Samswope growled menacingly, "If you don"t shut up I"ll kill you, Bedzyk!"Bedzyk faltered into silence and watched the scene before him. They were melting. They were going to let this rotten turncoat Earthie blind them with false hopes.

"We"ve worked our allotments around so there is s.p.a.ce for you, perhaps in the new green-valleys of South America or on the veldtland in Rhodesia. It will be wonderful, but we need your blood, we need your help."

"Don"t trust him! Don"t believe him, you can"t believe an Earthman!" Bedzyk shouted, stumbling forward to wrest the rasp-pistol from Samswope"s grip.

Samswope fired point-blank. First the rasp of the power spurting from the muzzle of the tiny pistol filled the drive room, then the smell of burning flesh, and Bedzyk"s eyes opened wide in pain. He screamed thinly, and staggered back against Curran. Curran stepped aside, and Bedzyk mewed in agony, and crumpled onto the deck. A huge hole had been seared through his huge chest. Huge chest, huge death, and he lay there with his eyes open, barely forming the words "Don"t...you can"t, can"t t-trust an Earthmmm..." with his b.l.o.o.d.y lips. The last word formed and became a forever intaglio.

Curran"s face had paled out till it was a blotch against the dark blue of his jumper. "Y-y-y..."

Samswope moved into the drive room and took Curran by the sleeve, almost where Bedzyk had held it. "You promise us we can land and be allowed to settle someplace on Earth?"

Curran nodded dumbly. Had they asked for Earth in its socket, he would have nodded agreement. Samswope still held the rasp.

"All right, then...get your med detachment up here, and get that blood. We want to go home, Mr. Curran, we want to go home more than anything!"

They led him to the lock. Behind him, Curran saw three mutants lifting the blasted body of Bedzyk, bearing it on their shoulders through the crowd. The body was borne out of sight down a cross-corridor, and Curran followed it out of sight with his eyes.

Beside him, Samswope said: "To the garbage lock. We go that way, Mr. Curran." His tones were hard and uncompromising. "We don"t like going that way, Mr. Curran. We want to go home. You"ll see to it, won"t you, Mr.

Curran?"

Curran again nodded dumbly, and entered the lock linking ships.

Ten hours later, the med detachment came up. The Discards were completely obedient and tremendously helpful.

It took nearly eleven months to inoculate the entire population of the Earth and the rest of the System-strictly as preventive caution dictated-and during that time no more Discards took their lives. Why should they? They were going home. Soon the tug-ships would come, and help jockey the big Discard vessel into orbit for the run to Earth.

They were going home. There was room for them now, even in their condition. Spirits ran high, and laughter tinkled oddly down the pa.s.sageway in the "evenings." There was even a wedding between Arkay (who was blind and had a bushy tail) and a pretty young thing the others called Daanae, for she could not speak herself. Without a mouth that was impossible. At the ceremony in the saloon, Samswope acted as minister, for the Discards had made him their leader, in the same, silent way they had made Bedzyk the leader before him. Spirits ran high, and the constant knowledge that as soon as Earth had the Sickness under control, they would be going home.

Then one "afternoon" the ship came.

Not the little tugs, as they had supposed, but a cargo ship nearly as big as their own home. Samswope rushed to synch in the locks, and when the red lights merged on the board, he locked the two together firmly, and scrambled back through the throng to be the first to greet the men who would deliver them.

When the lock sighed open, and they saw the first ten who had been thrust in, they knew the truth.

One had a head flat as a plate, with no eyes, and its mouth in its neck. Another had several hundred thousand slimy tentacles where arms should have been, and waddled on stumps that could never again be legs. Still another was brought in by a pair of huge empty-faced men, in a bowl. The bowl contained a yellow jelly, and swimming in the yellow jelly was the woman.

Then they knew. They were not going home. As lockful after lockful of more Discards came through, to swell their ranks even more, they knew these were the last of the tainted ones from Earth. The last ones who had been stricken by the Sickness-who had changed before the serum could save them. These were the last, and now the Earth was clean.

Samswope watched them trail in, some dragging themselves on appendageless torsos, others in baskets, still others with one arm growing from a chest, or hair that was blue and fungus growing out all over the body. He watched them and knew the man he had killed had been correct. For among the crowd he glimpsed a bare-chested Discard with huge sores on his body. Curran.

