Badge of Infamy by Lester del Rey (easy novels to read txt) 📕

have an anodyne tablet that would kill any ache. He

finally found the pill and swallowed it, fumbling with the aspirator lip

opening.

 

The aspirator meant life to him now, he suddenly realized. He twisted to

stare at the tiny charge-indicator for the battery. It showed

half-charge. Then he saw that someone had attached another battery

beside it. He puzzled briefly over it, but his immediate concern was for

shelter.

 

Apparently he was still where he had been knocked out. There was a light

coming from the little station, and he headed toward that, fumbling for

the few quarters that represented his entire fortune.

 

Maybe it would have been better if the tubemen had killed him. Batteries

were an absolute necessity here, food and shelter would be expensive,

and he had no skills to earn his way. At most, he had only a day or so

left. But meantime, he had to find warmth before the cold killed him.

 

The tiny restaurant in the station was still open, and the air was warm

inside. He pulled off the aspirator, shutting off the battery.

 

The counterman didn't even glance up as he entered. Feldman gazed at the

printed menu and flinched.

 

"Soup," he ordered. It was the cheapest item he could find.

 

The counterman stared at him, obviously spotting his Earth origin. "You

adjusted to synthetics?"

 

Feldman nodded. Earth operated on a mixed diet, with synthetics for all

who couldn't afford the natural foods there. But Mars was all synthetic.

Many of the chemicals in food could exist in either of two forms, or

isomers; they were chemically alike, but differently crystallized.

Sometimes either form was digestible, but frequently the body could use

only the isomer to which it was adjusted.

 

Martian plants produced different isomers from those on Earth. Since the

synthetic foods turned out to be Mars-normal, that was probably the more

natural form. Research designed to let the early colonists live off

native food here had turned up an enzyme that enabled the body to handle

either isomer. In a few weeks of eating Martian or synthetic food, the

body adapted; without more enzyme, it lost its power to handle

Earth-normal food.

 

The cheapness of synthetics and the discovery that many diseases common

to Earth would not attack Mars-normal bodies led to the wide use of

synthetics on Earth. No pariah could have been expected to afford

Earth-normal.

 

Feldman finished the soup, and found a cigarette that was smokable. "Any

objections if I sit in the waiting room?"

 

He'd expected a rejection, but the counterman only shrugged. The waiting

room was almost dark and the air was chilly, but there was normal

pressure. He found a bench and slumped onto it, lighting his cigarette.

He'd miss the smokes--but probably not for long. He finished the

cigarette reluctantly and sat huddled on the bench, waiting for morning.

 

The airlock opened later, and feet sounded on the boards of the

waiting-room floor, but he didn't look up until a thin beam of light hit

him. Then he sighed and nodded. The shoes, made of some odd fiber,

didn't look like those of a cop, but this was Mars. He could see only a

hulking shadow behind the light.

 

"You the man who was a medical doctor?" The voice was dry and old.

 

"Yeah," Feldman answered. "Once."

 

"Good. Thought that space crewman was just lying drunk at first. Come

along, Doc."

 

"Why?" It didn't matter, but if they wanted him to move on, they'd have

to push a little harder.

 

The light swung up to show the other. He was the shade of old leather

with a bleached patch of sandy hair and the deepest gray eyes Feldman

had ever seen. It was a face that could have belonged to a country

storekeeper in New England, with the same hint of dry humor. The man was

dressed in padded levis and a leather jacket of unguessable age. His

aspirator seemed worn and patched, and one big hand fumbled with it.

 

"Because we're friends, Doc," the voice drawled at him. "Because you

might as well come with us as sit here. Maybe we have a job for you."

 

Feldman shrugged and stood up. If the man was a Lobby policeman, he was

different from the usual kind. Nothing could be worse than the present

prospects.

 

They went out through the doors of the waiting room toward a rattletrap

vehicle. It looked something like a cross between a schoolboy's jalopy

and a scaled-down army tank of former times. The treads were caterpillar

style, and the stubby body was completely enclosed. A tiny airlock

stuck out from the rear.

 

Two men were inside, both bearded. The old man grinned at them. "Mark,

Lou, meet Doc Feldman. Sit, Doc. I'm Jake Mullens, and you might say we

were farmers."

 

The motor started with a wheeze. The tractor swung about and began

heading away from Southport toward the desert dunes. It shook and

rattled, but it seemed to make good time.

 

"I don't know anything about farming," Feldman protested.

 

Jake shrugged. "No, of course not. Couple of our friends heard about you

where a spaceman was getting drunk and tipped us off. We know who you

are. Here, try a bracky?"

 

Feldman took what seemed to be a cigarette and studied it doubtfully. It

was coarse and fibrous inside, with a thin, hard shell that seemed to be

a natural growth, as if it had been chopped from some vine. He lighted

it, not knowing what to expect. Then he coughed as the bitter, rancid

smoke burned at his throat. He started to throw it down, and hesitated.

Jake was smoking one, and it had killed the craving for tobacco almost

instantly.

 

"Some like 'em, most don't," Jake said. "They won't hurt you. Look--see

that? Old Martian ruins. Built by some race a million years ago. Only

half a dozen on Mars."

