Ole Doc Methuselah Part 6

Mayor Zoran yelled to some of the men to force ports of the ship and two Centauri men launched their heavy bulks into the task. Somebody in the crowd yelled to keep clear of the tubes and there was an immediate swing to give them berth.

Several pocket torches appeared and turned ship and field into blazing daylight. People gaped up at the golden ship or yelled encouragement to the two Centauri men who were still working at the s.p.a.ceport. A little boy managed to climb to the top of the vessel and with great initiative went to work with a slingshot handle prying up the emergency entrance hatch. People noticed him and howled encouragement at him. His father bellowed at him for a moment trying to get him to come down and then, realizing he had a hero on his hands, began to point and tell people it was his son. The boy vanished into the ship and there was an immediate scream from several women who had just realized that Blanchard might be in there, still alive, after killing Ole Doc.

At this the Centauri men renewed their efforts and bent several iron bars into pretzels working on the door. Sud- denly it gave way, but not through their efforts. The little boy had opened it from the inside, but when a horde would have bounded through it, the child barred their way with a shrill yell of protest. A moment later the effort withdrew hastily.

But it was not the boy who had turned them. Charred and battered and breathing hard after great exertion, Ole Doc filled the s.p.a.ceport. He was holding a small blaster in his right hand and smoke idled up from its muzzle. He became conscious of it and thrust it into his holster.

The startled silence suddenly burst. From three thou- sand throats volleyed a spontaneous cheer, a cheer which beat in great waves against the ship, almost rocking it.

The enthusiasm fled out from the field and smote against the surrounding hills to come back redoubled and meet the new, louder bursts which sprang up amid tossed hats.

Ole Doc was trying to say something but each attempt was battered back and drowned in the tumult. Finally, when he had for the fifth time raised his hand for silence, they let him speak.

"I want to tell Mayor Zoran-"

There were new cheers for Mayor Zoran and he came forward.

"Tell your people," said Ole Doc, "that their money is safe."

There was bedlam in answer to this.

"You had better," said Ole Doc when he could again speak, "drain your water systems, all the reservoirs. I ...

well-Just drain them and don't drink any more water until you do."

They cheered this, for they would have cheered any- thing.

When he could talk, Ole Doc called for Hippocrates.

But no Hippocrates answered. People went off eagerly looking for the doctor's slave but there was no instant result.

Finally Ole Doc thanked them and put the little boy outside and, despite many yells for reappearance, kept the s.p.a.ceport firmly closed.

Still, there was much to talk about and the crowd, half hopeful that Ole Doc would come back, hung about the ship. Some s.p.a.ce rangers found the ashes and the two identification tags and rumours began to fly around that it hadn't been Blanchard who had gone into the ship. New waves of pessimism went through the crowd. If that was Blanchard there, in the ashes, then what had happened to the money. Maybe it had been burned with Blanchard.

People began to drift back to the ship and scream for Ole Doc to come out again.

Several lost interest and recalling the doctor's admoni- tion to drain the reservoirs, followed the lead of a local common physician who sought some reflected glory and went off to do what they were told.

But those who remained were suddenly stricken in their tracks by the sound, peculiarly fiendish and high-pitched, of a dynamo within the ship. They first mistook it for some wail of a savage beast and then identified it. Shortly

afterwards lights began to arc in the midship ports and so brilliant was their flare that they sent green, yellow and red tongues licking across the field and lighted up the rows of attentive faces near at hand.

Other dynamos began to cut in and the golden ship vibrated from bow to tubes. There were some who held that she was about to take off and so went well back from her but others, more intelligent, found in these weird manifestations no such message-nor any message at all- and so hung about in fascination.

It was the little boy, hero of the earlier episode, who again adventured. He climbed up to the emergency en- trance hatch which was still open and started to climb down.

Within the instant he shot forth again, his face ghastly in the torches. He came stumbling down the hull ladder and collapsed at its foot. One hand on the last rung kept him from sinking to the ground and in this position he was ill.

Eager people crowded about him and lifted him up, volleying questions at him. But the child only screamed and beat at them to be let go. When he was finally released he sped nimbly past the crowd and sought sob- bing comfort in his mother's arms.