And as the cargo ship unlocked and swept back to Earthwith the silent warning Don"t follow us, don"t try to land, there"s no room for you here-Samswope could hear Bedzyk"s hysterical tones in his head: Don"t trust them! There"s no room for us anywhere! Don"t trust them!

You can"t trust an Earthman!

Samswope started walking slowly toward the galley, knowing he would need someone to seal the garbage lock after him. But it didn"t matter who it was. There were more than enough Discards aboard now.Pain. The pain of being obsolete. I go down to Santa Monica sometimes, and walk along through the oceanside park that forms the outermost edge of California. There, at the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific, like flotsam washed up by America, with no place to go, are the old people. Their time has gone, their eyes look out across the water for another beginning, but they have come to the final moments. They sit in the vanilla sunshine and they dream of yesterday. Kind old people, for the most part. They talk to each other, they talk to themselves, and they wonder where it all went.

I stop and sit on the benches and talk to them sometimes. Not often; it makes me think of endings rather than continuations or new beginnings. They"re sad, but they have a n.o.bility that cannot be ignored. They"re pa.s.sed-over, obsolescent, but they still run well and they have good minutes in them. Their pain is a terrible thing because it cries to be given the chance to work those arthritic fingers at something meaningful, to work those brain cells at something challenging.

This story is about someone in the process of being pa.s.sed-over, being made obsolete. Refights. I would fight. Some of the old people in Santa Monica fight. Do we ever win? Against the shadow that inevitably falls, no.

Against the time between now and the shadow"s arrival, yes, certainly.

That"s the message in

Wanted in Surgery

CHAPTER ONE.

A MAN NAMED TIBOR KAROLY ZSEBOK who had escaped from the People"s Hungarian Protectorate to the North American Continent"s sanctuary late in the year 2087-invented it. While working as a bonded technician for the Orrin Tool and Tree Conglomerate-on a design to create a robot capable of fine watch repairs-he discovered the factor of multiple choice. He was able to apply this concept to the cellulose-plasteel brain of his watch repair robots pilot model, and came up with the startling "physician mechanical." Infinitely more intricate than a mere robot-mechanical, yet far simpler than a human brain, it was capable-after proper conditioning-of the most delicate of operations. Further, the "phymech," as it was tagged soon alter, was capable of infallible diagnosis, involving anything organic.

The mind was still locked to the powers of the metal physician, but for the ills of the body there was no more capable administrator.

Zsebok died several weeks alter his pilot model had been demonstrated at a special closed session of the House of Congress; from a coronary thrombosis. But his death was more of a propelling factor to widespread recognition of the phymech than his life could ever have been.

The House of Congress appointed a committee of fact-finders, from the firm of Data, Unlimited-who had successfully completed the Orinoco Basin Probe-and compared their three-month findings with the current Histophysiology appropriations allocated to the Secretary of Medicine.

They found phymechs could be operated in all the socialized hospitals of the Continent, for far less than was being spent on Doctor"s salaries.

After all, a Doctor continued to need.

A phymech absorbed one half pint of liquified radiol every three years, and an occasional lubrication, to insure proper functioning.

So the government pa.s.sed a law. The Hippocratic Law of 2088, which said, in essence: "All ministrations shall henceforth be confined to government-sponsored hospitals; emergency cases necessitating attendance outside said inst.i.tutions shall be handled only, repeat only, by registered Physician Mechanicals issuing from registered hospital pools. Any irregularities or deviations from this procedure shall be handled as cases outside the law, and illegal attendance by non-Mechanical Physicians shall be severely punishable by cancellation of practicing license and/or fine and imprisonment..."

Johns Hopkins was the first to be de-franchised. Then the Columbia School of Medicine, and the other colleges followed shortly thereafter.

A few specialist schools were maintained for a time; but it became increasingly apparent after the first three years of phymech operation that even the specialists were slow compared to the robot doctors. So even they pa.s.sed away. Doctors who had been licensed before the innovations the phymechs brought, were maintained at slashed salaries, and were reduced to a.s.sistants, interns.

They were, however, given a few annuities, which boiled down eventually to 1) a franking privilege so postage was unnecessary on their letters, 2) a small annual dole, 3) subscriptions to current medical journals (now filled more with electronic data pertinent to phymechs than surgical techniques) and 4) honorary t.i.tles. Doctors in t.i.tle only.

There was dissatisfaction.

