billy fell in a few discreet paces behind him.
At the door Doc stopped and frowned at the still-growing crowd of demonstrators. As he pushed past the guards, a large man with a fearsome half-shaved beard and dark, angry eyes suddenly moved into his path. “Here’s a doctor!” the man shouted. “Walking out with his bloody hands! I’ve seen him here before — ”
Others near the man turned and began converging on Doc. A middle-aged woman with a placard thrust her face up into Doc’s. “Going on an errand of mercy tonight, Doctor?” she screamed. “Or do you just do your dirty work for the government?” Doc tried to push his way past the woman, but the big man moved to box him in, forcing him to a standstill.
“How does it feel to have blood on your hands, Doctor?” the man shouted. “What work have you been doing today in that Palace of Blood and Death? No, don’t try to run away, these people here want answers!”
Billy moved, shouldering through the crowd of placard-wavers. At the same time a blue-uniformed Health Control guard pushed his way up to Doc’s side, night stick at ready. “All right, that’s enough!” the guard shouted. “Move on, you people, out of the way there!”
The man with the half beard turned his attention from Doc to the guard, and a long curving knife appeared from beneath his robe. Doc turned aside, pushing away through the crowd. His eyes caught Billy’s, and Billy fell in ahead of him, running interference with surprising agility. A scream went up behind them as a ground-cab inched past. Billy whistled it down, then stepped aside as Doc opened the door and plunged in. The door slammed and the cab moved off as Billy turned his attention to the street again, still clutching the blue flight bag under his arm. Somewhere in the distance a siren was howling now, and a police copter appeared from the north and came down to hover over the demonstration that was fast turning into a riot. Billy turned and ran in the opposite direction, away from the growing crowd. A block away he came to a thoroughfare and finally flagged down a passing ground-cab. He gave a nearby address and then settled back with a sigh. That had been close, altogether too close. He had seen plenty of Naturist demonstrations before, but never one quite so close to violence. And with Doc caught right in the middle, it could have turned into a disaster.
Ten minutes later the cab drew up to a corner coffee shop. Billy paid his fare, and walked inside. To the rear, in a booth, he spotted Doc and went to join him. Doc still looked shaken. “Boy, I was glad to see you,” he said.
“That was an ugly crowd,” Billy breathed.
“They’re getting worse every day, but that was the first time they ever nailed me as a doctor.”
“Yes, how did that happen?”
“I don’t know. Probably just chance; I’m coming out there about the same time every night. Or maybe they’re beginning to single out individual doctors to harass. There’s no telling what the Naturists will do next. Some of their people are real fanatics.”
“You’re telling me! That big guy had a knife.”
“A lot of them do. They say it’s part of their religion to go armed, and I guess it’s legal as long as they keep them out of sight.”
“Religion!” Billy said scornfully. “How can they call themselves a religion?”
Doc sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Some of them are just rabble-rousers, but others are in real earnest They claim that medical care is thwarting the will of God, working against nature, and they want all health care completely banned, whether people qualify for it under the Eugenics Laws or not. Above all, they want the qualification provisions thrown out.”
“You mean the mandatory sterilization requirements?”
“Exactly. And that’s where they get a lot of their support. Lots more people than just the Naturists are balking at the sterilization laws these days.” Doc smiled wearily. “As we well know. You all set for tonight?”
Billy pointed to the bulging flight bag. “I got everything Molly told me to. Where is she, by the way?”
“She was called back on duty for a late case, a gall bladder or something. They were just closing up when I left, so she’ll be along pretty soon. Meanwhile, I’m starved.”
Doc picked up a menu card, punched it for a steak and coffee and dropped it down the slot Two minutes later he opened the service unit to take out the freshly delivered order. For a few moments he ate in silence. Then he said, “Okay, now tell me about this bug.”
“Better have some privacy first,” Billy cautioned.
“You’re really nervous, huh?” Doc fished out a coin and dropped it into a slot to activate the booth’s electronic muffler. Immediately the blaring juke-box noise died to a whisper and the rattling of dishes and other sounds around them vanished. “Now, then,” Doc said.
