Great tales about doctor.., p.27
Great Tales About Doctors, page 27
Slipping into an apron, she explored the freezer for meat and French fries, dropped them into the HF cooker and set the timer for 90 seconds. When it clicked off, she was emptying a transparent sack of prepared salad into a bowl.
“Coffee will be ready in 50 seconds, so let’s eat,” she announced.
For minutes, they ate silently, ravenously, face to face in the little breakfast nook. Murt had forgotten the pure animal pleasure of satisfying a neglected appetite, and so, apparently, had his wife.
Wife! The thought jolted him.
Their eyes met, and he knew that the same thing was in her mind.
The sulfatetradine!
With the edge barely off his hunger, he stopped eating. She (did, too. They sipped the steaming coffee and looked at each other.
“I—feel better,” Phyllis said at last “So do I.”
“I mean—I feel differently.”
He studied her face. It was new. The tenseness was gone and it was a beautiful face, with soft lips and intelligent eyes. But now the eyes were merely friendly.
And it aroused no more than a casual pleasure in him, the pleasure of viewing a lovely painting or a perfect sunset. A peaceful intellectual rapport settled over them, inducing a physical lethargy. They spoke freely of their sensations, of the hypo-adrenal effects, and wondered that there was no unpleasant reaction. They decided that, initially at least, sulfatetradine was a miraculous success. Murt thought he should go back to the hospital and work out a report right away.
Phyllis agreed and offered to accompany him, but he said she had better get a night’s sleep. The next day would be hectic.
After four hours at his desk, he called a taxi and, without hesitation, gave the address of his club. Not until he fell wearily into bed did he remember it was his wedding night.
By mutual agreement, the marriage was annulled the next day.
Feldman and Peterson were gratified at the efficacy of their drug, but both were horrified that Murt had chosen to experiment on himself. As usual, Phyl had insisted on being left out of the report.
After a week of close observation, one of the monkeys was chloroformed and tissue-by-tissue examination was made by an army of histologists. Blood samples showed completely clear of the virus, as did a recheck on Murt’s own blood. No deleterious effects could be detected, so the results were published through the Government Health Service.
It was the day before Christmas before Dr. Sylvester Murt first noticed the approaching symptoms of a relapse, or reinfection—he couldn’t guess which. The past weeks had been pleasantly busy and, as acclaimed authority on Murt’s virus, he had had little time to think subjectively about his experience.
Sulfa-tetradine was now considered the specific for the affliction and was being produced and shipped by the carload all over the world. The press had over-generously insisted on giving him all the credit for the remedy as well as the isolation of the disease virus. He was an international hero.
The warning of another attack came to him at 3:30 in the afternoon, when Phyllis Sutton was leaving. She stuck her head back in the door and gave him an uncommonly warm smile and cried, “Merry Christmas, Doctor!”
He waved at her and, as the door closed, caught his breath. There was the bum in his stomach again. It passed away and he refused to give it further thought.
His own cab wound its way through the heavy Christmas Eve traffic an hour before store-closing time. Finally, the vehicle stalled in a jam. It was only six blocks to his club, so Murt paid off the driver and walked.
Part of his strategy of bachelorhood had been to ignore Christmas and the other sentimental seasons, when loneliness costs many a man his independence. But now it was impossible to ignore the snowflakes, the bustling, package-laden crowds and the street-corner Santa Clauses with their tinkling bells.
He found himself staring into department store windows at the gay decorations.
A pair of shimmering, nearly invisible nylons caught his eye. They were the most impalpable of substances, only their bare outline visible against the white background.
He thought of Phyllis and, on impulse, went into the store and bought a pair. The clerk had to pick a size at random for him. Outside, on the sidewalk, he stared at the prettily gift-wrapped package and finally acknowledged the tremor, the tension and the old ache in the region of his diaphragm.
Relapse!
He plodded three slushy blocks up a side-street before he found a cab. He gave Phyllis Sutton’s address to the driver and sank back in the taxi as a wave of weakness overcame him. What if she weren’t home? It was Christmas Eve. She would probably be visiting friends or relatives.
But she wasn’t. She opened the door under his impatient knock, and her eyes widened cordially.
“Sylvester!” she exclaimed. “Merry Christmas! Is that for me?” She pointed to the package, clutched forgotten in his hands. - v
“Merry, hell!” he said dispiritedly. “I came to warn you to look out for a relapse. Mine’s been coming on all day.”
She drew him inside, made him take off his coat and sit down before she acknowledged his remark. The apartment was cozy, with a tiny Christmas tree decorated in the window. She returned from the hall closet and sat beside him.
“Look what I did—on impulse,” he said and tossed the package on her lap. “That’s what really turned it on.”
She opened the nylons and looked up at him sideways.
He continued unhappily, “I saw them in a window. Made me think of you, and about that time the seizure began. I tried to kid myself that I was just getting you a little token of—of my esteem, but the symptoms are almost as bad as before already.”
