Ole Doc Methuselah Part 10

They thrust Ole Doc into the darkness with a shove which sent him against the stone wall stunning him slightly and in that instant took his kit and belt radio. The barriers clanged grimly behind him and left him ruefully rubbing his scalp in the fetid gloom.

Ole Doc pulled the tie string of his cloak and a small spotlight, which served ordinarily as a b.u.t.ton, lighted and, when readjusted, spread a conical shaft into the mote- filled chamber. The circle lighted upon a young woman who clung to the far wall, fending the glare from the eyes of a small child in her arms. She was dressed in ragged finery, pale and soiled from long imprisonment, but humili- ty she had not yet been taught. Chin up and nostrils flaring, she glared back at the light.

Turning, Ole Doc let the beam play over the remainder of this tiny cubicle and brought it to rest on the man.

He lay in dirty straw, face hidden by his arm. His fine, frilled s.h.i.+rt was ripped, his scarlet sash was blackened with grime, his trousers and small boots were white dusted and flecked with straw. Ole Doc moved a step toward him and found the woman interposed.

"You shan't touch him!"

Gently, Ole Doc removed her hand from his cloak. "I am a physician. They have permitted me to come here, saying that he is ill."

Half doubting she let him come nearer. He took a second b.u.t.ton from his cloak and set it on a stone ledge

where it shed a bright light over the rec.u.mbent young man.

The bright, hectic spots in his cheeks, the rattle in his lungs, the odor of him and the wasted condition of his hands cried tuberculosis to Ole Doc-and in the last stages.

He had not seen an advanced case of the disease for more than two hundred years and it was with great shock that he plumbed the ignorance of these people.

"This is dangerous!" he said. "A child in here with this.

No care, no understanding. Woman, how long have you been here?"

She was protecting her eyes from the light but she raised them now, proud of her endurance. "Six orbits. My child is three."

"And they permitted-" Ole Doc was angry. He had not seen brutality such as this for a long, long time. For these people were not criminals. The woman and the man both looked high born.

"Who are you?" demanded Ole Doc.

"This is Rudolf, uncrowned king of Greater Algol. I am his queen, Ayilt."

"Then," said Ole Doc, a little amazed to find himself not proof against surprises, "who is that who reigns?"

"His mother, the wife of Conore, dead six orbits gone."

Ole Doc glanced back at the doors. He was wondering how dangerous it might be to know too much about this.

And then he decided, after one glance at the frightened child. "Start at the beginning."

"You are a stranger to all these planets, that I see well," said Ayilt, seating herself on the straw. "We know almost as little about the rest of s.p.a.ce, for we are not rich nor brilliant and our planets are small, arid things, mostly stone with little land to till. And so I do not wonder that we are forgotten.

"We came from pirate stock-not the best to be sure.

And the mainstay of our population had been the terres- trial oriental who can live anywhere.

"Even so we had a happy government. There was not much. The last of the great revolutions was more than two hundred years ago and after that his family"-and she indicated the feverish, tossing boy on the straw- "stabilized the government, King Conore ruled justly and wisely and was much beloved by everyone. Since the beginning, because of our pirate origin, we discouraged

traffic with s.p.a.ce and it was well, for we had white and Scorpon stock and, outcast as it was, it often went bad.

We had many prison colonies, but little crime. King Con- ore, like his forebears, was kind to prisoners. He gave them their chance in their own society and though he would not let them return to our worlds, they prospered in their way. But the terrible error was the sentencing of women to these colonies for women, I am ashamed to say, often descend from criminal stock as criminals. And so it was that our prison settlement population was large.

"We considered prisoners hopeless. We took away promising young. We hoped that these eugenics would serve us, and perhaps eventually wipe away all traces of our shameful origin. But now and then we erred.

"Yes, we erred, King Conore took a royal princess of the Olin line to wed, forgetting she had been born in a prison settlement for she had been removed at the age of four and was a brilliant woman and beautiful.

