Ole Doc Methuselah Part 29

Hammerford and twelve in Hartisford! The planet lines have not been interrupted. Not even a road has been blocked. The planet is rotten with it. That means one thing and one thing only. I am here to give orders. This matter is well in hand!"

Ole Doc looked at Garth and suddenly understood why the man was fighting him. Authority. Garth had battled his way to the height of all naval ambition. Since the age-old abolition of seniority leaders.h.i.+p, the dynamic peo- ple got quickly to the top. And although this was hard on juniors, it was wonderful for efficiency. Its only flaw was power-hunger, but nothing in all the Universe would work without that.

"What is the population of Green Rivers?" asked Ole Doc with a quiet born of his understanding.

"Nine million, the whole planet. Thirty cities and two hundred-odd towns. Are you going to weigh that against the good of all s.p.a.ce? No, I think not. I am in charge here. I will not be bullied by a pill roller. According to regulations, this system must be sterilized and sterilize we will!"

"By?" said Ole Doc.

"By scorching that planet. By levelling everything with rays that will last for ten years. Be sentimental if you will, surgeon, but there are fifty million men in these navies.

Do you want them to catch this stuff and die, too?"

"Admiral," said Ole Doc, "I have no desire to see anyone die. That is my profession. That is why I am here.

The Star of s.p.a.ce needs help. She is an Earth s.h.i.+p, manned by officers and people like yourselves. And she has women and children aboard."

"I'd have been saved all this if she'd been disintegrated at the start!" said Garth.

"Down there on this planet, Green Rivers, there are nine million human beings or breeds. They have homes and farms and children. They have churches and projects for celebrating the harvest. They have plans and hopes.

And they've carved a wilderness into something of which they are proud. And you," he said to the a.s.sembled, "are going to destroy it all."

It made them uncomfortable. They would not look at his face.

"You've forgotten," said Garth, "what happened during the red death. I commanded a corvette under Van der Ruys. We were at Guyper in Galaxy 809 in '71. I saw

what disease could do when it was not checked. Guyper is still a ruin and the stories I heard-"

"Are not half as bad as those which will be told of Green Rivers if you sterilize it," concluded Ole Doc.

"We don't want sickness in our fleets," said Garth, "and that's final. I give the orders here. At nineteen hours we cleanse this system. We have no choice. You yourself," he hurled at Ole Doc, "admit that you have no notion of what this may be."

"You must first let me go down there," said Ole Doc doggedly.

"And come back to reinfect? No!"

"One moment," said Ole Doc. "You have forgotten something."

Garth glared.

"I am not under your orders, admiral."

"Your s.h.i.+p is staying where it is," said Garth. "When you go back you will find a cruiser alongside."

"He'll not dare detain me," said Ole Doc.

Garth was dangerously angry. Authority was as pre- cious as blood to him. "If you defy me-"

Ole Doc said: "Admiral, I am leaving." He shook out a handkerchief and delicately fanned the air before his face before he restored it. "We've got warm in here, haven't we?"

Ole Doc left, went by the speechless men on the deck

and was taken in a gig back to the Morgue.

How very small the portable little hospital looked amid all this naval might, thought Ole Doc. The Morgue was tiny against the side of the attending cruiser which, it must be admitted, was having a very hard time due to an incessant demand to s.h.i.+ft b.u.mpers from a little four- armed being on parade.

Ole Doc went through the lock and into the cruiser. He found the commanding officer very nervous with his duty.

"I say, sir," said the captain to Ole Doc, "you've a very devil aboard, you know. He's made us do everything but wrap ourselves in silk to keep from scratching his precious s.h.i.+p. We've been awfully decent about it-"

"I want permission to leave," said Ole Doc. "I ask it as a formality, because I am going to leave anyway."

The captain was shocked. "But you can't! You absolute- ly can't! I've got orders to stay right where I am and to keep you hard alongside. The second you were sighted

lying here, Admiral Garth sent me a positive injunction-"

He fumbled on his mess table for it and found the radioscript.

"You would fire on a Soldier of Light?" said Ole Doc, dangerous.

"No, heavens no! But . . . well, sir, you haven't the power to pull us around and I am afraid the grapplers are sealed."

Ole Doc looked calculatingly at the man. In Ole Doc's pocket was a hypo gun that would make this captain agree the stars were all pink with yellow circles. The second b.u.t.ton of Ole Doc's cloak, if lighted, would fix said cap- tain in his tracks. A capsule in Ole Doc's kit released into One ventilator of the s.h.i.+p would immobilize the whole crew for hours.

But Ole Doc sighed. It was so flagrantly against the U.M.S. code to interfere with an official vessel in per- formance of its ordered duty. And if the young man disobeyed, it would be his finish in the navy. Ole Doc took a cup of coffee from a very deferential and grateful captain. A little later he went back to his s.h.i.+p.

At eighteen-thirty s.g.t., Ole Doc awoke from a short nap. He looked out of the port and saw the lovely green of the planet through its clouds. He frowned, looked at his watch and then went into the operating room.

He gargled and blew antiseptic jets into his nose and dusted himself off with a sweet smelling light which inci- dentally washed his face and hands. He puttered for a while with a new lancet Soldier Isaac had given him last Christmas and then made short pa.s.ses with it in the air as though he was cutting somebody's jugular-not Garth's, of course.

Orders. Orders were inexorable soulless things which temporarily divorced a man from rationality and made him an extension of another brain. Orders. Born out of inorganic matter contained in some pa.s.sionless book, they yet had more force than all the glib conversations of a thousand philosophers. Orders. They made men slaves.

Garth was a slave. A slave to his own orders.

Ole Doc opened a text on electro-deductive psychiatric diagnosis and turned to "paranoia." It was eighteen-fifty.

If Garth was going to blast at nineteen-

The command speaker barked up. "Galactic Admiral Garth to U.M.S. Morgue. Galactic Admiral Garth to

U.M.S. Morgue." It came over the commercial channel as well and was echoing up there in the control room.

Ole Doc went to his communications panel. He turned a switch and swung a dial. "Morgue to Garth. Over."

"Morgue. Urgent. The disease has reached the fleet.

Something must be done. What can you do? Please do something! Anything!"

"Coming aboard," said Ole Doc and shut off his panel.

They almost mobbed him trying to get him aboard this time. They rushed him to the cabin. They saluted and bowed and pushed him in.

During the few hours which had elapsed, a considerable change had taken place in Garth.