Ole Doc Methuselah Part 41

They went in and found a cl.u.s.ter of Achnoids standing around the first vat. O'Hara thrust them aside and looked and grew even paler. He barked a question and was answered.

"Well?"

'Twenty thousand vats," said O'Hara, "In the third week."

"Babies?" said Ole Doc.

"Females," said O'Hara, and then more faintly, "fe- males."

Ole Doc looked around and found Hippocrates. "Saw a couple lakes coming in. With all the other fauna you have on this planet, fishing ought to be interesting."

O'Hara straightened as though he had had an electric shock. "Fishing!"

"Fishing," said Ole Doc. "You are the man who is in charge here. I'm just an innocent bystander."

"Now look!" said O'Hara in horror. "You've got to help me." He tried to clutch Ole Doc's cape as the Soldier of Light moved away. "You've got to answer some riddles for me! Why is the gestation period three months? Why do they develop in six months to raging beasts! Why are they so antisocial? What have I done wrong in these vats and what can I do to correct it! You've got to help me?"

"I," said Ole Doc, "am going fishing. No doubt to a bacteriologist, a biochemist or a mutologist your problem would be fascinating. But after all, it's just a problem. I am afraid it is not going to upset the Universe. Good day."

O'Hara stood in trembling disbelief. Here was a Soldier of Light, the very cream of the medical profession, a man who, although he looked thirty was probably near a thou- sand years old in medical practice of all kinds. Here was a member of the famous Seven Hundred, the Universal Medical Society who had taken the new and dangerous developments out of political hands centuries ago and had made the universe safe for man's dwelling and who pa- trolled it now. Here he was, right here in O'Hara's sight.

Here was succor. Here was the lighthouse, the panacea, the miracle he needed.

He ran beside Ole Doc's rapid striding toward the compound gate. "But sir! It's thirty-eight thousand human beings! It's my professional reputation. I can't kill them. I don't dare turn them loose on this planet! I'll have to desert this station!"

"Desert it then," said Ole Doc. "Open the gate, Hippoc- rates."

And they left the distracted O'Hara weeping in the dust. "Get my fishing gear," said Ole Doc.

Hippocrates lingered. It was not unlike him to linger when no emergency was in the wind. His antennae felt around in the air and he hefted the 110 mm. with three hands while he scratched his head with the fourth.

"Well?" barked Ole Doc.

Hippocrates looked straight at him. He was somewhat of a s.p.a.ce lawyer, Hippocrates. "Article 726 of Code 2, paragraph 80, third from the top of page 607 of the Law Regulating the Behaviour of Members of the Universal Medical Society to wit: 'It shall also be unlawful for the Soldier of Light to desert a medical task of which he has

been apprised when it threatens the majority of the human population of any planet.' "

Ole Doc looked at his little slave in some annoyance.

"Are you going to get my fishing gear?"

"Well?" said Hippocrates.

Ole Doc glared. "Did I invent the Department of Agri- culture? Am I accountable for their mistakes? And are they so poor they can't send their own man relief?"

"Well-" said Hippocrates. "No."

"Then you still expect me to spend a year here nursing babies?"

Hippocrates spun his antennae around thoughtfully and then brightened up. He put down the 110 mm. and there was a blur and a big divot in the mud where he had been.

Ole Doc kept walking toward the lake he had seen at the far end of the Savannah and exactly three minutes and eight seconds later by his chronograph, Hippocrates was back beside him with about a thousand pounds of rods, tackle, and lunch carried in two hands and a force umbrel- la and the 110 mm. carried in another. With his fourth hand he held a book on lures and precautions for strange planets and from this he was busily absorbing whole pages at a glance.

In this happy holiday mood they came to the lake, dried up a half acre of mud with one blast of the 110, pitched a canopy at the water's edge complete with table and chairs, made a wharf by extending a log over the water and generally got things ready to fish.

Hippocrates mixed a cool drink and baited a hook while Ole Doc took his ease and drank himself into a com- fortable frame of mind.

"Wonder what I'll get," said Ole Doc. He made his first cast, disposed himself comfortably on the log to watch the motor lure tow its bait around the surface of the lake.

The huge jungle trees reared over the water and the air was still and hot. The yellow lake glowed like amber under a yellow sky. And they began to catch a strange a.s.sortment of the finny tribes.

Hippocrates swatted at the mosquitoes for a while.

Their beaks got dented against his hide but they annoyed him with their high whine. Finally he was seized with inspiration-direct from "Camping and Hiking Jaunts on Strange Worlds"-and unfolded the force umbrella. It was no more than a stick with a driver in it but its directional lobes could be changed in intensity and area until they

covered half a square mile. It was a handy thing to have in a rainstorm on such planets as Sargo where the drops weigh two pounds. And it was handy here where it pushed, on low intensity, the mosquitoes out from the canopy and put them several hundred yards away where they could zzt in impotent frenzy and thwarted rage.

Hippocrates put the stick on full so its beams, leaning against the surrounding trees, would keep it in place, and devoted himself to another book he brought out of his knapsack, "Wild Animals I Wish I Hadn't Known."

And into this quiet and peaceful scene moved a jetbomb at the silent speed of two thousand miles an hour. It came straight down from a silver speck which hung in the saffron sky. It had enough explosive in it to knock a house flat. It was armed.

Ole Doc had just hooked a pop-eyed monstrosity, Hip- pocrates had just reached the place where Daryl van Daryl was being swallowed alive by a ramposaurus on Ranameed, and the bomb hit.

It struck the top of the force screen and detonated. The lobes of the screen cantilevered against the trees and kicked six down so hard their roots stuck quivering in the air.

The canopy went flat. The log went into the water and the jug of rumades leaped sideways and smote Hippocrates on the back of the neck.

For an instant neither Hippocrates nor Ole Doc had any idea of what had happened. It might have been a fish or a ramposaurus. But in a moment, from the smell in the air, they knew it was a bomb.

Hippocrates instantly went into Chapter Twenty-one paragraph nine of "Tales of the s.p.a.ce Pioneers," socked the b.u.t.t of the 110 mm. into the ground, looked at the silver image in the magnetosight and let drive with two thumbs on the trips.

The whole air over them turned flaming red. Another half dozen trees collapsed from concussion. Ole Doc dragged himself out of the water and looked up through the haze at the target.

"Train right!" he said. "Up six miles. Now left!"

But although they kept firing, the silver speck had picked up enough speed toward the zenith to parallel the sizzling, murderous charges and in a moment Hippocrates, with the sight flashing green for out-of range, stopped shooting.

Ole Doc looked at the upset rumade. He looked at his

rod being towed aimlessly across the lake. He looked at Hippocrates.

"Missed," said Hippocrates brightly.

"Is there a force screen over the Morgue?" snapped Ole Doc.

"Certainly, master."

"Well, it probably needs reinforcing. Grab up the re- mains here and be quick about it."

While Ole Doc strode rapidly through the jungle to the old landing field, blasting his way through the creepers with a gun in each hand, Hippocrates hastily bundled the remains and scurried along at his heels.

They entered the corridor through the Morgue's force field and came to the side of the ship. "At least she's all right," said Ole Doc.

Hippocrates bounced in and stowed the tattered gear while Ole Doc pulled down the switches on the battle panel. After a few minor accidents he had had a complete band of force fields installed and he turned them all on now.