Ole Doc Methuselah Part 32

But if it came from a larynx, it was a much revered organ and one which, on occasion had made monarchs jump and thrones totter.

"Where are my old cuffs?" howled Ole Doc.

This was a trifle unnerving to the little four-armed slave, particularly since, during the entire afternoon on the Alpheca, Hippocrates had been telling stewards and cooks, in the course of lying and bragging, what a very wonderful master Ole Doc was.

"You multi-finned monkey! If you've thrown out those cuffs I'll . . . I'll throw enough water on you to make a plaster demon of you! Tie into those cabinets and locate them! On the double!"

Hippocrates hurriedly began to make pieces of paper and bits of correspondence fly out of the file case in a most realistic fashion. He was innately neat, Hippocrates.

He kept things in order. And like most neat people he kept things in order in very much his own way.

The items in question he knew very well. Ole Doc Methuselah possessed a horrible habit of writing on the cuffs of his golden shirts whenever he thought of a calcu- lation of great intricacy and these cuffs Hippocrates tore off and filed. Now for some three hundred and twenty years he had been tearing off cuffs and filing cuffs and never once had Ole Doc so much as whispered that he ever wanted to look at an old one or consult the data so compiled, working always from a magnificent memory.

And these particular items had piled up, got moldy, spilled

over and been crammed back a thousand times without ever once serving a purpose.

Hippocrates, two weeks ago, had burned the entire lot.

"Look for them, you gypsum idiot!" roared Ole Doc.

"Yes, master! I'm looking master. I'm looking every place, master!" and the filing cases and the office became a snowfall of disturbed papers, old orders, report copies, pictures of actresses and autographed intimate shots of empresses and queens. "I'm looking, master!"

Nervously Hippocrates wondered how long he could keep up this pretence. He had a phonograph-record-wise mind which, while wonderful in copying past situations, was not very good at inventing new ones. "They can't be very far, master. Where did you lose them?"

Ole Doc snapped up his head out of a liquor cabinet currently in search and glared hard enough to drill holes in plate. "Where did I lose them? Where did I lose them?

If I knew that-"

"Just which cuff did you want?" said Hippocrates, an- tennas waving hopefully.

"The sonic notes, you featherbrained fop! The sonic notes I made two years ago last Marzo. The equations! I wrote them on my cuff and I tore it off and I distinctly recall giving it-" Ole Doc looked at the wreck of the file case in sudden understanding.

"Hippocrates, what have you done with those cuffs?"

"Me? Why, master! I-"

"Don't lie to me! What have you done with them?"

Hippocrates shrank away from Ole Doc, demonstrating the force of mind over gypsum, for Hippocrates, weighing five hundred kilos in his meter of height, could bend inch iron plates with any one of his four hands. "I didn't mean any harm. I... I was house-cleaning. This ship, the poor Morgue, the poor, poor Morgue! It isn't as if she was human. And she all cluttered up with junk, junk, junk and I-" He gulped and plunged. "I burned them!" He shut his eyes convulsively and kept them shut.

The deck plates of the U.M.S. portable hospital, howev- er, did not open and engorge him and the planet on which they were resting did not fall in halves. After several seconds of terrible tension, Hippocrates risked opening his eyes. Instantly he went down on his knees.

Ole Doc was slumped in a chair, his head in his hands, a reasonable facsimile of intense despair.

"Don't sell me," begged Hippocrates. "Don't sell me,

master. I won't ever burn anything again. I'll let the whole place fill up with anything you want to bring aboard.

Anything! Even women, master. Even women!!"

Ole Doc didn't look up and Hippocrates wandered in his gaze, finally rising and tottering to his galley. He looked at it as one who sees home for the last time. A phrase rose out of "Tales of the s.p.a.ce Pioneers" of a man saying good-bye to his trusty griffon and Hippocrates, sniffling dangerously-because it might soften his upper lip-said, "Good-bye, old pal. Many the day we've fit through thick and thin, agin horrible and disastrous odds, battlin' our way to glory. And now we got to part-"

His eyes caught on a bottle of ink and he took a long swig of it. Instantly he felt better. His spirits rose up to a point where he felt he might make a final appeal.

"Why," he said to his master, "you want cuff?"

Ole Doc dropped the dispatch he had been clutching, and Hippocrates retrieved it.

OLE DOC METHUSELAH.

MORGUE.

HUB CITY GALAXY 16.

WILHELM GIOTINI YESTERDAY ENDOWED UNI-.

VERSAL MEDICAL SOCIETY WITH ALL REVENUE.

FROM HIS LANDS IN FOMALTON SYSTEM. PRO-.

CEED AND SECURE. FOMALTON ADVISED YOUR.

FULL AUTHORITY TO ACCEPT PROVISIONS OF.

GIOTINI WILL.

THORPE,.

ADJUTANT.

CENTRE.

Appended to this was a second dispatch:

DISTRESS OPERATIONAL PRIORITY.

ANY SOLDIER OF LIGHT ANYWHERE.

FOMALTON FULL QUARANTINE UNIDENTIFIED.

DISEASE BEG AID AND a.s.sISTANCE.

LEBEL.

GENERALISSIMO.

COMMANDING.

And yet a third message:

OLE DOC METHUSELAH.

MORGUE.

HUB CITY GALAXY 16.

YOUR INFORMATION WILHELM GIOTINI EX-.

PIRED EARTHDAY U.T. OF MIND CONGESTION.

FOLLOWING ATTACK BY a.s.sa.s.sIN USING SONIC.

WEAPON. AS REQUESTED BODY PRESERVED.

PENDING YOUR ARRIVAL FOMALTON.