Badge of Infamy Page 5

  V

  Surgery

  Doc Feldman's luck was better than he had expected. For an Earth year,he was a doctor again, moving about from village to village as he wasneeded and doing what he could.

  The village had been isolated during the early colonization when Marsmade a feeble attempt to break free of Space Lobby. Their supplies hadbeen cut off and they had been forced to do for themselves. Now theywere largely self-sufficient. They grew native plants and extractedhormones in crude little chemical plants. The hormones were traded tothe big chemical plants for a pittance to buy what had to come fromEarth. Other jury-rigged affairs synthesized much of their food. Butmostly they learned to get along on what Mars provided.

  Doc Feldman learned from them. Money was no longer part of his life. Heate with whatever family needed him and slipped into the life aroundhim.

  He was learning Martian medicine and finding that his Earth courses weremostly useless. No wonder the villagers distrusted Lobby doctors. Dochad his own little laboratory where he had managed to start makingMars-normal penicillin--a primitive antibiotic, but better than nothing.

  Jake had come to remind him that it was his first anniversary, and nowthey were smoking bracky together.

  "Sheer luck, Jake," Doc repeated. "You Martians are tough. But some daysomeone is going to die under my care, with the little equipment I have.Then--"

  Jake nodded slowly. "Maybe, Doc. And maybe some day Mars will break freeof the Lobbies. You'd better pray for that."

  "I've been--" Doc stopped, realizing what he'd started to say. The oldman chuckled.

  "You've been talking rebellion for months, Doc. I hear rumors. Wheneveryou get mad, you want us to secede. But you don't really mean it yet.You can't picture any government but the one you're used to."

  Doc grinned. Jake had a point, but it was not as strong as it would havebeen a few months before. The towns under the Lobby were cheapimitations of Earth, but here, divorced to a large extent from thelobbies, the villages were making Mars their own. Their ways might bestrange; but they worked.

  Jake shifted his body in the weak sunlight. "Newton village forgot toreport a death on time. I hear Ryan is sweating them out, trying toprove it was your fault."

  There was no evidence against him yet, Doc was sure. But Chris was outto prove something, and to get a reputation as a top-flightadministrator. It must have hurt when they shipped her here as head ofthe lesser hemisphere of Mars. She'd expected to use Feldman as a frontwhile she became the actual ruler of the whole Lobby. Now she wanted tostrike back.

  "She's using blackmail," he said, and some of his old bitterness was inhis voice. "Anyone taking treatment from an herb doctor in this sectionis cut off from Medical Lobby service. Damn it, Jake, that could meanletting people die!"

  "Yeah." Jake sighed softly. "It could mean letting people begin tothink about getting rid of the Lobby, too. Well, I gotta help harvestthe bracky. Take it easy on operating for a while, will you, Doc?"

  "All right, Jake. But stop keeping the serious cases a secret. Two mendied last month because you wouldn't call me for surgery. I've brokenall my oaths already. It doesn't matter anymore."

  "It matters, boy. We've been lucky, but some day one case will go to thehospital and they'll find your former work. Then they'll really be afteryou. The less you do the better."

  Doc watched Jake slump off, then turned down into the little root cellarand back toward the room concealed behind it, where his crude laboratorylay. For the moment, he was free to work on the mystery of the blackspots.

  He kept running into them--always on the body of someone who died ofsomething that seemed like a normal disease. Without a microscope, hewas almost helpless, but he had taken specimens and tried to culturethem. Some of his cultures had grown, though they might be nothing butunknown Martian fungi or bacteria. Mars was dry and almost devoid ofair, but plants and a few smaller insects had survived and adapted. Itwasn't by any means lifeless.

  Without a microscope, he could do little but depend on his files ofcases. But today there was new evidence. A villager had filched an Earth_Medical Journal_ from the tractor driven by Chris Ryan and forwarded itto him. He found the black specks mentioned in a single paragraph, underskin diseases. Investigation of the diet was being made, since all caseswere among people eating synthetics.

  There was another article on aberrant cases--a few strange littlemisbehaviors in classical syndromes. He studied that, wondering. It hadto be the same thing. Diet didn't account for the fact that the specksappeared only when the patient was near death.

  Nor did it account for the hard lump at the base of the neck which hefound in every case he could check. That might be coincidence, but hedoubted it.

  Whatever it was, it aggravated any other disease the patient had andmade seemingly simple diseases turn out to be completely and rapidlyfatal. Once syphilis had been called "The Great Imitator". This gavepromise of being worse.

  He shook his head, cursing his lack of equipment. Each month more peoplewere dying with these specks--and he was helpless.

  The concealed door broke open suddenly and a boy thrust his head in."Doc, there's a man here from Einstein. Says his wife's dying."

  The man was already coming into the room.

  "She's powerful sick, Doc. Had a bellyache, fever, began throwing up.Pains under her belly, like she's had before. But this time it's awful."

  Doc shot a few questions at him, frowning at what he heard. Then hebegan packing the few things that might help. There should be noappendicitis on Mars. The bugs responsible for that shouldn't haveadapted to Mars-normal. But more and more infections found ways to crossthe border. Gangrene had been able to get by without change, it seemed.So far, none of the contagious infections except polio and the commoncold had made the jump.

  This sounded like an advanced case, perhaps already involvingperitonitis.

  So far, he'd been lucky with penicillin, but each time he used it withgrave doubts of its action on the Mars-adapted patients. If the appendixhad burst, however, it was the only possible treatment.

  He riffled through his stores; There was ether enough, fortunately. Thevillagers had made that for him out of Martian plants, using theircomplicated fermentation processes. He yelled for Jake, and the boybrought the old man back a moment later.