Billy told him about his discovery of the bug, his call to Molly and his talk with Parrot. Doc listened to the story intently, nodding once or twice but saying nothing. “Anyway, I was in a bind about contacting you,” Billy finished. “Until I knew for sure what was going on I didn’t dare try to make a direct contact, so I called Molly instead.”
Doc nodded. “That was fine, under the circumstances. She got word to me right away. But that’s not going to help us tomorrow or the next day if that bug stays there.”
“Well, why do you think it’s there?” Billy demanded.
Doc chewed his lip. “I wish I knew. Of course, it could be a random screening sweep, but that seems pretty doubtful to me. I’ve seen how these Health Control snoopers work, and they don’t do much of anything without a solid reason behind it. If they’re watching you all of a sudden, that means they’ve got a toe in the door of our operation, somehow, whatever may have tipped them off. If there’s a new policy of increased screening sweeps, there must be some reason for that, too, and if they’re doing it without making arrests, then it isn’t by accident, it’s by intent, whatever the purpose may be. But I wonder if maybe we’re looking too far afield.”
Billy looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I could be the one that’s tipped them off to something funny. I’ve been monitored on every one of my Hospital cases this week and most of last week too. All of a sudden they’re watching what I’m doing there very, very closely — and I’m not sure why.”
“Have you been having trouble with your cases?” Billy asked.
Doc looked at him. “Trouble? No … not exactly. I’ve been doing more or less routine transplants, and I have a better record on them than anybody else at Number Seven Hospital. But lately I’ve also had to take some risks. It’s the only way I can figure to outfox the pantograph and computers, and a couple of times lately I’ve had some narrow squeaks as a result.” Doc chuckled. “It’s hard enough to do heart surgery at all, without deliberately trying to do things the wrong way. And I’m afraid the monitors are getting suspicious at the number of things I seem to be doing wrong.”
Billy whistled. “Doc, you’re going to start having bodies in the laboratory if you don’t watch out. Can’t you just settle for doing midnight cases and let the Clinic work slide off your back?
“Not as long as the Hospital has a neuropantograph picking my brain during surgery, I can’t,” Doc said fiercely. “Doing the work is one thing; being forced to teach a robot to do it is something else. Look, don’t get confused, I’m not letting anything bad happen to my patients. I couldn’t do that, pantograph or no pantograph. It’s just that the computer has to count on consistencies in order to program a robot, and I’m throwing in as many inconsistencies as I can, without doing the patient any harm. Sometimes I just take longer with a procedure than necessary, or I reverse the order of certain steps, or leave certain steps out, or do things slightly differently from one case to the next — anything so that the computer can’t pin down a coherent, consistent pattern of action. I make random mistakes — never bad mistakes, just little ones — and then I use randomly chosen remedies, never the same remedy for the same mistake twice in a row. All so that the computer can’t program a robot to do a safe transplant procedure by learning from me how it’s done. Aha, here’s Molly.”
A tall, dark-haired girl had come into the coffee shop and was making her way back to their booth. Although she wore no cap, the dark blue cape with the red satin lining and the traditional white uniform marked her as a registered nurse. Her blue eyes were wide with concern as she slipped into the booth facing Doc and Billy. “Oh, I’m glad you got away when you did,” she said breathlessly. “I had to leave by the parking garage, and even then it took forever to get through the police cordon — ”
“Police cordon!” Billy said. “What happened after we left?”
“Those Naturists outside the Hospital — somebody pulled a knife and it turned into a full-blown riot. Night sticks, tear gas, half a dozen police copters herding bystanders away. The demonstrators broke through into the lobby and were trying to occupy the business office before the police finally got them out; they must have arrested a dozen of them. Three patients and one doctor injured, according to one report. If anything like this happens again, I’m afraid there’s really going to be trouble.”
