Del Rey, Lester - Nerves

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NERVES
by
LESTER DEL REY
CHAPTER 1
The jangling of the telephone gnawed at Doc Ferrel's sleep. His efforts to cut
it off by burying his head deeper in the pillow only made him more aware of
it. Across the room, he heard Emma stirring uneasily. He could just make out
her body under the sheets by the dim light of the early morning.
Nobody had any business calling at that hour!
Resentment cut through the last mists of sleep. He groped to his feet and
fumbled for his robe. When a man nears sixty, with gray hair and enlarged
waistline to show for it, he should be entitled to his sleep. But the phone
went on insistently. Then, as he reached the head of the stairs, he began to
fear that it would stop. Reaching it just too late would be the final
aggravation.
He half-stumbled down the stairs until he could reach the receiver. "Ferrel
speaking."
Relief and fatigue were mixed in the voice at the other end. "This is Palmer,
Doc. Did I wake you up?"
"I was just sitting down to supper," Ferrel told him bitterly. Palmer was the
manager of the atomics plant where Doc worked, and at least nominally his
boss. "What's the matter? Your grandson got a stomach-ache, or has the plant
finally blown up? And what's it to me at this hour? Anyhow, I thought you said
I could forget about the plant today."
Palmer sighed faintly, as if he'd expected Doc's reaction and had been bracing
himself for it. "I know. That's what I called about. Of course, if you've made
plans you can't break, I can't ask you to change them. God knows, you've
earned a day off. But. . . ."
He left it hanging. Ferrel knew it was bait. If he showed any interest now, he
was hooked. He waited, and finally Palmer sighed again.
"Okay, Doc. I guess I had no business bothering you. It's just that I don't
trust Dr. Blake's tact. But maybe I can convince him that smart cracks don't
go over well with a junket of visiting congressmen. Go back to sleep. Sorry I
woke you up."
"Wait a minute," Ferrel said quickly. He shook his head, wishing he'd had at
least a swallow of coffee to clear his brain. "I thought the investigating
committee was due next week?"
Palmer, like a good angler, gave him a second's grace before he set the hook.
"They were, but I got word the plans are changed. They'll be here, complete
with experts and reporters, some time this forenoon. And with that bill up
before Congress . . . Well, have a good day, Doc."
Ferrel swore to himself. All he had to do now was to hang up, of course.
Handling the committee was Palmer's responsibility; it was his plant that
would be moved to some wasteland if the cursed bill was passed. Doc's job was
concerned only with the health and safety of the men. "I'll have to talk it
over with Emma," he growled at last. "Where'll you be in ten minutes? Home?"
"I'm at the plant."
Doc looked at the clock. Just after six. If Palmer thought things were that
serious . . . Yet it was the last day of Dick's brief visit home from medical
school, and they'd been planning on this day all week! Emma had her heart set
on making it a happy family affair.
A sound from the head of the stairs made him look up. Emma was standing there
in a cotton robe and worn old slippers. Without make-up and with her hair
hanging loose, she looked like a little girl who had grown old overnight
without quite understanding it. Her face was carefully stripped of expression;
she'd learned to conceal her feelings back in the days when Ferrel had
maintained a general practice. But the tautness of her throat muscles and the
way she cinched the belt around her too-thin figure showed that she had heard
and how she felt.
She shrugged and nodded, trying to smile at him as she started down the
stairs, favoring her bad hip.
"Breakfast will take a little time," she said quietly. "Try to get some sleep.
I'll wake Dick and explain it to him."
She was heading for the kitchen as he turned back to the phone. "All right,
Palmer. I'll be out. Nine okay?"
"Thanks, Doc. Nine will be fine," Palmer answered. Emma was already starting
coffee in the kitchen. Doc turned toward her, and then hesitated. She was
right; he needed the extra sleep.
Sleep wouldn't come, though. The resiliency of youth was long gone, and now
even the sound habits of his middle life seemed to be failing. Maybe Blake was
right in his kidding; maybe he was growing old! He had caught himself
wondering as he looked at the firm-muscled figure of his son, so like Doc's
memory of himself at the same age, and so unlike what the mirror showed now.
