Ole Doc Methuselah Read Free Page B

big man, the kind of a man
who would think big thoughts and fight and die for ideals.
    The
doctor beheld the seared stains, the charred fabric, the blasted flesh which
now composed the all of the man’s chest. The bloody and gruesome scene was not
a thing for a young girl’s eyes, even under disinterested circumstances—and a
hypo would only do so much.
    He
stepped to the port and waved a hand back to the main salon. There was a
professional imperiousness about it which thrust her along with invisible
force. Out of her sight now, Ole Doc allowed Hippocrates to place the body on
the multi-trayed operating table.
    Under
the gruesome flicker of ultraviolet, the wounded man looked even nearer death.
The meters on the wall counted respiration and pulse and hemoglobin and all
needles hovered in red while the big dial, with exaggerated and inexorable
calm, swept solemnly down toward black.
    â€œHe’ll
be dead in ten minutes,” said Ole Doc. He looked at the face, the high
forehead, the brave contours. “He’ll be dead and the breed is gone enough to
seed.”
    At
the panel, the doctor threw six switches and a great arc began to glow and snap
like a hungry beast amid the batteries of tubes. A dynamo whined to a muted scream and then another began to growl. Ozone and brimstone
bit the nostrils. The table was pooled in smoky light.
    The
injured man’s clothing vanished and, with small tinks, bits of metal
dropped against the floor—coins, buckles, shoe nails.
    Ole
Doc tripped another line of switches and a third motor commenced to yell. The
light about the table graduated from blue up to unseen black. The great hole in
the charred chest began to glow whitely. The beating heart which had been laid
bare by the original weapon slowed, slowed, slowed.
    With
a final twitch of his wrist, Ole Doc cut out the first stages and made his
gesture to Hippocrates. That one lifted off the top tray which bore the man
and, holding it balanced with one hand, opened a gravelike vault. There were
long green tubes glowing in the vault and the feel of swirling gases.
Hippocrates slid the tray along the grooves and clanged the door upon it.
    Ole
Doc stood at the board for a while, leaning a little against the force field
which protected him from stray or glancing rays, and then sighing a weary sigh,
evened the glittering line. Normal light and air came back into the operating
room and the salon door slid automatically open.
    The
girl stood there, tense question in her every line, fear digging nails into
palms.
    Ole
Doc put on a professional smile. “There is a very fair chance that we may save
him, Miss—”
    â€œElston.”
    â€œA
very fair chance. Fifty-fifty.”
    â€œBut
what are you doing now?” she demanded.
    Ole
Doc would ordinarily have given a rough time to anyone else who had dared to
ask him that. But he felt somehow summery as he gazed at her.
    â€œAll
I can, Miss Elston.”
    â€œThen
he’ll soon be well?”
    â€œWhy
. . . ah . . . that depends. You see, well . . .” How was he going to tell her
that what he virtually needed was a whole new man? And how could he explain
that professional ethics required one to forgo the expedience of kidnapping, no
matter how vital it might seem? For what does one do with a heart split in two
and a lung torn open wide when they are filled with foreign matter and
ever-burning rays unless it is to get a new chest entire?
    â€œWe’ll
have to try,” he said. “He’ll be all right for now. . . for a month, or more
perhaps. He is in no pain, will have no memory of this and if he is ever cured,
will be cured entirely. The devil of it is, Miss Elston, men always advance
their weapons about a thousand years ahead of medical science. But then, we’ll
try. We’ll try.”
    And the way she looked at him then made it
summer entirely. “Even . . .” she said hesitantly, “even if you are so young, I
have