“It’ll happen again,” Doc said somberly. “Basically the Naturists are a violent group, and when certain ones of them say ‘Destroy the Hospital’ they mean literally take it down, brick by brick.” The older man shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s Health Control’s problem. We’ve got problems of our own. Billy has the packs, right?”
“Two T&A packs.”
“Then let’s get moving.”
Once outside the coffee shop, they caught a ground-cab to the heli-cab station a few blocks north. The place was crowded with early-evening travelers, and the small interurban helicopters were landing and taking off in rapid sequence like bees around a hive. Doc dialed for an auto-pilot model, and they joined the line waiting at the designated landing pad. Doc stood first on one foot and then the other, impatient and irritable, while Billy clutched the flight bag with the surgical packs tightly under his arm. Only Molly Barret appeared calm and unruffled as they waited. Doc kept peering critically at Billy over his glasses. Finally he said, “When did you scrub your hands last?”
“This afternoon when I woke up,” Billy said.
“Nails and all? Looks to me like you’ve been shoveling coal,” Doc said.
Billy looked at his hands, which were anything but clean. “Well, I can’t help it if they get dirty. I scrubbed them.”
“How long?”
“Maybe five, ten minutes.”
“I thought I told you twice a day for fifteen minutes at a time,” Doc said. “What would you do if you had to step in and help me in an emergency?” Billy spread his hands helplessly. “Well, you might have to any time,” Doc said testily. “When I tell you I want you surgically scrubbed, I mean surgically scrubbed. How about cap and mask? Did you bring them for yourself?”
“You didn’t tell me to bring them,” Billy said.
“Didn’t tell you! Do I have to tell you every single time?”
“Well, I just forgot.”
“Oh, great. I wonder what else you forgot.”
Molly interrupted. “It’s about our turn,” she said.
“Why didn’t you remind him about a cap and mask?” Doc asked her.
“I didn’t think of it.”
“You shouldn’t have to, but if this idiot can’t remember fundamentals like scrubbing his hands and bringing cap and mask, somebody has to remind him.”
“He’s not an idiot,” Molly said defensively. “You’d forget things too if you woke up and found a bug in your room. He’s just had a bad day, is all. And it’s too late to worry about it now. That’s our cab coming in.”
Moments later the little heli-cab landed on the pad and discharged passengers. Doc, Billy, and the nurse climbed aboard. The rotor continued idling until Doc had address-coded their destination into the miniature computer console; there was a series of clicks as the computer searched all the legal heli-cab channels between the pad and the designated destination and locked in on a flight plan. Then the little cab lifted slowly into the air, circled twice awaiting electronic clearance for entering the traffic channels, and then began moving south and west, steadily gaining altitude.
They were airborne for ten minutes before anyone spoke. Doc kept peering at the 360-degree radar scan pattern on the cab’s console, double-checking that no one was following them. Billy sat hunched and tense, nervous as always when he was farther than jumping distance from solid ground. “Is the anesthetist going to meet us there?” he asked finally.
“Nope, not tonight.”
“You mean Trautman refused to come?”
“He wasn’t asked,” Doc said. “He’s been drunk the last three times, and I decided that was enough. I can’t afford to take that kind of risk.”
“Well, what are you going to do for anesthesia? I got the ether, like you asked.”
“Fine,” Doc aid. “I think we’ll let you give it, too.”
Billy stared at the surgeon. “Me give it! I don’t know how to give anesthesia.”
“Then it’s time you learned,” Doc said. “You’ve certainly watched Trautman often enough. You know the reflexes to check, and I can coach you, just as long as I don’t have to fool with the ether mask while I’m working.”
“Why not have Molly do it?”
“She’s got to be scrubbed in and helping me, right Molly?”
The girl nodded. “But Billy, this is a great chance for you,” she said. “If you could learn to replace Trautman, you could be a real part of the operating team — couldn’t he, Doc? There aren’t many bladerunners who even get to observe, much less help. And you’re certainly smart enough to learn.”