The situation at plant kept gnawing at his mind. He'd neglected of it, though
aware of the growing tension, this sudden revival of the fear of atomic plants
after so many years. Citizens' protest meetings. Bills submitted to Congress-
bills that would force most atomic plants to move far from inhabited
territory. But he'd put that all down to the normally noisy crackpot fringe.
Still, if Palmer took it seriously, maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe things had
really got worse since the breakdown of the Croton atomic plant a few months
ago. It was only a minor mishap there, really. But it had resulted in a mild
dose of radiation contamination over a hundred square miles or more; it seemed
to be nobody's fault, but it had been a nine-days' newspaper scandal, and it
might have served as a focal point for all the buried superstitions and fears
about atomics.
Ferrel finally gave up and began dressing, surprised at how much time had gone
already. The house was filled with the smell of hot biscuits, and he realized
Emma was making a production of their last meal together on their only
vacation. He heard her waking Dick and explaining the situation while he
shaved. The boy sounded a lot less disappointed over the changed plans than
she did; somehow, children seemed to care less than their parents about such
things.
The boy was already at the table when Doc came down, poring over the pages of
the early edition of the Kimberly Republican. He glanced up and passed over
half of the paper. "Hi, Dad. Tough about today. But Mom and I decided we'd
drive you to work in my car, so we'll see a little more of you. I guess this
anti-atom craze is getting serious, eh?"
"Palmer's worried, that's all. It's his job to be overcautious." At the
moment, Doc was more interested in the biscuits and honey.
Dick shook his head. "Better look at the editorial," he advised.
Ferrel turned to it, though he usually had no use for the canned editorials in
the Guilden papers. Then he saw that this was signed and individual. It
concerned the bill to evacuate all plants engaged in atomic transmutation or
the creation of radioactive isotopes to areas at least fifty miles from any
city of over ten thousand population. Superficially, the editorial was an
unbiased study of the bill, but it equated such things as the wealth the
industry had built on one side against the health of children, menaced by
accidental release of radioactives on the other. Intellectually, it proved the
plants must stay; emotionally, it said the exact opposite; and most of the
readers here would think with their emotions first.
On the front page, the feature story was on a citizens' meeting for the bill.
The number reported in attendance and the list of speakers was a second shock.
Before National Atomics Products had been built near the city, Kimberly had
been only a small town like many others in Missouri. Now it numbered nearly a
hundred thousand, and depended for its prosperity almost entirely on National;
there were other industries, but they were National's children. Even those
which didn't depend on artificial isotopes still needed the cheap power that
came almost as a byproduct.
No matter what the other Guilden papers screamed, or how crazy other cities
went, it was incredible to find such a reaction here.
He threw aside his paper in disgust, not even bothering with the ball scores.
He glanced grumpily at the time. "I guess I'd better get going."
Emma refilled his coffee, then limped up the stairs to finish dressing. Ferrel
watched her slow steps unhappily. Maybe they should have bought one of the
single-story houses that were coming back in fashion. A private escalator
would be even better, but Dick's education didn't leave enough for that. Maybe
in another year, though, when the boy was through school. . . .
"Dad." Dick's face was serious now, and his voice had dropped to hide his
words from his mother. "Dad, we've been discussing this stuff at school. After
all, medicine has to have some of the isotopes National makes, so it's
important to all of us. And something's been bothering me. Suppose you get
called up before Congress to testify on the danger?"
Ferrel hadn't thought of that. "Suppose I do?" It could happen; he was as well
known as anyone else in the field. "I don't have anything to hide. It won't
hurt me to give them the truth."
"If that's what they want. And if the man running it isn't after good
publicity in the Guilden press." Dick started to go on indignantly, then threw
a look toward the stairs and subsided. Emma was just starting down.
Doc swallowed the rest of his coffee and followed out to the boy's little
turbine-powered convertible. Normally he preferred the slower but dependable
bus to the plant, but he couldn't argue with Emma's wishes now. He climbed
into the back, muttering to himself as the wind whipped at him. Conversation
was almost impossible, between the sound of the air screaming around the
sporty windshield and the muffled roar of the turbine, stripped of half its
muffler to give a sound of false power. Well, maybe the girls at school who
found such things attractive would outgrow it; Doc hoped so, though he had his
doubts. Or maybe-he thought again-he was just growing old.