Apparently she refused to accept the seriousness of the situation. Her smile was fatuous, he thought, kissably fatuous.
“Don’t you realize what this means?” he demanded. “Peterson and Feldman tinned up a very distressing fact. Sulfa-tetradine deposits out in the endocrines, so a single dose is all a person can take. This relapse of mine means we have it all to do over again.”
“Think, Dr. Murt! Just think a minute,” she urged.
“About what?”
“If the sulfa deposits out in the very glands it’s there to protect, how could you be suffering another attack?”
His arms ached to reach out and emphasize his argument. “I don’t know. All I know is how I feel. In a way, this is even worse, because—”
“I know,” Phyllis said and perversely moved close to him. “My relapse came last Tuesday when I bought you a tie for Christmas. I sent a blood sample over to Ebert Labs right away. And do you know what?”
“What?” Murt asked in a bewildered fog.
“It was negative. I don’t have Murt’s Virus.” She slipped an arm around his waist and put her head on his shoulder. “All I’ve got is Murt himself.”
BEDSIDE MANNER
William Morrison
Nothing new under the sun? Surgery with anesthesia is not much more than a century old; antibiotics less than a quarter-century. Within these short periods, we have learned more about mending the body and the mind than was known during the previous written history of man. So—why not imagine a truly advanced medical science, from a star culture eons older than ours? It would be as far ahead of the medicine imagined in Cyril Kornbluth’s future of our own planet (see page 163) as his “little black bag” would be an improvement on the healing art as we know it today.
Bedside Manner
She awoke, and didn’t even wonder where she was.
First there were feelings—a feeling of existence, a sense of still being alive when she should be dead, an awareness of pain that made her body its playground.
After that, there came a thought. It was a simple thought, and her mind blurted it out before she could stop it: Oh, God, now l won’t even be plain any more. I’ll be ugly.
The thought sent a wave of panic coursing through her, but she was too tired to experience any emotion for long, and she soon drowsed off.
Later,- the second time she awoke, she wondered where she was.
There was no way of telling. Around her all was black and quiet. The blackness was solid, the quiet absolute. She was aware of pain again—not sharp pain this time, but dull, spread throughout her body. Her legs ached; so did her arms. She tried to lift them, and found to her surprise that they did not respond. She tried to flex her fingers, and failed.
She was paralyzed. She could not move a muscle of her body.
The silence was so complete that it was frightening. Not a whisper of sound reached her. She had been on a spaceship, but none of a ship’s noises came to her now. Not the creak of an expanding joint, nor the occasional slap of metal on metal. Not the sound of Fred’s voice, nor even the slow rhythm of her own breathing.
It took her a full minute to figure out why, and when she had done so she did not believe it. But the thought persisted, and soon she knew that it was true.
The silence was complete because she was deaf.
Another thought: The blackness was so deep because she was blind.
And still another, this time a questioning one: Why, if she could feel pain in her arms and legs, could she not move them? What strange form of paralysis was this?
She fought against the answer, but slowly, inescapably, it formed in her mind. She was not paralyzed at all. She could not move her arms and legs because she had none. The pains she felt wer-e^phantom pains, conveyed by the nerve endings without an external stimulus.
When this thought penetrated, she fainted. Her mind sought in unconsciousness to get as close to death as it could.
When she awoke, it was against her will. She sought desperately to close her mind against thought and feeling, just as her eyes and ears were already closed.
But thoughts crept in despite her. Why was she alive? Why hadn’t she died in the crash?
Fred must certainly have been killed. The asteroid had come into view suddenly; there had been no chance of avoiding it. It had been a miracle that she herself had escaped, if escape it could be called—a mere sightless, armless and legless torso, with no means of communication with the outside world, she was more dead than alive. And she could not believe that the miracle had been repeated with Fred.
It was better that way. Fred wouldn’t have to look at her and shudder—and he wouldn’t have to worry about himself, either. He had always been a handsome man, and it would have killed him a second time to find himself maimed and horrible.
She must find a way to join him, to kill herself. It would be difficult, no doubt, without arms or legs, without any way of knowing her surroundings; but sooner or later she would think of a way. She had heard somewhere of people strangling themselves by swallowing their own tongues, and the thought cheered her. She could at least try that right now. She could—
No, she couldn’t. She hadn’t realized it before, but she had no tongue.
She didn’t black out at this sudden awareness of a new horror, although she desperately wanted to. She thought: I can make an effort of will, I can force myself to die. Die, you fool, you helpless lump of flesh. Die and end your torture, die, die, die…
But she didn’t. And after a while, a new thought came to her: She and Fred had been the only ones on their ship; there had been no other ship near them. Who had kept her from dying? Who had taken her crushed body and stopped the flow of blood and tended her wounds and kept her alive? And for what purpose?
The silence gave no answer. Nor did her own mind.
After an age, she slept again.
When she awoke, a voice said, “Do you feel better?”