Billy stirred uneasily and scratched his nose. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe for an extra hundred — ”
“No dice,” Doc said. “No extra pay while you’re learning. You need the experience.”
Billy looked at him. “Don’t give me that, Doc. You need somebody to give anesthesia, that’s the truth of it.”
“Oh, honestly!” Molly broke in. “It’s more for your own good than anything, Billy. You get a chance like this and you sit and bicker about money! What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Well, I’ve got to make a living, too,” Billy said unhappily.
“You’re making a handsome living just running packs, and you know it,” Molly said. “Good lord! I don’t get paid at all, and Doc barely breaks even on these cases as it is. You have to hang around until the instruments are ready to go back anyway. Why shouldn’t you make yourself useful?”
“But he pays Trautman three hundred — ”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Doc said. “Trautman is an M.D. anesthetist, and you’re just a bladerunner. Now you can take it or leave it: help out in return for learning, or don’t help out and we’ll pack up and go home. On my patients you learn on your own time.”
Billy was silent for a long moment, staring out at the city lights passing below. Then, slowly, he said, “Okay, I’ll do it — tonight. But when are you going to pay me extra?”
“About the time I pick you over Trautman by choice,” Doc said sourly.
“You’re a real prince,” Billy said. He settled into a sullen silence, staring out as the helicopter moved on through the night. Minutes passed, and Doc leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Then Billy said, “Doc?”
“Yes?”
“When are you going to fix my foot, Doc?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Doc said. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m no bone surgeon?”
“You’re not a throat surgeon, either, but you’re doing T&As.”
“Well, fixing a crippled foot is a different matter.”
“But Doc, you promised. Way back when I first started with you, you said you’d arrange it. Molly remembers, don’t you, Moll? You said you’d get somebody to fix it for me.”
“Okay, fine, so I promised. And I will, too, when I can find the right man and the circumstances are right. Right now I’m so loaded with work I can’t think straight, with all these underground patients, and fixing your foot would throw you out of it for weeks.”
“But, Doc, it’s my foot, not just some underground patient’s. And the longer I wait the tougher the surgery will be, that’s what all the books say.”
“Well, maybe so and maybe not.” Doc sighed. “I just don’t know enough about it, you need an expert bone surgeon to tell you.” He was silent for a moment. “Look, I’ll try to get it arranged, okay? The first chance I get.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Billy persisted.
“Well, we’ll talk about it later. Maybe we can get something rolling. Right now we’re about to land, it looks like.”
The heli-cab had begun to lose altitude as they passed over the less built-up interurban areas of the city between Newark Sector and Trenton Sector. The city lights spread out below them in all directions like a vast iridescent blanket. From time to time the auto-pilot let out clicks and chatters as electronic relays closed and opened and the cab homed in on the designated address code, all the while maintaining a 360-degree surveillance of the surrounding sky. Occasionally another cab moved past, rising or settling down, but none approached or followed. Heli-cabs ordinarily were used only for long-distance inter-Sector passage, distances that would be impractical to travel by ground-cab or rapid-transit ground services. But where they were used, the little copters were swift, efficient, and exceedingly safe. Now, less than thirty minutes from their departure, the heli-cab dropped down, entering a low-level approach pattern and finally settling down on the lighted rooftop pad of one of the large modular apartment buildings so characteristic of the Trenton Sector. Moments later the three had disembarked, and a figure moved out of the shadow of a ventilator system to greet them as the heli-cab lifted away on its auto-pilot and vanished into the sky to the north again.
“That you, Doctor?” the man’s voice said.
“Who wants to know?”
“Merriman. I’m John Merriman. You only met my wife, Elsa.”
“Fine,” Doc said. “Let’s go on in, we’re a little late. Billy, bring those packs along.”
Going down on the elevator there was no talking. The car stopped at the forty-third floor, and they stepped directly from the elevator into the entry hall of a large apartment module. A woman and two small children were waiting to greet them. The children, apprehensive, clung to their mother. “Come in, Doctor,” the woman said. “We were afraid something had happened.”