He watched the houses along the fifteen-mile road change from apartments to
the endless rows of development huts that had grown up on all sides of
Kimberly- prefabricated boxes with convertible rooms, set down on tiny lots
that looked alike. Most of them showed evidence that the trailer had been
their ancestor, and a few even had the wheels on which they'd been shipped-
possibly indicating a lack of faith in the permanence of the owner's
employment.
The road was jammed, and in places they slowed to a crawl. From a neighboring
car, Doc heard the swearing against "ignorant Hoosiers" that was still almost
a trademark of some Missourians. A horn blasted out and another driver yelled,
"Get off the road, you damned atomjerks! We don't want you here!"
Atomjerks! Three years ago, being an atomjack was almost enough to insure good
credit and respect. Times, it seemed, had changed.
There were other significant changes as they began to near the plant. More and
more Vacant signs were in front of houses. Once there had been a premium on
locations along the highway, but now apparently the nearness to the atom plant
was changing all that.
He was almost relieved when they swung off the main road onto the private
highway that led to the main gates. The sprawling, haphazard cluster of
utilitarian buildings, offices and converter-housings covered acres of ground
and was set back nearly a mile from the turnpike. Here the land was deserted,
cared for only by the ground crews who kept down the weeds. Laws had already
forced a safety zone around the plants, though it had been no great hardship
to National. Behind the plant, lay a great tract of barren land, stretching
back down a brackish little stream to a swamp further away. That, at least,
was useful, since it served as a dumping ground for their wastes. Even the
spur line from the main railroad was nearly two miles long.
Once it had been only a power plant, one of several built to feed electricity
to St. Louis, modeled on the first successful commercial plant constructed by
General Electric to use atomic power. But early in its life, two young
scientists named Link and Hokusai had discovered a whole new field of atomics
and had come here to try it out. It was known that atoms heavier than uranium-
such as plutonium and neptunium-could be made but generally grew increasingly
unstable with added weight. The two men had found, however, that if the
packing of new particles could be continued, eventually a new level could be
reached that was again fairly stable. Such atoms-super-heavies-had never
existed in nature, but many proved far more valuable than the natural forms.
National had grown to its present size on the development of the heavy
isotopes, and power was now only a sideline, though the plant supplied all of
Kimberly's power requirements.
Ferrel saw Emma stiffen as they neared the gate, but Dick had remembered and
was already braking. She had an almost pathological fear of going inside,
based on an unrealistic belief that her second child was stillborn because of
radiation here. Her worst nightmares centered around the plant. But Doc had
long since given up any attempt to reason with her, and she had learned to
accept his continuing employment there.
He got out, self-consciously shaking Dick's hand, and watched them hurriedly
drive off again. Then abruptly the solid familiarity of his surroundings
snapped the blue funk he'd been in. The plant was a world by itself, busy and
densely populated. Nothing could uproot it. He waved at the grinning guard and
went inside, soaking up the sight, sound and smell of it.
The graveled walks were crowded with the usual nine-o'clock mass of young
huskies just going on shift, and the company cafeteria was jammed to capacity
with men seeking a last-minute cup of coffee. But the men made way for him
good-humoredly as he moved among them. That pleased Doc, as always, and all
the more because they didn't bother to stop their horseplay as they might have
done for another company official. He'd been just Doc to them too long for
that.
He nodded back at them easily, pushed through, and went down the walk toward
the Infirmary, taking his own time; at his age a man could begin to realize
that comfort and relaxation were worth cultivating. Besides, he could see no
reason for ruining the good food in his stomach by rushing around in a flurry
that gave him no time to digest it. He let himself in the side entrance,
palming his cigar out of long habit, though he'd had the No Smoking signs
removed years ago, and passed through the surgery to the door marked:
ROGER T. FERREL
Physician in Charge.