In 2091 Kohlbenschlagg, the greatest brain surgeon of them all, died. He pa.s.sed away on a quiet October morning, with the climate dome purring ever so faintly above the city, and the distant scream of the transport sphincter opening to allow the Earth-Mars 8:00 liner through. A quiet, drawn-faced man with a great talent in slim fingers. He died in his sleep, and the papers clacked out of the homeslots, with heavy black headlines across yellow plastic sheets. But not about Kohlbenschlagg. He was yesterday"s news. The headline was about the total automation changeover in the Ford-Chrysler plants.

On page one hundred and eighteen there was a five line obituary that labeled him "a pre-phymech surgeon ofsome skill." It also reported he had died of acute alcoholism.

It was not specifically true.

His death was caused by a composite. Acute alcoholism.

And a broken heart.

He died alone, but he was remembered. By the men and women who, like Kohlbenschlagg, had spent their early lives in dedication to the staff and the lion"s head, the hand and eagle"s eye. By men and women who could not adjust. The small legion of men and women who still walked the antiseptic corridors of the hospitals.

Men like Stuart Bergman, M.D.

This is his story.

CHAPTER TWO.

The main operation theater of Memorial was constructed along standard lines. The observation bubble was set high on one wall, curving large and down, with a separating section allowing two viewing stands. The operating stage, on a telescoping base that raised or lowered it for easier observation from the bubble, squatted in the center of the room. There were no operating lamps in the ceiling, as in old-style hospitals, for the phymechs had their powerful eterna light mounted atop their heads, serving their needs more accurately than any outside light source could have.

Beyond the stage, there were anaesthetic spheres clipped to the walls-in live-container groups-where they could be easily reached should the phymech"s personal supply run dry, and a rapidroll belt running from a digital supply machine beside the operating table to the see-through selector cabinets that stood by the exits.

That was all; everything that was needed.

Even the spheres and extra cabinets might have been dispensed with; but somehow, they had been maintained, just slightly limiting the phymech"s abilities. As though to rea.s.sure some unnamed person that they needed help. Even if it was mechanical help to help the mechanicals.

The three phymechs were performing the operation directly beneath the bubble when Bergman came in. The bubble was dark, but he could see Murray Thomas"s craggy features set against the light of the operating stage. The illumination had been a concession to the human observers, for with their own eternalights, the phymechs could work in a total blackout, during a power failure.

Bergman held the crumpled news sheet in his hand, page one hundred and eighteen showing, and stared at the scene below him.

Naturally, it would be a brain operation today! The one day it should be a mere goiter job, or a plantar stripping, if just to keep him steady; but no, it had to be a brain job, with the phymechs thirty telescoping, snakelike appendages extruded and snicking into the patient.

Bergman swallowed hard, and made his way down the slope of aisle to the empty seat beside Thomas. He was a dark man, with an almost unnaturally spadelike face. High, prominent cheekbones, giving him a gaunt look, and veins that stood out along the temples. His nose was thin, and humped where it had been broken years before.

His eyes were deep and darkest blue, so they appeared black. His hair was thin, roughly combed; back from the forehead without affectation or wave, just combed, because he had to keep the hair from his eyes.

He slumped into the seat, keeping his eyes off the operation below, keeping the face of Murray Thomas in his sight, with the light from below playing up across the round, unfl.u.s.tered features. He held out the news sheet, touching Thomas"s arm with it; for the first time, as the young Doctor started, Thomas realized Bergman was there. He turned slowly, and his placid stare met the wild look of Bergman; a question began to form, but Thomas cast a glance behind him, toward the top of the seat tier, at the silent dark bulk of the Head Resident. He put a hand on Bergman"s arm, and then he saw the news sheet.

Bergman offered it another inch, and Thomas took it. He opened it out, turning it below the level of the seats, trying to catch the light from below. He roamed the page for a moment, then his hands crumpled tight on the plastic.

He saw the five line filler.

Kohlbenschlagg was dead.

He turned to Bergman, and his eyes held infinite sorrow. He mouthed with his lips the words, "I"m sorry, Stuart," but they died midway between them.

He stared at Bergman"s face for a moment, knowing he could do nothing for the man now. Kohlbenschlagg had been Stuart Bergman"s teacher, his friend, more a father to him than the father Bergman had run away from in his youth. Now Bergman was totally alone...for his wife Thelma was no help in this situation...her const.i.tution could not cope with a case of inner disintegration.