“Nothing serious,” Doc said. “Miss Barret was late getting away from the Hospital.” He indicated Molly and Billy. “This is my nurse, and my anesthetist; they’ll be helping me. Now, how are these children? No new colds or fevers starting up?”
“Nothing,” the woman said.
“You’ve actually checked their temperatures?” Doc said. “Okay, then, let’s have a look at them.”
From his bag Doc produced stethescope, otoscope, and tongue blades. The older child, a boy of seven, was first. Doc had him strip to the waist and then examined him carefully, checking his ears and throat and listening to his chest. The little girl began to cry when her turn came, but Doc gently shushed her, sitting down and talking to her a bit, showing her how the stethoscope worked and letting her blow the otoscope light on, and presently she allowed him to check her. When he had finished he looked up and nodded to Molly. “Why don’t you take them into the other room for a while and tell them what to expect so they won’t be scared,” he said. “Billy, you get things set up in the kitchen. I want to talk to the parents for a minute.” As the others left, he turned his attention to the adult Merrimans. “I’ve already talked with Elsa here,” he said, “but I want John to hear me too. A tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy is not a terribly complex surgical procedure in children of this age, but it’s not entirely innocuous either, and problems can turn up under the best of circumstances. To be perfectly honest, I have to warn you that ideally this surgery should be done in a Health Control Hospital under the most choice conditions. We could use a safer anesthesia there, we’d have better control of any surgical problems that might develop, and the children could remain under Hospital observation until they were fully recovered from anesthesia and through the initial danger of bleeding. Doing the surgery here, I can’t offer you the best, most ideal circumstances. I don’t anticipate trouble, and I’ll do everything I can to avoid it, but there is some degree of additional risk that you should know about.”
“Doctor, we can’t bring ourselves to take them to the Hospital,” the woman said, “they’re both over five years old, and they’ve both been treated more than three times in the Clinic. That means that they’d both have to be sterilized before they could qualify for any legal care at all. And for something like this we just can’t let them be mutilated like that.”
“Well, I know how you feel. I disagree with the Eugenic Control laws, too, or I wouldn’t be here. But the laws are the laws, and you have to make the decision; I can’t make it for you. Just for the record, the surgery required for legal qualification for Health Control care can’t exactly be called mutilation. A vasectomy for a boy is a simple Clinic procedure that doesn’t even involve hospitalization. For the girl, a tubal ligation is a little more complex, and might require an overnight stay in the Hospital, but nothing more.”
“But the results are always the same, aren’t they? Complete, permanent — ”
“That’s right. That’s what the Eugenics Control laws are all about: the prior sterilization of any individual who requires health care services for any reason — excluding children under five, of course, except in cases of known hereditary disease.”
“And that’s why you’re doing the surgery here instead of in a Hospital,” John Merriman said heavily. “As far as we’re concerned, sterilization of these children is out of the question. Until those laws are changed, we’ll go underground. We understand the extra risk, Doctor, and we’ve both decided we have to take it.”
Doc nodded. “Then we understand each other. You’ll have to sign releases, of course, to cover me and my assistants in the event of unexpected trouble.” He withdrew two printed forms from his bag and handed them to Merriman. “I’m sorry this is necessary, but it really is,” he added gently. “Don’t be afraid that I’m going to be anything but scrupulously careful — I’ll do the best job I know how. But if you decided for some reason to report me to Health Control authorities, you would only be vulnerable for misdemeanor charges for accepting illegal medical services, whereas I could lose my practice license and go to prison for years. I have to have the protection of a release.”
“Yes, we understand.” Merriman signed the releases, and handed them to his wife for signature. “Then there’s also the matter of the fee,” he added. “You told Elsa seven hundred?”
“That’s right — seven hundred in markers, or nine hundred on your credit card. The extra is to cover the cost and risk and trouble of feeding the credit card funds into the electronic accounting system without raising questions as to its source.”
“Well, we have it in markers.”