  "Jake, I'll need more of that narcotic stuff. I don't want the womanwrithing and tearing her stitches after the ether wears off."

  "Can't get it, Doc." Jake's eyes seemed to cloud as he said it."Distilling plant broke down. Doc, I don't like this case. That woman'sbeen to the hospital three times. I hear she just got out recently. Thismight be a plant, or they figure they can't help her."

  "They're afraid to try anything on Mars-normal flesh. They can't beproved wrong if they do nothing." Doc finished packing his bag and gotready to go out. "Jake, either I'm a doctor or I'm not. I can't worrywhen a woman may be dying."

  For a second, Jake's expression was stubborn. Then the little crow'sfeet around his eyes deepened and the dry chuckle was back in his voice."Right, Dr. Feldman." He flipped up his thumb and went off at ashuffling run toward the tractor. Lou and the man from Einstein followedDoc into the machine.

  It was a silent ride, except for Doc's questions about the sick woman.Her husband, George Lynn, was evasive and probably ignorant. He admittedthat Harriet had been to the dispensary and small infirmary thatSouthport called a hospital.

  It was the only place in the entire Southern hemisphere where anoperation could be performed legally. Most cases had to go toNorthport, but Chris had been trying to expand. Apparently, she wasdetermined to make Southport into another major center before she wascalled back to Earth.

  Doc wondered why the villagers went there. They had no medical insurancewith the Lobby; they couldn't afford it. Most villagers didn't have thecash, either. They were forced to mortgage their future work and that oftheir families to the drug plants that were run by the Lobby.

  "And they just turned your wife away?"
Doc asked. He couldn't quitebelieve that of Chris.

  "Well, I dunno. She wouldn't talk much. Twice she went and they gave hersomething. Cost every cent I could borrow. Then this last time, theykept her a couple days before they let me come and get her. But nowshe's a lot worse."

  Jake spun about, suddenly tense. "How'd you pay them last time, George?"

  "Why, they didn't ask. I told her she could put up six months from meand the kids, but nobody said nothing about it. Just gave her back tome." He frowned slowly, his dull voice uncertain. "They told me they'ddone all they could, not to bring her back. That's why she was so strongon getting Doc."

  "I don't like it," Jake said flatly. "It stinks. They always charge.George, did they suggest she get in touch with Doc here?"

  "Maybe they did, maybe not. Harriet did all the talking with them. Ijust do what she tells me, and she said to get Doc."

  Jake swore. "It smells like a trap. Are you sure she's sick, George?"

  "I felt her head and she sure had a fever." George Lynn was tornbetween his loyalties. "You know me, Doc. You fixed me up that time Ihad the red pip. I wouldn't pull nothing on you."

  Doc had a feeling that Jake was probably right, but he vetoed thesuggestion that they stop to look for spies. He had no time for that. Ifthe woman was really sick, he had to get to her at once, and even thatmight be too late.

  He remembered the woman, sickly from other treatment. He'd been forcedto remove her inflamed tonsils a few months before. She'd whined andcomplained because he couldn't spend all his time attending her. She wasa nag, a shrew, and a totally selfish woman. But that was her husband'sworry, not his.

  He dashed into the little house when they reached Einstein, and hisfirst glance confirmed what George Lynn had said. The woman was sick,all right. She was running a high fever. Much too high.

  She began whining and protesting at his having taken so long, but thepain soon forced her to stop.

  "There may still be a chance," Doc told her husband brusquely. He threwthe cleanest sheet onto a table and shoved it under the single light."Keep out of the way--in the other room, if you can all pile in there.This isn't exactly aseptic, anyhow. You can boil a lot of water, if youwant to help."

  It would give them something to do and he could use the water to cleanup. There was no time to wait for it, however. He had to sterilize withalcohol and carbolic acid, and hope. He bent over the woman, ripping herthin gown across to make room for the operation.

  Then he swore.

  Across her abdomen was the unhealed wound of a previous operation.They'd worked on her at Southport. They must have removed the appendixand then been shocked by the signs of infection. They weren't supposedto release a sick patient, but there was an easy out for them; theycould remove her from the danger of spreading an unknown infection. Somedoctors must have doped her up on sedatives and painkillers and sent herhome, knowing that she would call him. For that matter, they might havenoticed her unrecorded tonsillectomy and considered her fair bait.

  He grabbed the ether and slapped a cone over her nose. She tried toprotest; she never cooperated in anything. But the fumes of the ether hedipped onto the packing of the cone soon overcame that.

  It was peritonitis, of course. The only thing to do was to go in andscrape and clean as best he could. It was a rotten job to have to do,and he should have had help. But he gritted his teeth and began. Hecouldn't trust anyone else to hold the instruments, even.

  He cleaned the infection as best he could, knowing there was almost nochance. He used all the penicillin he dared. Then he began sewing up theincision. It was all he could do, except for dressing the wound with asterile bandage. He reached for one, and stopped.

  While he'd been working, the woman had died, far more quietly than shehad ever lived.

  It was probably the only gracious act of her life. But it was damning toDoc. They couldn't hide her death, and any investigation would show thatsomeone had worked on her. To the Lobby, he would be the one who hadmurdered her.

  Jake was waiting in the tractor. He took one look at Doc's face and madeno inquiries.

  They were more than a mile away when Jake pointed back. Small in thedistance, but distinct against the sands, a gray Medical Corps tractorwas coming. Either they'd had a spy in the village or they'd guessed therate of her infection very closely. They must have hoped to catch Doc inthe act, and they'd barely missed.

  It wouldn't matter. Their pictures and what testimony they could forcefrom the village should be enough to hang Doc.