The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 377
Devlin, who was putting the finishing touches to the dressing, paused to put his hand on the other's shoulder. He said seriously, "I did not mean to insult you and I unreservedly apologize. But I had an old man, too, and for a while there I was talking just like him. And I agree with you about mixed affairs—women are neither physically nor temperamentally suited to fighting death duels with men—and I think you behaved as a responsible Citizen should. I also agree that men should wear the trousers, but I disagree with the idea that the proper way to hold them up is by wearing a gunbelt."
The patient was silent for a few minutes and the color of his neck and ears became a less angry shade of pink. He said, "Your apology is accepted without loss of honor by either side." He went on less formally: "Some of us have to wear belts, Doctor. As a salesman I must wear one to talk to armed executive-level people I have to do business with. If I went dressed as a sheep they wouldn't let me in to talk at all. At the same time, if I went in with too many studs on my belt they would think that I was the touchy kind who would as soon fight as sell—or a man who sells by intimidation—and I wouldn't get many more appointments. I don't want a belt loaded with studs, anyway," he ended. "People are too touchy about their honor these days."
"You can sit up now," said Devlin, then added: "Just to satisfy my curiosity—how did you extricate yourself from last night's business without staining your escutcheon?"
For a few seconds the other would not meet his eyes. Then he said apologetically, "I didn't actually tell a lie, you understand. It was just that these two old boys were blasting at each other so enthusiastically that it sounded like a commando assault—and an armed vidge from the next block could have thought that a Maxer attack was developing and decided to loose one off. After all, there is no proof that the bullet came from—"
"No need to apologize," said Devlin, holding up his hand. "If you stop to think for a minute you'll realize that I prefer people to talk their way out of trouble—it makes less work for me. As for the wound itself, come back in three days unless it begins to feel hot. And rest—don't do anything more energetic than watching television for at least a week. After you are back on your feet, wear a wound disk on your belt for at least a month."
He pressed the stud controlling the office door and, as the girl was helping the patient out, he called, "Next."
WHILE HE was dealing with the succession of sniffs and coughs that followed, Devlin kept remembering that young and unusually sensible patient and the two glimpses he had had of the girl. He decided that he liked them well enough to arrange an evening meeting with them in the rec hall for a longer and more wide-ranging discussion. But there was the danger of his other patients thinking that he was playing favorites.
Even greater was the danger that, by talking too much to any of his patients, he might give someone the idea that he was not simply a medic but a medic with psychiatric experience and, just possibly, a cabinet full of the hallucinatory or personality-change drugs which were the institutional psychiatrist's stock in trade.
If a rumor got out that he was a psychiatrist his time, his property and person would never be his own again.
His last patient was last because, judging by the condition of the pad she was holding to the side of her face, she had deliberately waited until the others had been attended before coming in. Any number of the coughers and sniffers would, Devlin was sure, have given up their place in the line for her. She was in her early twenties. The half of her face which was not hidden by the bloodstained pad was beautiful and it was obvious from her expression that the facial injury was merely a symptom of much deeper trouble.
Even the symptom was serious enough—three deep, incised wounds running from the cheekbone to the line of the jaw and apparently inflicted with a not very sharp knife. There was a question he had to ask even though he knew what the answer must be.
"Is this a police matter?"
She shook her head.
Devlin tried to conceal his disbelief. He said, "Very well. These are deep cuts and require sutures. I can do the job myself, but frankly, my needlework isn't very neat. A good-looking girl like you needs a specialist for this sort of thing and I still have friends at Sanator Five who will help you beat others waiting in line—"
She was shaking her head again.
Leave this one alone, Devlin told himself firmly. You are not a psychiatrist.
Go away, himself replied, and mind your own business.
None of the seats in the waiting room were occupied, so he could give her extra time without being accused of playing favorites. He said, "Most of the rumors you hear about institutionalized medicine are wildly exaggerated, if not completely untrue. I did my training in Five and served there for six years and have kept in touch with some of the residents—one of whom is an expert in invisible mending. He'd see that you are not treated as just another statistic—Don't shake your head like that or you'll start bleeding again."