“Good, we much prefer it that way. Now, then, the little girl is the worrier of the two of them, so I think I’ll take her first. You two might keep the boy company in the other room; I’ll need my helpers with me.”
Throughout this exchange, which he had heard a thousand times before, Billy Gimp had been setting up the kitchen area as an impromptu operating room. After releasing the binder on the first of the surgical packs, he had scrubbed hands and arms in the sink, let them dry in the air, and then gowned and gloved himself. Now, as Doc and Molly scrubbed, he set out the instruments, counted sponges, tested the suction machine and prepared sutures to be opened. As soon as Molly was ready he helped her into gown and gloves. She then took over preparation of the surgeon’s tray, and Billy, with an increasing sense of ill-ease, turned his attention to preparing the ether mask and opening the anesthetic. The child, groggy and complacent from the premedication Molly had given her in the bedroom, took her place on the table under the best light in the house and submitted to the sterile drapes Molly attached around her hair and neck. Then, at Doc’s signal, Billy did his best to emulate what he had seen Dr. Trautman do so many times in giving ether anesthesia, feeling clumsy in the extreme. “This little gauze cup has a funny smell, Jeannie,” he said to the child. “Blow into it and try to blow the smell away. That’s the way, blow harder!” The child blew, taking deep breaths of the ether as she did so. Momentarily she began to struggle but was quieted by a few words from Molly, and presently the child relaxed into slow, steady, stertorous breathing. “Reflexes, Billy,” Doc said sharply, watching him closely throughout. “No, no, corneal — that’s right. Okay, give her a little more, two or three more whiffs. Now where’s the intubation setup?”
“I … don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Doc snapped. “You get the tube ready before you even start the anesthesia. I can’t do this child without intubating her.”
“Here it is,” Molly said gently. “The pack was set up different from last time.”
“Well, tell that supplier of yours to get things straight, Billy, and then check them out yourself. The last thing I need at times like this is a bunch of surprises.” Still grumbling, Doc double-checked the surgical tray, then checked the child again and placed the breathing tube in place. “Now then, Billy, keep her stable just like that. Molly? Let’s go.”
As always, when a procedure was started, he was quick, skillful and thorough. For her part, Molly responded like any good scrub nurse, sensitive to Doc’s slightest movement or gesture, moving almost instinctively to place the right instrument in his hand at the right time. The small portable suction machine that had come in the pack functioned poorly, as usual, but they made it do, using sponges wherever possible. Within fifteen minutes Doc nodded and stood back. “I think that’s it,” he said. “Billy, what the hell are you doing pouring on more of that stuff? You should have eased off five minutes ago when you saw me take the curette.”
“I was watching the girl,” Billy said sullenly.
“Of course you were watching the girl — but you should also be watching me. We don’t want to be here all night waiting for these kids to recover.” Gently, Doc took the sleeping child up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom where the mother and father were sitting with the groggy premedicated boy. Placing the girl in bed, Doc positioned her, removed the breathing tube and then waited until she was breathing steadily and beginning to stir in recovery from the anesthetic. Then, after giving the mother specific directions for nursing the recovering child, he led the boy out into the kitchen, where Billy and Molly were waiting with fresh surgical garments and drapes.
The second case was somewhat longer and more difficult for Doc, but Billy’s job seemed to go easier and he felt a surge of confidence as Doc watched him, checked the child’s depth of anesthesia and then said, “Fine, now, not any lower, just touch it from time to time, and be sure to withdraw the mask at the right time.” He and Molly proceeded as Billy watched child and doctor. This time, when Doc finally stepped away from the table, the patient was already stirring, and Doc gave a nod of satisfaction. “Better,” he said.
“Yes, it was almost easy that time.”
“It’s always easy when everything goes right. Nine times out of ten I could give the ether myself and forget about having an anesthetist. It’s that one time out of ten that gets you, when you need somebody up there with his wits about him. You’ll learn, all right, you’ve just got to do it a few times.”