As always, the little room was heavy with the odor of stale smoke and littered
with scraps of this and that. His assistant was already there, rummaging
busily through Ferrel's desk with the brass that was typical of the man;
Ferrel had no objection to it, though; Blake's rock-steady hands and unruffled
brain were always dependable in a pinch of any sort.
Blake looked up and grinned confidently. "Hi, Doc. Where the deuce do you keep
your lighter fluid? Never mind, got it! . . . Thought you were taking the day
off?"
"Fat chance." Ferrel stuck the cigar back in his mouth and settled into the
old leather chair, shaking his head. "Palmer phoned me at the crack of dawn.
We've got an emergency again."
"So you're stuck with it. I don't see why any of us has to show up here-
nothing serious ever pops up. Look at yesterday. I had three cases of
athlete's foot-better send a memo down to the showers to use extra
disinfectant-a boy with a running nose, the usual hypochondriacs, and a guy
with a sliver in his thumb! They bring everything to us except their babies,
and they'd have them here if they could. Nothing that couldn't wait a week or
a month." He snapped his fingers. "Hey, I almost forgot. If you're free
tonight, Anne and I are celebrating sticking together ten years. She wants you
and Emma with us. Let the kid handle the office tonight."
"Sounds like a good idea. But you'd better stop calling Jenkins the kid."
Ferrel twitched his lips in a stiff smile, remembering the time when he'd been
as dead-serious as the new doctor; after only a week of real practice it was
too soon to learn that destiny hadn't really singled him out to save the
world. "He had his first real case yesterday. Handled it all by himself, so
he's now Doctor Jenkins, if you please."
Blake had his own memories. "Yeah? Wonder when he'll realize that everything
he did by himself came from you? What was it, anyway?"
"Same old story-simple radiation burns. No matter how much we tell the men
when they first come in, most of them can't see why they should wear three
ninety-five-percent efficient shields when the main converter shield cuts off
all but one-tenth per cent of the radiation." Mathematically, it was good
sense that three added shields would cut the radiation down to a mere eighty-
thousandth of full force, but it was hard to convince the men that multiplying
poor shields by the one good one could make that difference. "He managed to
leave off his two inner shields and pick up a year's burn in six hours. Now
he's probably home, sweating it out and hoping we won't get him fired."
It had been at Number One, the first converter around which National Atomic
had built its present control of artificial radioactives, back in the days
before Wemrath at Caltech found a way to use some of the superheavy isotopes
as ultra-efficient shielding. Number One had the old, immense concrete shield,
but converters were expensive and they still kept it for the gentler
reactions; if reasonable precautions were taken there was no serious danger.
Blake chuckled. "You're getting old, Doc; you used to give them something to
sweat about! Well, I'd better check up on the staff-someone might be a minute
late, and then where'd we be?"
Ferrel followed him out, spotting young Jenkins in his office, intent over
some book. The boy nodded a tight-lipped greeting. Doc returned it, being
careful not to intrude on whatever he was studying. Jenkins was at least
intelligent and willing to work. A week was too little to tell whether he had
the stuff to stay on here or not, but he probably would if his nerves didn't
get in the way. He seemed to be nothing but sinews with taut skin drawn over
them, and his shock of blond hair fell over the deepest-set blue eyes Doc had
ever seen. He looked like a garret-starving young poet, and his nerves seemed
as fine-drawn, but he had an amazingly good background of practical studies.
For a moment Doc considered going back to his office and catching a nap in the
old chair. There was nothing to do that Blake couldn't handle. The Infirmary
was already run the way he wanted it, and he saw no need to change for
inspection. He could catch a few winks before Palmer called him. He started to
turn back, then hesitated at the sight of Jenkins. At his stage, the boy might
not understand sleeping on the job.
"If anyone needs me, I'll be at Palmer's office," he called out. Jenkins
nodded, and Doc went through the side door and down the long walk toward the
Administration building, overshadowed by the ugly bulk of the power-generating
station-the oldest building on the grounds.
