Ole Doc Methuselah Part 7

looking for us. By the next day your Society will have banished us or called us to a hearing to banish us. It is little time. We have provisions to leave this galaxy. Somewhere, maybe Andromeda, we can find outlaws and join them-"

Ole Doc looked severely at him.

Hippocrates stepped humbly aside. He cast a glance at the woman he had saved and at his master. He saw that things would be different now.

It was a bright morning. Dawn came and bathed the Morgue until every golden plate of her gleamed ir- idescently. The gra.s.s of the field sparkled with dew and a host of birds swooped and played noisily in the rose and azure sky.

Junction City stirred groggily. It scrubbed its eyes, tried to hide from the light, scrubbed again and with aching heads and thick tongues arose.

No comments were made on the revel. The Comet Saloon was shut tightly. Blanchard's house swung its doors idly in the wind. But no one commented. Everyone stum- bled about and said nothing to anyone about anything.

So pa.s.sed the first few hours of the morning. People began to take an interest in existence when a System Pa- trol cruiser swung in and with a chemical rocket blast settled in the main s.p.a.ceport.

Hippocrates, sweeping the steps of the port ladder, looked worriedly at the newcomer and then threw down his broom. He rolled into the main salon where he knew Ole Doc was.

Opening his mouth to speak three successive times, Hippocrates still did not. Ole Doc was sitting in an atti- tude of thought from which no mere worldly noise ever roused him. Presently he rose and paced about the table.

He paid no heed whatever to Hippocrates.

Finally the small being broke through all codes. "Mas- ter, they are coming We still have time. We still have time! I do not want you to be taken!"

But he might as well have addressed the clouds which drifted smoothly overhead. With long paces the doctor was walking out a problem. His appearance was much improved over last night for all burns had vanished the night before and the arm was scatheless. However, it lacked days until treatment time and the rule never varied. Ole Doc looked a little grey, a little worn, and

there were lines about his mouth and in the corners of his eyes.

Once he walked to a cabinet where he kept papers and threw back a plast-leaf and looked at a certificate there.

He stood for a long time thus and finally broke off to stand in the doorway of Alicia's cabin where the girl still slept, lovely, vital and young.

Hippocrates tried to speak again. "We can take her and the s.h.i.+p still has time. They have not yet come into the town to get reports-"

Ole Doc stood looking sadly at the girl. His slave went back to the s.p.a.ceport and stared at the town.

A little wind rippled the tops of the gra.s.s. The silver- plated river flowed smoothly on. But Hippocrates saw no beauty in this day. His sharp attention was only for the group of System officers who went into the town, stayed a s.p.a.ce and then came out towards the s.h.i.+p, followed by several idlers and two dogs and a small boy.

Rus.h.i.+ng back to the salon, Hippocrates started to speak. His entrance was abrupt and startled Alicia, who now, dressed and twice as lovely as before, stood beside Ole Doc at the file cabinet.

"Master!" pleaded Hippocrates.

But Ole Doc had no ears for his slave. He saw only Alicia. And Alicia had but scant attention for Hippoc- rates; she was entirely absorbed in what Ole Doc had been saying. It seemed to the little slave that there was a kind of horror about her expression as she looked at the doctor.

Then Ole Doc opened up the plast-leaf and showed her something there. She looked. She turned white and trem- bled. Her gaze on Ole Doc was that of a hypnotized but terrified bird. With an unconscious movement she drew back her skirt from him and then steadied herself against the table.

"And so, my dear," said Ole Doc. "Now you know.

Pardon me for what I proposed, for misleading you."

She drew farther back and began to stammer something about undying grat.i.tude and her father's thanks and her own hopes for his future and many other things that all tumbled together into an urgent request to get away.

Ole Doc smiled sadly. He bowed to her and his golden silk s.h.i.+rt rustled against his jewelled belt. "Good-bye, my dear."

Hastily, hurriedly, she said good-bye and then, hand to

throat, ran past the slave and down the ladder and across the s.p.a.ceport to town.

Hippocrates watched her go, looked at her as she skirt- ed the oncoming officers and started toward a crowd in the square which seemed to be listening to an address by her father. The cheers were faint only by distance.

Hippocrates scratched his antenna thoughtfully for a mo- ment and then turned all attention to the oncoming officers. He bristled and cast a glance at the blaster rack.

"h.e.l.lo up there!" said a smooth, elegant young man in the scarlet uniform of the System Patrol.

"n.o.body here!" stated Hippocrates.

"Be quiet," said Ole Doc behind him. "Come aboard, gentlemen."

The idlers and the small boy and the dogs stayed out, held by Hippocrates' glare. The salon was shortly full of scarlet.

"Sir," said the officer languidly, "we have audacity I know in coming here. But as you are senior to anyone else . . . well, could you tell us anything about a strange call from this locale? We hate to trouble you. But we heard a call and we came. We had no details. Five people, fellow named Blanchard and his friends, ran away into the coun- try or some place. But no riot. Could you possibly inform us of anything, sir?"

Ole Doc smiled. "I hear there was a riot among the five," he said. "But I have no details. Just rumor."

"Somebody is jolly well pulling somebody's toe," said the languid young man. "Dull. Five men vanis.h.i.+ng is nothing to contact us about. But a riot now." He sighed at the prospect and then slumped in boredom. "No radioman aboard any s.h.i.+p here sent such a message, they say, and yet we have three monitors who heard it. Hoax, what?"

"Quite," smiled Ole Doc. "A hoax!"

"Well, better be getting on." And they left, courteously and rather humbly refusing refreshment.

It was a very staggered little slave who watched them go. The small boy lingered and gazed at the s.h.i.+p as though trying to put a finger on something in his mind. He was a very adventurous boy. He frowned, puzzled.

"Man child," said Hippocrates, "do you recall a riot?"

The little boy shook his head. "I ... I kind of forget.

Everybody seems to think maybe there should have been one-"

"Do you remember anybody named Blanchard getting killed?" thrust Hippocrates, producing a cake mystically from the pantry behind him.

"Oh, he didn't get killed. Everybody knows that. He ran away when Mr. Elston came."

"You remember a Soldier of Light addressing a crowd last night?"

"What? Did he?"

"No," said Hippocrates, firmly. "He was not out of this s.h.i.+p all day yesterday nor last night either." And he tossed down the cake which was avidly seized.

Hippocrates stomped back into the salon.

He did not know what he expected to find, but certainly not such normality. Ole Doc was playing a record about a fiddler of Saphi who fiddled for a crown and, while hum- ming the air, was contentedly filling up a cuff with a number of calculations.

With a gruff voice, Hippocrates said, "You poured pow- der in the water to make everyone forget, to be angry and then forget. And it's worn off. n.o.body remembers any- thing. Mr. Elston and Alicia have promised not to speak. I see it. But you should have told me. I worried for you.

You should have told me! n.o.body will ever know and I was sick with what would happen!"

Ole Doc, between hums, was saying, "Now with the twenty thousand that I got back, and with what is in the safe, I have just enough to cruise to ... da, dum, de da ...

yes. Yes, by Georgette, I shall!" He threw down the pencil and got up, smiling.