The children’s father had been making coffee, and after the boy was back in bed and the girl, now almost fully recovered, was rechecked, Doc accepted a cup gratefully. At the same time he briefed the parents carefully on the postoperative care program he wanted them to follow. “Miss Barret will stay here with the children until she’s confident they’re out of danger. If you need to reach me after she’s gone, ring the service number I’ve written down here. The service will contact me by belt radio, and I’ll return your call, so stay by the phone. I doubt that you’ll need to contact me, but if there’s any question, I’d rather you called. Got that? Now as to things to watch for, I have them listed in detail on this instruction sheet. Bleeding is the main threat; let me know at once if there’s any bleeding or vomiting of black stuff, any at all. Breathing is the other major concern; let me know if there’s any wheezing or croupy coughing. And if I tell you to take either of these kids to a Hospital, take them. We’d far rather bow to the law, if we have to, than have a child in trouble — or dead.”
As Doc gave the instructions, Billy busied himself gathering up instruments, cleaning them and returning them to the flight bag, together with disposable drapes, gowns, gloves and other paraphernalia that couldn’t be dropped down an apartment house waste chute. As he worked, he remembered Parrot’s message about the new patient. “Doc,” he interrupted, “I forgot to tell you. You’ve got another call to make tonight.”
Doc frowned. “Who is that?”
“A new patient that Parrot referred.”
“Damn,” Doc said. “Billy, you know I can’t take on any more people.”
“He said this was a special case, a very sick kid.”
“Sick with what?”
“He didn’t say, exactly. Headache, stiff neck, and high fever, was all he said. But Doc, Parrot wouldn’t bother you unless he thought it was important, you know that. There’s been a lot of Shanghai flu around. Maybe this is a complication.”
“Well, maybe,” Doc said. “You don’t suppose it’s another meningitis case, do you? Seems to me there have been a lot of those, lately. Well, did you bring along an infection kit?”
Billy nodded. “Penicillin, Viricidin, even some gamma globulin. The works.”
“Okay, then we’d better move.” Doc turned to John Merriman. “We’re going to have to leave; can you call us a heli-cab?” As the man went to the phone, Doc went into the bedroom to give Molly final instructions and check the children for the last time. “Stay till you’re sure they’re all right, and then get a cab home. Billy and I have another call to make. Ill check with you at the Hospital in the morning.” He hesitated. “And Molly, ask Central Records for a read-out on meningitis cases admitted to the Hospital during the last week, will you? Use my identification key and tell them to leave the read-out in my box. And if they ask, tell then it’s urgent.”
By the time Doc rejoined Billy, a red signal on the Merriman’s TV indicated that a heli-cab was waiting for them on the roof. Billy zipped the flight bag closed and tucked it under his arm. Then, after Doc had given his final instructions to the Merrimans, he and Billy walked in silence to the elevators.
On the roof the landing lights of the little heli-cab were blinking. Doc walked to the landing pad and climbed aboard. It was not until Billy had rounded to the other side of the vehicle that he saw the dark form of a police copter concealed in the shadow of the ventilators. “Doc!” he shouted. “It’s a trap! Move, get going — ”
At his first shout a blinding light flared from the police copter, flooding the rooftop. Billy ducked back toward the stairwell as the heli-cab blades began to turn and Doc’s craft lifted from the roof with Doc aboard. Three uniformed men were charging from the police car now, paying no attention to the fleeing heli-cab. Then, as Billy ran for the stairwell, he stumbled on his bad foot and fell flat, sending the flight bag skidding across the rooftop ahead of him.
One of the police pounced on it while two more moved between Billy and the stairwell. As he struggled to his feet, Billy saw Doc’s heli-cab gaining altitude, moving swiftly to the north, with no sign of pursuit. Then a policeman had one of Billy’s arms pinned behind his back. “That’s all, Buddy,” he said. “You’d better come along. We’ll worry about your friend there later.” His captor pushed Billy forward, and a moment later he was sitting in handcuffs at the rear of the police craft as it lifted from the roof and moved off into the southwestern sky.