Palmer's office had been designed to look like a proper place for an
executive, including a built-in bar. But in the middle of it, serving as desk,
was an old draftsman's table, littered with graphs, stained with ink and
loaded with baskets. One corner showed the years of whittling where Palmer had
chipped off improvised toothpicks, before he got his complete plates. The man
himself was like his office: Tasteful, expensive clothes, a well-barbered look
and the obvious intelligence in the heavy face suggested the good executive.
But now his suit coat lay on a leather couch and he was wearing a battered
leather jacket. His hands bore the marks of hard labor, which had thickened
the veins and swelled the knuckles; and he remained hard-muscled and active in
body as a working construction engineer. He nodded Ferrel to a chair, but
continued standing himself.
"Thanks for coming, Doc. I got the word late last night. There's even an AEC
inspector with them, ready to snatch our power license if we aren't good boys.
I don't mind him; the AEC plays as straight as anyone in government can. But
the rest of them-the Guilden reporters, anyhow-are probably looking for
trouble. I need every good man here I can get."
"It doesn't make sense," Doc protested. "They can't get along without the
plants now; every hospital in the country would go crazy if we stopped
production, and it's just as bad with the other users. They can't move the
plants out where no workers would come."
Palmer sighed wearily. "They couldn't pass prohibition, either, Doc. But they
did."
"But atomic plants aren't that dangerous!"
"Unfortunately, they could be," Palmer said. He looked dead with fatigue, and
his reddened eyes indicated that he'd probably had no sleep at all. "We've had
atomic power for a quarter-century, now. That means some of the early plants,
built before we knew what we were doing-I helped build some of them-are
probably in bad condition. It also means a whole generation of engineers and
workers have been taking atomics for granted and getting careless. Since that
accident at Croton, inspections have shown too much radioactive contamination
around half a dozen plants. They need policing."
He dropped onto the couch, shoving piles of government bulletins aside, and
massaging his temples. "I think we're clean here, Doc. But it's just our tough
luck that old man Guilden got a tiny dose of poisoning from one of our early
products he was misusing. He's gunning for us, using this as a front, and he
swings a lot of weight. Oh, hell, I didn't want you for sympathy. I want to
check on a probable ringer."
During the early days the companies had been plagued by suits alleging ruined
health from radiation poisoning. A few had been legitimate, but most had been
phonies trying to force a settlement with the threat of publicity for the
company-ringers.
"Plant worker?" Doc asked. They were the hardest to check, since almost any
worker would have some slight trace of contamination.
"Delicatessen worker in Kimberly. I talked to her at her place last night, and
I think she believes she's been poisoned. But somebody's using her. Expensive
lawyer. He wouldn't give her doctor's name. I got her to give her symptoms-and
she looks sick."
He passed over a piece of paper, covered with his square, heavy writing.
Ferrel studied it, trying to make sense out of what a layman considered the
facts. Yet there was something of a pattern there. "I'd need more than that,
at least a good blood sample, as a start," he protested.
"I've got it. I had that nurse of yours-Dodd-come with me, posing as my
secretary. She bullied the woman into giving a sample while I was outside
pretending settlement with the lawyer. Here!" He handed over a bottle, and Doc
could see that Dodd had been careful to make a good job of it. She would, just
as she'd be able to persuade the woman to do anything. "I'll expect a report
on that, after this inspection mess. But what's your guess now?"
Doc gave it reluctantly. "It might be radiation. We can't police every place
that uses our stuff. But it's probably leukemia. If she found some slipshod
doctor who'd stopped keeping up with progress as well as with professional
ethics, he might decide it could fool a jury. It wouldn't, of course."
"It wouldn't have to. We can't take a thing like this to court now. The
publicity would ruin us, even if we were proved innocent later. And we can't
settle, that would only make us look as if we were guilty." Palmer got up and
started pacing about. "That's the trouble, Doc. One little accident that
happens-or that might happen-is enough to prove danger. But there's no way to
prove the absence of danger in a spectacular fashion that will hit the press.
And I can't even swear that there is no danger! . . . Leukemia . . . cancer of
the blood cells. . . ."
"Well, something like that. It used to be one hundred percent fatal. It still
will be if she has it and doesn't get treatment soon."
Palmer breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Whew! At least there's a chance,
then. If that's it, we can get a specialist who'll scare her with the facts.