"They reigned well and wisely until there came a day when new pirates came. No one knows from whence they came nor why but they were not of this system. They are all dead now but it was said that the leader was terres- trial.

"Unsuspected they raised revolt among our Mongolians and then struck the blow themselves. During a pageant given in honour of my husband and myself, to celebrate our marriage, the rebels threw a bomb into the royal car.

"King Conore was killed outright. His wife Pauma was seriously injured about the face and was blinded in one eye. Palace guards were prompt but not quick enough to prevent the bomb. She had them hanged, six hundred and more of them. She butchered the royal servants. She cast my husband and myself into this hole. She tried and tortured to death in all more than a million people on the six planets and then the stomachs of all decent folk turned and they tried to smash her.

"We had forgotten her origin. We had forgotten the bitterness of a beautiful woman turned ugly. We had forgotten the prison settlements.

"We were set upon by convicts-or rather the planets were for my husband and I were imprisoned here. The army, all guards, all important dignitaries were killed or disbanded by Pauma's treachery and the convicts were set in their places.

"Unlettered, revengeful, wicked, the freed prisoners be-

gan to wreck the people and the land. And they could do this for there was one convict for every three people on our planets.

"My husband and I owe our continued lives to the fear of Pauma that some other of our planets may revolt for there is hope everywhere that my husband still may arise from this tomb and govern as did his father."

"She keeps her own son here, then," said Ole Doc.

"Why not, doctor? He opposed her first measures, try- ing to point out that it was exterior influence which caused the tragedy. But she was always jealous of Rudolf for after his birth his father made too much of him and often at Pauma's expense.

"Royal line or not, Pauma was a gutter urchin. A prison settlement child. She told Rudolf that he meant to depose her and kill her. But she has to keep him here. While he lives no one dares raise a hand against Pauma for she has often threatened to execute him if this is so and then would ensue nothing but night for all Algol.

"This is why you find us here, doctor. Can you please do something for my husband? He has some fever or other and has not talked for days for when he talks he spits blood. See, the straw is spattered with it."

"We'll see what can be done," said Old Doc. And he called harshly for the guards and demanded that they return his kit.

Sir Pudno, outside the three barriers, argued about it.

He conceived it to be full of weapons and like no doctor's kit he had ever seen. But when Ole Doc finally threatened to do nothing, the kit was pa.s.sed through.

From it. when he had increased the light on the ledge, Ole Doc took a small plate and placed it on the young man's chest. By moving it about he was able to examine the lungs in their entirety, the plate only covering some two square inches at a time. He shook his head. There was little left of the fellow. He should have been dead days back. But nothing amazed Ole Doc more than the tenacity of the human body in its cling to life.

On his s.h.i.+p he could have done much better but he knew he could not ask that these be removed there. For Ole Doc was working for more than the health of this young king.

He took a vial of mutated bacteria mold and thrust it

between the youth's lips. There was no danger of choking him for the cheeks would absorb the entire dose.

Then Ole Doc gave his attention to the woman. He was amazed, when he pa.s.sed the plate over her chest to find her in such good health. Her heart was strong, her lungs perfect. The only thing she suffered was malnutrition and this on a small scale.

The child was somewhat like the mother but there was a spot upon its lungs. It cried when Ole Doc made it take a vial and the woman looked dangerous as it protested.

"Now," said Ole Doc, "I would advise you to hold your nose. This does not smell good." And he took a bomb the size of his thumb and exploded it against the floor. A dense white cloud, luminescent with ultraviolet light, sprang up and filled the chamber.

The guard without protested, opened up, rushed in and dragged Ole Doc out, thrusting blaster muzzles into his ribs. The door clanged and then the other two barriers shut. Ole Doc was hastened up the long pa.s.sageway and pushed again into the throne room.

The curtains moved slightly. Now that he had some idea of what was behind them a chill came over the Soldier of Light. For it seemed that black rods of evil were thrusting out from it.

Sir Pudno saluted and bowed: "A treatment has been given, your majesty."