With difficulty he turned back to the operation, feeling an overwhelming desire to take Bergman"s hand, to help ease away the sorrow he knew coursed through the man; but the sorrow was a personal thing, and he was cut off from the tense man beside him.

Bergman watched the operation now. There was nothing else to do. He had spent ten years of his life training to be a physician, and now he was sitting watching faceless blocks of metal do those ten years better than he ever could.

Murray Thomas was abruptly aware of heavy breathing beside him. He did not turn his head. He had seen Bergman getting nearer and nearer the cracking point for weeks now: ever since the phymechs had been completely installed, and the human doctors had been relegated to a.s.sistants, interns, instrument-carriers. He feverishly hoped this was not the moment Bergman would choose to fall apart.The phymechs below were proceeding with the delicate operation. One of the telescoping, snakelike tentacles of one phymech had a wafer-thin circular saw on it, and as Thomas watched, the saw sliced down, and they could hear the buzz of steel meeting skull.

"G.o.d in heaven! Stop it, stop it, stop it...!"

Thomas was an instant too late. Bergman was up out of his seat, down the aisle, and banging his fists against the clear plasteel of the observation bubble, before he could be stopped.

It produced a feeling of utter hysteria in the bubble, as though all of them wanted to scream, had been holding it back, and now were struggling with the sounds, not to join in. Bergman battered himself up against the clearness of the bubble, mumbling, screaming, his face a riot of pain and horror.

"Not even a...a...decent death!" he was screaming. "He lies down there, and rotten dirty metal things...things, G.o.d dammit! Things rip up his patients! Oh, G.o.d, where is the way, where, where, where..."

Then the three interns erupted from the door at the top rear of the bubble, and ran down the aisle. In an instant they had Bergman by the shoulders, the arms, the neck, and were dragging him back up the aisle.

Calkins, the Head Resident, yelled after them, "Take him to my office for observation, I"ll be right there."

Murray Thomas watched his friend disappear in the darkness toward the rectangle of light in the rear wall.

Then he was gone, and Thomas heard Calkins say: "Ignore that outburst, Doctors, there is always someone who gets squeamish at the sight of a well-performed operation."

Then he was gone, off to examine Bergman.

And Murray Thomas felt a bra.s.sy, bitter taste on his tongue; Bergman afraid of blood, the sight of an operation? Not likely. He had seen Stuart Bergman work many times-not Stuart Bergman; the operating room was home to Bergman. No, it hadn"t been that.

Then it was that Thomas realized: the incident had completely shattered the mood and attention of the men in the bubble. They were incapable of watching the phymechs any further today-but the phymechs...

...they were undisturbed, unseeing, uncaring: calmly, coolly working, taking off the top of the patients" skull.

Thomas felt desperately ill.

CHAPTER THREE.

"Honest to G.o.d, I tell you, Murray, I can"t take it much longer!"

Bergman was still shaking from the examination in Calkins"s offices. His hands were prominent with blue veins, and they trembled ever so slightly across the formatop of the table. The dim sounds of the Medical Center filtered to them in the hush-booth. Bergman ran a hand through his hair. "Every time I see one of those..." he paused, hesitated, then did not use the word. Murray Thomas knew the word, had it come forth, would have been monster.

Bergman went on, a blank s.p.a.ce in his sentence, "Every time I see one of them picking around inside one of my patients, with those metal tips, I-I get sick to my stomach! It"s all I can do to keep from ripping out its G.o.ddamed wiring!" His face was deathly pale, yet somehow unnaturally flushed.

He quivered as he spoke. And quivered again.

Dr. Murray Thomas put out a hand placatingly. "Now take it easy, Stu. You keep getting yourself all hot over this thing and if it doesn"t break you-which it d.a.m.ned well easily could-they"ll revoke your license, bar you from practicing." He looked across at Bergman, and blinked a.s.suringly, as if to keynote his warning.

Bergman muttered with surliness, "Fine lot of practicing I do now. Or you, for that matter."

Thomas tapped a finger on the table. It caused the multicolored bits of plastic beneath the formatop to jiggle, casting pinpoints of light across Bergman"s strained features. "And besides, Stu, you have no logical, scientific reason for hating the phymechs."

Bergman stared back angrily. "Science doesn"t come into it, and you know it. This is from the gut, Murray, not the brain""