She ought to jump at a chance to ditch her lawyer for free treatment. Thanks,
Doc. And let me know as soon as you find out for sure."
Ferrel went back to the Infirmary, frowning. If some unethical quack was
trying to use the woman, he wanted the man's name. It took only a few of those
to ruin the carefully built reputation of the whole profession! He was almost
to the corner of the building before he saw Jenkins. He was outside, arguing
with Jorgenson, one of the top production engineers. The man was huge, built
like an ox, and almost as strong, from the stories told about him, but his
mind wasn't secondary to his body.
Jenkins said something quickly, indicating a piece of paper in his hands, but
Jorgenson brushed it aside with a flip of his finger. "And I say to hell with
you, sonny, until you can make it stick. Go peddle your nostrums!"
The engineer swung around and stalked off. Jenkins stared after him tensely,
then stepped back into the Infirmary.
Doc could make no sense of it, but he didn't like it. If the boy was a
troublemaker . . . Still, he had nothing to go on. Until he knew more, it was
none of his business.
By the time Ferrel was inside, Jenkins had settled back to his usual stiff
calm. He looked up at Doc, and his voice was normal. "I've told the nurses to
expect more minor accidents already, Dr. Ferrel," he said. "I knew you'd want
that, after seeing Mr. Palmer."
Ferrel studied the young man. "Why? Just what was I supposed to have seen
Palmer about, anyhow?"
Jenkins controlled his impatience with the older man's obtuseness by an
effort, but his voice was respectful. "The inspection, of course. It's all
over the plant grapevine. I heard about it when I first came in. It isn't hard
to know what that will do to the accident rate."
"Yeah." Doc grimaced at his own stupidity. He had been obtuse. "Good work,
son. You were quite right."
There'd be accidents, all right. With men getting a major inspection under
these conditions, they'd be under constant tension, and there was no better
breeding ground for mistakes. With luck, there might only be the routine
mishaps. But there was no way of being sure of such good fortune. Almost
anything could happen.
Palmer had indicated that one accident could prove their lack of safety. They
certainly couldn't afford any black marks on the books of the committee now.
But with any operation as complicated as the creation of the superheavy
isotopes, something was sure to go wrong when the men were on edge.
He should have told Palmer to go to hell and stayed home!
CHAPTER 2
Ferrel found Meyers on duty in the dispensary, handling the routine cases with
her usual efficiency. He preferred the grim, hard-faced Dodd in the operating
room, but here Meyers was best. She was hardly thirty and would have been
pretty, except that her face lacked all color. Hair, skin and eyes were all so
dull that no amount of make-up could quite bring them to life.
She was swabbing out the eye of a man as Ferrel came in, and she finished
before turning to the doctor. "He brushed a cigarette against his eye while
putting on his goggles," she reported. "Nothing serious, though. That's the
eleventh report I've filled out in the last half hour."
Doc looked at the stack of cards, and his question was answered. Jenkins had
been right; the accident rate was triple what it should have been. But so far
none of the cases had been serious.
"Not many goldbricks today, though," she said. There were usually a few who
decided the best way to get a day off was to play sick. She giggled faintly.
"Dr. Jenkins got a run of them, but I guess they didn't like his giving out
laxatives. Even the telephone girl wasn't in today."
"She only reports in sick when she's bored. Today she's probably expecting
fireworks," Ferrel observed. He had made it a habit for years to give the girl
a day off about once every four months to encourage her imagination. She was
the only one in the plant who managed to come up with interesting symptoms
when she wanted a day's loafing.
"Jenkins had her yesterday. He diagnosed it as galloping leprosy and gave her
something that made her lips burn for hours," Meyers said. She seemed to
admire the boy. It was the first evidence Doc had that Jenkins possessed a
sense of humor.
He went back into the main part of the building. They were equipped and
staffed beyond any plant set-up he'd ever known, with almost an embarrassment
of riches. Aside from Dodd and Meyers, there were three other nurses, two male
attendants, two drivers for the little three-wheeled emergency litters, a
receptionist, and a secretary for the doctors. The operating room had
everything, and there were even little wards where they could keep patients,
if the need should arise.