 

It was only a clump of weathered stone buildings in the light from the

tractor, and Feldman had seen better in the stereo shots. It was

interesting only because it connected with the legendary Martian race,

like the canals that showed from space but could not be seen on the

surface of the planet.

 

Feldman waited for the other to go on, but Jake was silent. Finally, he

ground out the butt of the weed. "Okay, Jake. What do you want with me?"

 

"Consultation, maybe. Ever hear of herb doctors? I'm one of them."

 

Feldman knew that the Lobby permitted some leniency here, due to the

scarcity of real medical help. There was only one decent hospital at

Northport, on the opposite side of the planet.

 

Jake sighed and reached for another bracky weed. "Yeah, I'm pretty good

with herbs. But I got a sick village on my hands and I can't handle it.

We can't all mortgage our work to pay for a trip to Northport.

Southport's all messed up while the new she-doctor gets her metabolism

changed. Maybe the old guy there would have helped, but he died a couple

months ago. So it looks like you're our only hope."

 

"Then you have no hope," Feldman told him sickly. "I'm a pariah, Jake. I

can't do a thing for you."

 

"We heard about your argument with the Lobby. News reaches Mars. But

these are mighty sick people, Doc."

 

Feldman shook his head. "Better take me back. I'm not allowed to

practice medicine. The charge would be first-degree murder if anything

happened."

 

Lou leaned forward. "Shall I talk to him, Jake?"

 

The old man grimaced. "Time enough. Let him see what we got first."

 

Sand howled against the windshield and the tractor bumped and surged

along. Feldman took another of the weeds and tried to estimate their

course. But he had no idea where they were when the tractor finally

stopped. There was a village of small huts that seemed to be merely

entrances to living quarters dug under the surface. They led him into

one and through a tunnel into a large room filled with simple cots and

the unhappy sounds of sick people.

 

Two women were disconsolately trying to attend to the half-dozen

sick--four children and two adults. Their faces brightened as they saw

Jake, then fell. "Eb and Tilda died," they reported.

 

Feldman looked at the two figures under the sheets and whistled. The

same black specks he had seen on the face of Billings covered the skins

of the two old people who had died.

 

"Funny," Jake said slowly. "They didn't quite act like the others and

they sure died mighty fast. Darn it, I had it figured for that stuff in

the book. Infantile paralysis. How about it, Doc? Sort of like a cold,

stiff sore neck."

 

It was clearly polio--one of the diseases that could attack Mars-normal

flesh. Feldman nodded at the symptoms, staring at the sick kids. He

shrugged, finally. "There's a cure for it, but I don't have the serum.

Neither do you, or you wouldn't have brought me here. I couldn't help if

I wanted to."

 

"That old book didn't list a cure," Jake told him. "But it said the kids

didn't have to be crippled. There was something about a Kenny treatment.

Doc, does the stuff really cripple for life?"

 

Feldman saw one of the boys flinch. He dropped his eyes, remembering the

Lobby's efficient spy service on Earth and wondering what it was like

here. But he knew the outcome.

 

"Damn you, Jake!"

 

Jake chuckled. "Thought you would. We sure appreciate it. Just tell us

what to do, Doc."

 

Feldman began writing down his requirements, trying to remember the

details of the treatment. Exercise, hot compresses, massage. It was

coming back to him. He'd have to do it himself, of course, to get the

feel of it. He couldn't explain it well enough. But he couldn't turn his

back on the kids, either.

 

"Maybe I can help," he said doubtfully as he moved toward a cot.

 

"No, Doc." Jake's voice wasn't amused any longer, and he held the

younger man back. "You're doing us a favor, and I'll be darned if I'll

let you stick your neck out too far. You can't treat 'em yourself. Mars

is tougher than Earth. You should live under Space Lobby _and_ Medical

Lobby here a while. Oh, maybe they don't mind a few fools like me being

herb doctors, but they'd sure hate to have a man who can do real

medicine outside their hands. You let me do it, or get in the tractor

and I'll have Lou drive you back. Once you start in here, there'll be no

stopping. Believe me."

 

Feldman looked at him, seeing the colonials around him for the first

time as people. It had been a long time since he'd been treated as a

fellow human by anyone.

 

Jake was right, he knew. Once he put his hand to the bandage, eventually

there'd be no turning back from the scalpel. These people needed medical

help too desperately. Eventually, the news would spread, and the Lobby

police would come for him. Chris couldn't afford to shield him. In fact,

he was sure now that she'd hunt him night and day.

 

"Don't be a fool, Jake," he ordered brusquely. He handed his list to one

of the women. "You'll have to learn to do what I do," he told the people

there. "You'll have to work like fools for weeks. But there won't be

many crippled children. I can promise that much!"

 

He blinked sharply at the sudden hope in their eyes. But his mind went

on wondering how long it would be before the inevitable would catch up

with him. With luck, maybe a few months. But he hadn't been blessed with

any superabundance of luck. It would probably be less time than he

thought.

V (Surgery)

Doc Feldman's luck was better than he had expected. For an Earth year,

he was a doctor again, moving about from village to village as he was

needed and doing what he could.

 

The village had been isolated during the early colonization when Mars

made a feeble attempt to break free of Space Lobby. Their supplies had

been cut off and they had been forced to do for themselves. Now they

were largely self-sufficient. They grew native plants and extracted

hormones in crude little chemical plants. The hormones