Badge of Infamy, Lester del Rey [best romance novels of all time .txt] 📗

XIII (Susceptibility)

 

Doc could feel the tension in the village where GHQ was temporarily

located long before they were close enough for details to register. The

people were gathered in clusters, staring at the sky where the station

must be. A few were pacing up and down, gesticulating with tight sweeps

of their arms.

 

One woman suddenly went into even more violent action. She leaped into

the air and then took off at a rapid trot, then a run. Her hands were

tearing at her clothes and her mouth seemed to be working violently. She

was halfway to the top of the nearest dune before a rifle cracked. She

dropped, to twitch once and lie still.

 

Almost with her death, another figure leaped from one of the houses, his

face bare of the necessary aspirator. He took off at a violent run, but

he was falling from lack of air before the bullet ended his struggles.

 

The people suddenly began to move apart, as if trying to get away from

each other. For weeks they had faced the horror with courage; now it was

finally too much for them.

 

Tension mounted as no news came from the cities. Doc noticed that it

seemed to aggravate or speed up the disease. He saw three men shot in

the next half-hour.

 

He was trying to calm them with word of a possible cure for the plague,

but their reactions were as curiously dull as those of Jake had been. As

he spoke, they faced him with set expressions. At his mention of the

need for the blood of young children, they turned from him, sullenly

silent.

 

Jake came over, nodding unhappily. "It's what I was afraid might happen,

Doc. George Lynn! Tell Doc what's wrong."

 

Lynn was reluctant, but he finally stumbled out his explanation. "It

ain't like you, Doc. Comes from that Lobby woman you got. It's her dirty

idea. We've seen the Lobby doctors cutting open our kids, poisoning

their blood, and bleeding them dry. That ain't gonna happen again, Doc.

You tell her it ain't!"

 

Doc swore as he realized their ignorance. An unexplained vaccination

looked like poisoning of the blood. But he couldn't understand the

bleeding part until Jake filled him in.

 

"Northport infant's wing. Each department has its own blood bank and

donation is compulsory. Southport started it a couple months ago, too."

 

The long arm of the Lobby had reached out again. Now if he ever got them

to try the treatment, it would be only after long sessions of preparing

them with the facts, and there was hardly enough time for the crucial

work!

 

By afternoon, Judge Ben Wilson reached them. His voice shook with

fatigue as he climbed up to address the crowd through a power megaphone.

"Southport's going crazy." He had to pause for breath between each

sentence. "Earth's pulling back all the important people. They're

packing them into the ships. They're leaving only colonials with no

Earth rights. Those ships left when they decided the plague was coming

from here. They won't let anybody back until the plague is licked. There

won't be an Earth technician on Mars tomorrow."

 

"No bombs?" someone called.

 

"No bombs. The ships must have started before you rebelled, maybe meant

honestly to save their own kind. But now it's a military action, and

don't think it won't mean trouble. The poor devils in the city bet on

the wrong horse. Now they can't run their food factories or anything

else for long. Not without technicians. They've got to whip you now. Up

to this time, they've been fighting for the Lobbies. Now they'll fight

you for their own bellies to get your supplies. And they've still got

shuttle rockets and fuel for them. Now beat it. I gotta confer with

Jake."

 

Doc started after the judge, but Dr. Harkness caught his arm and drew

him aside. Chris followed.

 

"I've found another epidemic," Harkness told them. "Over at Marconi.

It's kept me on the run all night, and now half the village is down with

Starts like a common cold, runs a fair fever, and the skin breaks

out all over with bright red dots...."

 

He went on describing it. Chris began asking him about what medical

supplies he had brought with him, pilfered from Northport hospital. She

seemed to know what it was, but refused to say until she saw the cases.

Doc also preferred to wait. Sometimes things weren't as bad as they

seemed, though usually they were worse.

 

Marconi was dead to all outward appearances, with nobody on the streets.

It had been a village of great hopes a week before, since this was where

they had decided to experiment with switching the people back to

Earth-normal. They'd had the best chance of survival of anyone on Mars

until this came up.

 

Three people lay on the beds in the first house Harkness led them to.

The room was darkened, and a man was stumbling around, trying to tend

the others, though the little spots showed on his skin. He grinned

weakly. "Hi, Doc. I guess we're making a lot of trouble, ain't we?"

 

Chris gave Doc no chance to answer. "Just as I thought. Measles! Plain

old-fashioned measles."

 

"Figured so," the sick man said. "Like my brother back on Earth."

 

The others looked doubtful, but Doc reassured them. Chris should know;

she'd worked in a swanky hospital where the patients were mostly

Earth-normal. Measles was one of the diseases which was foiled by the

metabolism switch. Well, at least they wouldn't have to be quarantined

here.

 

Chris finished treating the family with impersonal efficiency,

discussing the symptoms loudly with Harkness. "It's a good thing it

isn't serious!"