He went over to the hypothermy-cryotherapy outfit, looking down at it. Most of
the things here were required by state law, but this was Palmer's own idea. It
was designed to lower the temperature of the body-or any part-to a level where
there would be no response to pain. It was an old idea in medicine and had
been tried for everything, including the attempt to cure cancer. But it had
finally been perfected in form, and a technique had evolved that made it
usable. In emergency operations it served far better than the usual
anesthesia. There was even an attachment for the litter to start freezing
tissue on the way in.
The inspection didn't worry him too much. The state laws had been toughened up
for atomic plants until they were far more severe than any requirements the
AEC might suggest, and he'd passed that inspection less than a month before.
Blake came by, chuckling, and stopped as he spotted Ferrel. "The inspection
committee is here, Doc." He was grinning from ear to ear. "But not the
reporters! Old Palmer's a fox. He put Number One to work first thing this
morning on something the army ordered. It's secret enough so that he could
declare the plant restricted territory-but not too restricted for congressmen.
So the newspaper boys are running around trying to get themselves cleared.
With luck, they'll make it about the time the whole thing's finished."
Doc grinned, but he had his doubts. The men for the Guilden chain would write
up what they wanted to, anyhow, and this would only antagonize the reporters
who might have been friendly. It would also go rather badly with a couple of
the congressmen who apparently were on the committee only for the publicity
they could get. To the larger number of men, who were probably quite sincere,
it would have a suspicious tinge of trying to cover up from the public.
Palmer usually had his reasons for what he did, but Doc could make little
sense of this. It almost seemed that the manager had gone out of his way to
make enemies and lose friends.
But at least it was a good story. Even Dodd was smiling when he saw her. On a
sudden hunch Ferrel went outside and walked down to the cafeteria. There was
only a small crowd there now, but he could catch bits of their conversation as
he waited for his coffee. Most of the talk seemed to be about the fate of the
reporters. And the general reaction was that Palmer had pulled his best trick
in a long time.
Doc headed back, carrying an extra coffee for Meyers, who should need it. She
was the only one who'd really been busy so far. He found her alone. "Business
slacking off?" he asked as he gave her the container.
"Thanks, Dr. Ferrel. You're a life-saver!" She poured in enough sugar to make
a concentrated syrup and sipped the hot stuff gratefully. "I guess I'm losing
my popularity. Nobody's been here for the last twenty minutes."
Ferrel hung around a few minutes more, and then left, convinced that his hunch
had been right. Palmer had been as aware as Jenkins that the men had spread
the story of the inspection and that it was raising hob with morale. He'd been
prepared for it, and had made the only possible move to counteract-give the
men something to laugh about instead of fretting. Whether it would work when
the actual inspection began was another matter.
Dodd brought word of the inspection back. Apparently the group was larger than
Doc had thought. There were half a dozen congressmen and a number of "experts"
with them. Outside, others were moving about with instruments, making spot
checks to find whether the atmosphere and ground around was contaminated. That
part of it, at least, was a sensible precaution, though it merely duplicated
the checks that National ran periodically itself.
They had already gone through two of the converters with no trouble and not
even a minor accident to mar the record. They showed no sign of heading for
the Infirmary yet, though Doc had expected that to be one of the first places
they would visit. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was already noon.
He went out to locate Dodd and ask for further details, but she could add
little to her previous account. They were moving about at random now,
apparently examining the shipping department.
He fumed for fifteen minutes more. It was his bitten cigar that finally made
him realize his tension. He had mangled the end until it finally came to
pieces in his mouth. He spat out the tobacco, muttering to himself.
It wasn't the men who were being inspected who would give trouble, nor those
who'd already passed, he realized. It was the group who would have to go on
waiting, not knowing when their turn would come. He himself had nothing to
fear, and yet it was beginning to get him. . . .
He headed for the front office, wondering whether anyone there had heard
anything about the future schedule. The receptionist and secretary would be
the logical ones to have buddies working in Administration, and even a hint
would be helpful. He came through the door just as a small, wiry little man
entered from outside, taking off his Homburg and fiddling with his tiny
mustache as he approached the receptionist. Ferrel recognized him just as he
looked up.