Rumors began to double, then. There were those in the crowd who held that some devil's work was afoot inside that ship. Others hazarded the wild theory that it had not been the doctor at all who had come to the s.p.a.ceport, but Blanchard in the doctor's clothes. Others began to retell mysterious and awful things they had heard about the Soldiers of Light, doctors whom no one knew, who were too powerful to be under any government. Somebody be- gan to say that the System Patrol cruisers should be informed and shortly an authoritative youth, a radioman on one of the s.p.a.ceships in the other port, walked away to send the message, promising a patrol ship there before morning.

With this new stimulus reaching out, people of the town began to cl.u.s.ter back around the ship in great numbers and there were many ugly comments in the crowd. Finally Mayor Zoran himself was called upon for action and he was pressed to the fore where he rapped imperiously upon the s.p.a.ceport of the Morgue.

The weird screaming dyanmos whined on. The lights flashed and arced without interruption. An hour went by.

People remembered then something they had heard about Soldiers of Light, that it was enough to be banished for them to interfer with politics anywhere. This convinced them that something violent should be done to the man in that ship and blasters began to appear here and there and a battering ram was brought up to force the door. n.o.body would risk the emergency port.

The difference between the loud whinings within and the sudden silence was so sharp that the battering ram crew hesitated. In the silence ears rang. Crickets could be heard chirping near the river. No one spoke.

With a slow moan, the s.p.a.ceport opened from within.

Bathed in the glare of half a hundred torches, a grey- haired, n.o.ble visaged man stood there. He looked calmly down upon the crowd.

"My friends," he said, "I am Alyn Elston."

They gaped at him. A few came nearer and stared. The man appeared tired but the very image of the pictures on all the literature.

"I am here, my friends, to tell you that tomorrow morning you shall have all your money returned to you or shall be given work on certain projects I envision here- and will finance-as you yourselves may elect. I have the money with me. I need the records and I am sure morning will do wonderfully well. However, if any of you doubt and can show me your receipts I shall begin now-"

They knew him then. They knew him and their relief was so great after all their suspicions and worries that the cheers they sent forth reached twice as far as those they had given Ole Doc. The rolling thunderbolts of sound made the ship and town shiver. Men began to join hands and dance in crazy circles. Hats went skyward. They cheered and cheered until there was nothing to their voices but harsh croaks. And this called for wetness and so they flooded into the town.

They carried Elston on their shoulders and hundreds fought with one another to clasp his hand and promise him devotion for ever.

In a very short while they would let him speak again.

And he would speak and they would speak and the avail- able supply of liquors would run low indeed in Junction City.

Back aboard the Morgue, had they not been so loud, had sounded a strange series of thumps and rattles which

betokened the disposal in the garbage disintegrator of certain superfluous ma.s.s which had been, at the last, in the doctor's road.

And now quietly, palely, the real and only hero of the affair, utterly forgotten, worked feebly on himself, trying to take away the burn scars and the weariness. He gave it up. His heart was too ill with worry. He stumbled tiredly toward his cabin where he hoped to get new clothes. Near the s.p.a.ceport he stopped, struck numb.

Hippocrates was standing there and in the little being's four arms lay cradled a burden which was very precious to Ole Doc. Alicia Elston's bare throat stretched out whitely, her lips were partly opened, her bright hair fell in a long, dripping waterfall. About Hippocrates' feet spread drops of water.

Doc's alarm received a welcome check.

"She is well," said Hippocrates. "When I walked along the river bank I found three men taking her from a chest.

I killed two but the third threw her in the river. I killed the third and threw them in but walked for many minutes on the river bottom before I found her. I ran with her to the nearest s.p.a.ceship and there we gave her the pulmotor and oxygen. I made her lie warmly in blankets until she slept and then I brought her here. What was this crowd, Master? What was all the cheering?"

"How did you come to find her?" cried Ole Doc, hastily guiding his slave into a cabin where Alicia could be laid in a bed and covered again.

"I ... I was sad. I walked along the river. I see better at night and so saw them." But this, obviously, was not what interested Hippocrates. He saw no reason to dwell upon the small radar tube he had put in her pocket so he would not have to go over two square miles of Junction City at some future date when Ole Doc wanted a message sent to her. There were many things he did which he saw no reason to discuss with an important mind like Ole Doc's.

Disregarding the joy and relief and thankfulness which was flooding from his master, Hippocrates stood st.u.r.dily in the cabin door until Ole Doc started to leave.

"I don't know how I can ever-"

Hippocrates interrupted his thanks.

"You have Miss Elston, master. The s.p.a.ceways are wide. We can go far. By tomorrow morning it will be known that a Soldier of Light has entered social relations and politics. By tomorrow night the System Patrols will be