 

"No," Harkness answered bitterly. "Not serious. It's only killed five

children and three adults so far!"

 

"It would, here," Doc agreed unhappily. He led Chris out of the room on

the pretext of washing his hands. "It's serious enough to force us to

abandon the whole idea of going back to Earth-normal. Measles today,

smallpox, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and everything else tomorrow.

These people have lived Mars-normal so long their natural immunity has

been destroyed. On Earth where the disease was everywhere, kids used to

pick up some immunity with constant exposure, even without what might be

called a case of the disease. Here, the blood has no reason to build

antibodies. They can be killed by things people used to laugh at. How

the disease got here, I don't know. But it's here. So we'll have to

give up the idea of switching back to Earth-normal."

 

He gathered up one of the kits and started toward the other houses. "And

Lord knows how long it will take to get the blood for the other

treatment, even if it works."

 

They worked as a team for a while, with Harkness frowning as he watched

Chris. Finally the young doctor stopped Chris outside the fifth house.

"These are my patients, Dr. Ryan. I left the Lobby because I didn't

believe colonials were mere livestock. I still feel the same. I

appreciate your help in diagnosis and methods of treatment. But I can't

let you handle my patients this way."

 

"Dan!" She swung around with eyes glazing. "Dan, are you going to stand

for that?"

 

"I think you'd better wait in the tractor, Chris."

 

He was lucky enough to catch the kit she threw at him before its

precious contents spilled. But it wasn't luck that guided his hand to

the back of her skirt hard enough to leave it stinging.

 

Her face froze and she stormed out. A moment later they heard the

tractor start off.

 

But Doc had no time to think of her. He and Harkness split up and began

covering the streets, house by house, while he passed on the word to

abandon the metabolism switch and go back to Mars-normal.

 

Jake sent two other doctors to relieve them late in the evening. Things

were somewhat quieter at GHQ as Doc reported the events at Marconi.

 

"Where's Dr. Ryan?" Jake asked at last.

 

Doc exchanged glances with Harkness. "She isn't in the lab?"

 

"Wasn't there an hour ago."

 

Doc cursed himself for letting her go. With the knowledge that the radio

in the mike was disabled, she'd obviously grabbed the first chance to

report back. And with her had gone news of the only cure they had found.

 

Jake took it as philosophically as he could, though it was a heavy blow

to his hopes. They spent half the night looking for her tractor, on the

chance that she might have gotten lost or broken down, but there was no

sign of it.

 

She was waiting in the laboratory when he returned at dawn. Her face was

dirty and her uniform was a mess. But she was smiling. She got up to

greet him, holding out two large bottles.

 

"Infant plasma--straight from Southport. And if you think I had it easy

lying my way in and out of the hospital, you're a fool, Dan Feldman. If

the man who took my place there hadn't been a native idiot, I never

would have gotten away with it."

 

The things he had suspected could still be right, he realized. She could

have reported everything to the Lobby. It was a better explanation than

her vague account of bullying her way in and out. But she'd had a rough

drive, and he wanted the plasma. Curiously, he was glad to have her back

with him. He reached out a hand for the bottles.

 

She put the bottle on the table and grabbed up a short-bladed knife.

"Not so fast," she cried. Her eyes were blazing now. "Dan Feldman, if

you touch those bottles until you've crawled across the floor on your

face and apologized for the way you treated me the last few days, I'll

cut your damned heart out."

 

He shook his head, chuckling at the picture she made. There were times

when he could almost see why he'd married her.

 

"All right, Chris," he gave in. "I'll be darned if I'll crawl, but

you've earned an apology. Okay?"

 

She sighed uncertainly. Then she nodded and began changing for work.

XIV (Immunity)

 

 

They worked through the day in what seemed to be armed truce. There was

no coffee waiting for him when he awoke next, as he'd come to expect,

but he didn't comment. He went to where she was already working,

checking on the results of the plasma on the cultures.

 

The response had been slower than with the mouse blood, but now the bugs

seemed to be dead. The filaments were destroyed, and there were no signs

of the big cells. It seemed to be a cure, at least in the culture

bottles.

 

"We'll need volunteers," he decided. "There should be animals, but we

don't have any. At least this stuff isn't toxic. We need a natural

immune and someone infected. Two of each, so one can be treated and the

other used for a control. Makes four. Not enough to be sure, but it will

have to do."

 

"Two," Chris corrected. "You're not infected, I am."

 

"Two others," he agreed. "I'll get them from Jake."

 

Most of GHQ was out on the street, but Doc found Jake inside the big

schoolroom where he enjoyed his early morning bracky and coffee. The

chief listened and agreed at once, turning to the others in the room.

 

"Who's had the jumping headache? Okay, Swanee. Who never had it?" He

blinked in surprise as three men nodded out of the eight present. "I

guess you go, Tom."

 

The two men stood up, tamping out their weeds, and went