"Hi, Ferrel, the little man cried.
"Busoni! What are you doing here?" But Doc could guess the answer to that.
It was what he expected. "Serving as expert. I'm your inspector. I've been
looking forward to a crack at you too, ever since I knew you were on the list.
How's blood-washing?"
"Beats general practice-or it did until you came in, bone-breaker." Busoni had
been in Ferrel's class at medical school, specializing in work on fractures.
He'd made something of a reputation from his work in rebreaking and correcting
old, badly knit fractures. Then he'd built a second reputation from his work
in finding ways to wash the radioactive ions out of the calcium of the bones
without hurting the calcium deposits themselves. Doc had sent him a patient
once after the usual routine with blood-exchange and treatment with the
versene group of chemicals had failed.
He held the door while the other walked in. Busoni moved about, taking in the
equipment, studying the layout, and moving toward the nurses' toilet. He made
a thorough inspection there, nodded, and began marking his sheets. "You pass,
Ferrel. Any man who can keep a ladies' room clean has a good mark in my book."
He smiled as he said it, but Doc wasn't sure but what he meant it. At that,
the man had managed to cover the key points. Then he snapped his book shut and
relaxed. "I got you off lightly, Roger. I told them I knew you, and they
figured you'd spill more dirt to me than anyone else. I know better, but why
disillusion them? But I'm afraid this plant is in for pretty rough treatment.
The committee's mostly pretty honest, but they've been filled with a lot of
dirty rumors about Palmer. How about it-does he stink, or does he deserve a
break?"
"I'm still here," Ferrel told him. "In fact, I'm here when I could have had
the day off."
Busoni grinned. "I'll take that answer. But I don't think I can sell it to
anyone else. He made a bad mistake in getting the reporters kicked out. Oh, I
can guess why. But a couple of the men feel spiteful, and-"
From outside came the rising wail of an electric siren, reaching a shrill
scream that cut through the walls and pierced the ears. Emergency! And from
the warbling that was beginning, it meant an emergency with hot stuff floating
free!
"Dr. Ferrel!" the paging speaker shouted. "Phone!"
He snatched up the receiver. "Ferrel!"
"Point Twenty!" Palmer snapped the words out, and then hung up. But it was
information enough. "Point Twenty"-the pile that gave them their power-and of
all the places for an accident Doc liked that least.
He grabbed his emergency bag from the wall and headed for the rear. Dodd was
with him, holding out his surgeon's smock. He shook his head, but she clutched
it grimly as she ran. In the back receiving room, Beel already had the little
litter equipped with twin stretchers, and the motor turning over. He waited
until Ferrel and Dodd had grabbed the handrails; then he gunned away, while
the second driver was still waiting for Blake and his nurse. Doc ran his eye
over the equipment that had been made ready, and nodded. Jones had proved his
worth as a male attendant long before, and he was still doing the right thing
instantly.
Then for the first time he became aware of the fact that Busoni was riding the
litter with him. "Hot stuff!" Doc shouted warningly over the wail of the
litter siren. But he was glad to have another doctor at his side.
Crowds were heading for the converter heedless of the risk, driven by the
compulsion to witness disaster. Their presence would make rescue operations
more difficult, but the guards were on duty, chasing them back. A vehicle that
looked like a fireman's hook-and-ladder engine gunned past at top speed. Its
complicated superstructure was like a three-dimensional Jacob's ladder, and a
man in heavy shielding rode at each end to steer it.
The emergency truck stopped at the side entrance of the huge building that
housed the pile. At one time this pile had been the largest commercial atomic
摘要：

NERVESbyLESTERDELREYCHAPTER1ThejanglingofthetelephonegnawedatDocFerrel'ssleep.Hiseffortstocutitoffbyburyinghisheaddeeperinthepillowonlymadehimmoreawareofit.Acrosstheroom,heheardEmmastirringuneasily.Hecouldjustmakeoutherbodyunderthesheetsbythedimlightoftheearlymorning.Nobodyhadanybusinesscallingattha...

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