The Transvection Machine Read Free

first so she wouldn’t be seen naked. “Hello?” she said, keeping her voice low and uncommitted.
    She listened to the voice on the other end, saying nothing until a final, “Thank you for calling.”
    “Who was that?” Ganger asked.
    She reached for another laudanum tablet, and then thought better of it. “Maarten Tromp, at the New White House. It seems that dear Vander has just been stricken with an attack of appendicitis. They’re rushing him to Salk Memorial by rocketcopter, and he’ll have a preprogrammed operation within the hour.”

3 VANDER DeFOE
    T HE NURSE WAS YOUNG and blond and quite pretty, and her name was Bonnie Simmons—a good old-fashioned twentieth-century sort of name. She looked down at him on the operating table and checked the record sheet projected on the wall over his head. “Your name is Defoe, like in Robinson Crusoe ?” she asked.
    He had to smile at that, even through the gray cloud of anesthesia. “I didn’t think anyone read Defoe these days. He’s not exactly teleprinter entertainment.”
    “We read his Journal of the Plague Year in medical school,” she told him with a trace of pride.
    “Things have changed since my days.” He glanced up apprehensively, seeing the great stainless steel machine that was moving along an overhead track to position itself above his naked abdomen.
    Nurse Simmons adjusted the focus of the record projector, checking over the coded details of his life and health. “Tell me, Mr. Defoe—or should I say Secretary Defoe—just when did the pains commence?”
    He took a deep breath, fighting back the anesthetic. “This morning, about six or seven hours ago. There were just cramps at first, and a sort of general pain. I vomited once, about noon. Then, about an hour ago, the pain localized down here, on the right side. That’s when I phoned the White House physician, Colonel Phley. He did a fast blood count and found an increase in white cells.”
    Nurse Simmons nodded in agreement. “That usually confirms a diagnosis of appendicitis. Too bad your parents didn’t have it removed at birth. Most people do now, you know.”
    “They didn’t fifty-one years ago, I can tell you that!” He tried to move, tried to comfort himself, but it was impossible. “In an age when you can cure cancer with a simple injection, I’d think you could do something about my appendicitis.”
    She smiled down tolerantly. “We are doing something about it, Secretary Defoe. We’re going to operate by preprogrammed tape. You’ve probably read about it. We use the system quite frequently these days for routine surgery, and especially for appendicitis—the commonest of all conditions requiring abdominal surgery.”
    “You mean you and that … that machine are going to operate on me, without even a surgeon? I am a member of the president’s cabinet, after all!”
    Again the tolerant smile. “Mister Secretary, I’m well aware of your position. I’m aware also that you are the inventor, or coinventor, of the transvection machine. Surely one as machine-oriented as yourself should not fear the blandishments of a computer-controlled surgery machine. As a matter of fact, your operation will be performed by Dr. Ralph Cozzens—one of the finest abdominal surgeons who ever lived.”
    “Who ever lived? But he is no longer living, is he?”
    Bonnie Simmons made some slight adjustments above his head, lining up a series of sighting lamps until they formed a straight line down the center of his body. “Dr. Cozzens died in 2043, but he left behind a wealth of taped material,” she explained. “Complete operations, programmed onto tape for use by future generations. As long as the surgical technique remains the same, Dr. Cozzens and other fine surgeons will go on operating, even though they have been dead for ten or twenty or thirty years.”
    “But isn’t it dangerous to have only a nurse in charge?” Despite the anesthetic, his wits were clearing. He felt as if his head and