I can hear! She shouted to herself. It’s a strange voice, a most unusual accent. I couldn’t possibly have imagined it. I’m not deaf! Maybe I’m not blind either! Maybe 1 just had a nightmare—
“I know that you cannot answer. But do not fear. You will soon be able to speak again.”
Who was it? Not a man’s voice, nor a woman’s. It was curiously hoarse, and yet clear enough. Uninflected, and yet pleasant. A doctor? Where could a doctor have come from?
“Your husband is also alive. Fortunately, we reached both of you at about the time death had just begun.”
Fortunately? She felt a flash of rage. You should have let us die. It would be bad enough to be alive by myself, a helpless cripple dependent upon others. But to know that Fred is alive too is worse. To know that he has a picture of me like this, ugly and horrifying, is more than I can stand. With any other man it would be bad enough, but with Fred it’s unendurable. Give me back the ability to talk, and the first thing I’ll ask of you is to kill me. I don’t want to live.
“It may reassure you to know that there will be no difficulty . about recovering the use of the limbs proper to you, and the organs of sensation. It will take time, but there is no doubt about the final outcome.”
What nonsense, she asked herself, was this? Doctors had done wonders in the creation and fitting of artificial arms and legs, but he seemed to be promising her the use of real limbs. And he had said, “organs of sensation.” That didn’t sound as if he meant that she’d see and hear electronically. It meant—
Nonsense. He was making a promise he couldn’t keep. He was just saying that to make her feel better, the way doctors did. He was saying it to give her courage, keep her morale up, make her feel that it was worth fighting. But it wasn’t worth fighting. She had no courage to keep up. She wanted only to die.
“Perhaps you have already realized that I am not what you would call human. However, I suggest that you do not worry too much about that. I shall have no difficulty in reconstructing you properly according to your own standards.”
Then the voice ceased, and she was left alone. It was just as well, she thought. He had said too much. And she couldn’t answer, nor ask questions of her own…and she had so many.
He wasn’t human? Then what was he? And how did he come to speak a human language? And what did he mean to do with her after he had reconstructed her? And what would she look like after she was reconstructed?
There were races, she knew, that had no sense of beauty. Or if they had one, it wasn’t like a human sense of beauty. Would he consider her properly reconstructed if he gave her the right number of arms and legs, and artificial organs of sight that acted like eyes—and made her look like some creature out of Hell? Would he be proud of his handiwork, as human doctors had been known to be, when their patients ended up alive and helpless, their bodies scarred, their organs functioning feebly and imperfectly? Would he turn her into something that Fred would look at with abhorrence and disgust?
Fred had always been a little too sensitive to beauty in women. He had been able to pick and choose at his will, and until he had met her he had always chosen on the basis of looks alone. She had never understood why he had married her. Perhaps the fact that she was the one woman he knew who wasn’t beautiful had made her stand out. Perhaps, too, she told herself, there was a touch of cruelty in his choice. He might have wanted someone who wasn’t too sure of herself, someone he could count on under all circumstances. She remembered how people had used to stare at them—the handsome man and the plain woman—and then whisper among themselves, wondering openly how he had ever come to marry her. Fred had liked that; she was sure he had liked that.
He had obviously wanted a plain wife. Now he would have an ugly one. Would he want that?
She slept on her questions, and waked and slept repeatedly. And then, one day, she heard the voice again. And to her surprise, she found that she could answer back—slowly, uncertainly, at times painfully. But she could speak once more.
“We have been working on you,” said the voice. “You are coming along nicely.”
“Am I—am I—” she found difficulty asking: “How do I look?”
“Incomplete.”
“I must be horrible.”
A slight pause. “No. Not horrible at all. Not to me. Merely incomplete.”
“My husband wouldn’t think so.”
“I do not know what your husband would think. Perhaps he is not used to seeing incomplete persons. He might even be horrified at the sight of himself.”
“I—I hadn’t thought of that. But he—we’ll both be all right?”
“As a medical problem, you offer no insuperable difficulty. None at all.”
“Why—why don’t you give me eyes, if you can? Are you afraid—afraid that I might see you and find you—terrifying?”
Again a pause. There was amusement in the reply. “I do not think so. No, that is not the reason.”
“Then it’s because—as you said about Fred—I might find myself horrifying?”
“That is part of the reason. Not the major part, however. You see, I am, in a way, experimenting. Do not be alarmed, please—I shall not turn you into a monster. I have too much knowledge of biology for that. But I am not too familiar with human beings. What I know I have learned mostly from your books, and I have found that in certain respects there are inaccuracies contained in them—I must go slowly until I can check what they say. I might mend certain organs, and then discover that they do not have the proper size or shape, or that they produce slightly altered hormones. I do not want to make such mistakes, and if I do make them, I wish to correct them before they can do harm.”
“There’s no danger—?”
“None, I assure you. Internally and externally, you will be as before.”
“Internally and externally. Will I—will I be able to have children?”
“Yes. We ourselves do not have your distinctions of sex, but we are familiar with them in many other races. We know how important you consider them. I am taking care to see that the proper glandular balance is maintained in both yourself and your husband.”
