on the back of his neck. It got so that in spite of himself, Alvarez spent the whole week dreading Wednesday. When he saw Samuels’s earnest face coming through the door, something seemed to wind itself a little tighter inside him.
Some day, when Samuels opened his mouth to say. “Hey, Doc—” Samuels always called him “Doc”—the something inside him was going to break with a sound like a banjo string. What would happen then, Dr. Alvarez was unable to imagine.
When the gorgon had first been brought up to the Satellite, there had been two or three delightful little fungus infections, then nothing. A great disappointment. Alvarez had isolated and cultured almost a hundred microorganisms found in smears he had taken from George, but they were all nonviable in human tissue. The viable bacteria, viruses, parasites that always turned up on a life-infested planet, were evidently lurking in some organism other than the gorgons. They swam, at night, across the optical field of Dr. Alvarez’s dreaming mind—rod-shaped ones, lens-shaped ones, wriggly ones, leggy ones and ones with teeth.
One morning Dr. Alvarez awoke with a desperate resolve. It was a Tuesday. Alvarez went directly to the infirmary, relieved Nurse Trumble, who was on duty, and, opening a locked cabinet, filled a hypodermic from an ampule of clear straw-colored fluid. The trade name of this substance was Betsoff; it was a counter-inhibitant which stunned the censor areas of the forebrain chiefly affected by the Pavlov-Morganstern treatments. (By an odd coincidence, the patentee was a Dr. Jekyll) Alvarez injected two c.c.’s of it directly Into the median basilic vein and sat down to wait.
After a few minutes his perpetual bad humor began to lift. He felt a pleasant ebullience; the colors of things around him seemed brighter and clearer. “Ha!” said Alvarez. He got up and went to his little refrigerator, where, after some search, he found half a dozen of the cultures he had made of microorganisms taken from gorgon smears. They were quiescent, of course—deep-frozen. Alvarez warmed them cautiously and added nutrients. All morning, while the usual succession of minor complaints paraded through the infirmary, the cultures grew and multiplied. Alvarez was jovial with his patients; he cracked a joke or two, and handed out harmless pills all around.
By noon, four of the cultures were flourishing. Alvarez carefully concentrated them into one, and loaded another hypodermic with the resulting brew. To his liverated intelligence, the matter was clear: No organism, man or pig or gorgon, was altogether immune to the microbes it normally carried in its body. Upset the balance by injecting massive colonies of any one of them, and you were going to have a sick gorgon—i.e. Alvarez thought, a punished gorgon.
The treatment might also kill the patient, but Alvarez lightheartedly dismissed this argument as a quibble. (Or quabble?) Armed with his hypo, he went forth looking for George.
He found him in the small assembly room, together with Dominick, Womrath, and a mechanic named Bob Ritner.
They were all standing around a curious instrument, or object of art, built out of bar aluminum. “It’s a rack,” Ritner explained proudly. “I saw a picture of it once in a kid’s book.”
The chief feature of the “rack” was along, narrow table, with a windlass at one end. It looked like a crude device for stretching something.
“We thought the time had come for stern measures,” Dominick said, mopping his head.
“In the olden days,” Ritner put in, “they used these on the prisoners when they wouldn’t talk.”
“I talk,” said George unexpectedly.
“It’s another punishment, George,” Dominick explained kindly. “Well, Alvarez, before we go ahead, I suppose you want to examine your patient.”
“Yes, just so, ha ha!” said Alvarez. He knelt down and peered keenly at George, who swiveled his photoceptors interestedly around to stare back. The doctor
Some day, when Samuels opened his mouth to say. “Hey, Doc—” Samuels always called him “Doc”—the something inside him was going to break with a sound like a banjo string. What would happen then, Dr. Alvarez was unable to imagine.
When the gorgon had first been brought up to the Satellite, there had been two or three delightful little fungus infections, then nothing. A great disappointment. Alvarez had isolated and cultured almost a hundred microorganisms found in smears he had taken from George, but they were all nonviable in human tissue. The viable bacteria, viruses, parasites that always turned up on a life-infested planet, were evidently lurking in some organism other than the gorgons. They swam, at night, across the optical field of Dr. Alvarez’s dreaming mind—rod-shaped ones, lens-shaped ones, wriggly ones, leggy ones and ones with teeth.
One morning Dr. Alvarez awoke with a desperate resolve. It was a Tuesday. Alvarez went directly to the infirmary, relieved Nurse Trumble, who was on duty, and, opening a locked cabinet, filled a hypodermic from an ampule of clear straw-colored fluid. The trade name of this substance was Betsoff; it was a counter-inhibitant which stunned the censor areas of the forebrain chiefly affected by the Pavlov-Morganstern treatments. (By an odd coincidence, the patentee was a Dr. Jekyll) Alvarez injected two c.c.’s of it directly Into the median basilic vein and sat down to wait.
After a few minutes his perpetual bad humor began to lift. He felt a pleasant ebullience; the colors of things around him seemed brighter and clearer. “Ha!” said Alvarez. He got up and went to his little refrigerator, where, after some search, he found half a dozen of the cultures he had made of microorganisms taken from gorgon smears. They were quiescent, of course—deep-frozen. Alvarez warmed them cautiously and added nutrients. All morning, while the usual succession of minor complaints paraded through the infirmary, the cultures grew and multiplied. Alvarez was jovial with his patients; he cracked a joke or two, and handed out harmless pills all around.
By noon, four of the cultures were flourishing. Alvarez carefully concentrated them into one, and loaded another hypodermic with the resulting brew. To his liverated intelligence, the matter was clear: No organism, man or pig or gorgon, was altogether immune to the microbes it normally carried in its body. Upset the balance by injecting massive colonies of any one of them, and you were going to have a sick gorgon—i.e. Alvarez thought, a punished gorgon.
The treatment might also kill the patient, but Alvarez lightheartedly dismissed this argument as a quibble. (Or quabble?) Armed with his hypo, he went forth looking for George.
He found him in the small assembly room, together with Dominick, Womrath, and a mechanic named Bob Ritner.
They were all standing around a curious instrument, or object of art, built out of bar aluminum. “It’s a rack,” Ritner explained proudly. “I saw a picture of it once in a kid’s book.”
The chief feature of the “rack” was along, narrow table, with a windlass at one end. It looked like a crude device for stretching something.
“We thought the time had come for stern measures,” Dominick said, mopping his head.
“In the olden days,” Ritner put in, “they used these on the prisoners when they wouldn’t talk.”
“I talk,” said George unexpectedly.
“It’s another punishment, George,” Dominick explained kindly. “Well, Alvarez, before we go ahead, I suppose you want to examine your patient.”
“Yes, just so, ha ha!” said Alvarez. He knelt down and peered keenly at George, who swiveled his photoceptors interestedly around to stare back. The doctor
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