The trouble was, Devlin thought angrily, that the rumors about the big hospital complexes were not exaggerated. But he wanted to play favorites in this case and use his influence to get her special attention, because the thought of her going through the rest of her life with three ugly puckered scars on the side of one of the most beautiful faces he had ever seen was not to be borne—it would be like watching an old leprosy case burn itself out when the medication was available to cure the condition without wastage.
"I don't understand you," he said quietly. "If it isn't a police matter was it a family fight? A jealous lover? Why not have plastic surgery?"
She stared silently at him for a moment and Devlin thought that it was her polite way of telling him to mind his own business. Then she said firmly, "Because I did it myself."
Devlin cringed inwardly. It had taken determination to inflict that first cut, but three of them ...
He did not have to ask any more questions because she wanted badly to talk about her problem to someone, even though it had only one highly unsatisfactory solution. Her trouble was that she could not keep a boyfriend.
"... the first two I hardly got to know at all," she said quietly. Having decided to talk, she spoke freely. "Somebody decided that I was too good for them and wanted me for himself. One of them died and the other was badly wounded. I wouldn't even speak to the somebody who had challenged them and for a while I wanted to apply for a belt myself. But I hadn't known them long or well enough to want revenge—I was just angry. Then I met a sheep boy—from this building—who was nice and considerate and sometimes boring about his eye condition, which kept him from wearing a belt. They couldn't call him out, but they made life miserable for him in other ways—usually by insulting me in front of our friends—so that he applied for a belt anyway. I broke it off before he could get killed, too.
"The next one was a very good shot," she rushed on, "but tried to avoid trouble. Two young men who thought that I was too good for him but an ideal piece of organic property as far as they were concerned, died. I didn't want that—it didn't prove anything except that our society has gone mad. So I thought that if I became a less desirable piece of property I would not be the cause of so many people dying or—"
"Surely there was an easier way—" Devlin stopped. His hand was covering the mutilated side of her face and he could see that she had been not only a lovely piece of organic property, her expression reflected character, determination, self-assurance and compassion, the last predominating. Obviously she would have given a lot of thought to her problem before coming up with her terrible answer.
Devlin swore long and luridly behind a calmly clinical expression and went to work.
Almost an hour later, after the neatest and most painstaking piece of surgery he had ever performed, he said, "Let me have a look at it tomorrow. And don't try to smile or you might open the—"
He broke off again, feeling his face begin to burn with embarrassment. What could she possibly find to smile at?
"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly. "The trick of putting my foot in my mouth I usually reserve for the rec hall, after a couple of liters of mix eighty-two."
Her eyes showed sympathy for Devlin's embarrassment, which made him feel worse than ever. She said, "No need to apologize, Doctor. But if you are in the rec hall tonight and feel like doing acrobatic tricks with your foot, I'll be somewhere in Yellow area with my parents. They will probably need some cheering up."
Devlin, stared at her for a long time, thinking that he could understand why people wanted to fight over her. Her parents needed cheering up?
He nodded finally and said, "I may see you then, provided that I am capable of seeing anything by that time. But if there is a younger male at the table I shall stagger past."
He had a sharp, mental picture of her as she had opened the surgery door. Then reality faded in with a message from the ceiling display and he was pulled from his reverie.
COOLDOWN IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. IS MEMORY RECALL COMPLETE?
"My day," said Devlin, "has hardly yet begun."
The computer would take no meaning from the words, of course, and would accept the instruction as being performed if he did nothing. But he had been asked to remember a day in the Devlin lifetime in complete and accurate detail and, whether he was driven by a sense of duty, a vestigial conscience or a tendency toward masochism, he would try to do just that. So he rose, tapped for a one-hour Hold and returned to his casket.
As the cubicle heaters came on again he sighed and resumed his not very pleasant daydream.
Chapter Six
HE HAD only one house visit to make that day. It was on the edge of the city more than seven miles away and, although he did not like the thought of a round trip of fifteen miles, he had to take some risks if he wanted to build a private practice. The high-density central areas provided resident medics for each block of apartments, but their work was listed as an essential service covered by the rental and the salary of each individual doctor was not high.
Private patients occupied family dwellings rather than apartments and had to be rich, brave or well liked to be able to survive at all in such small defensive units. The Bennetts were an unusual combination, Devlin had discovered during his two earlier visits: they were both rich and well liked.
Before leaving his office he called City Security to check on route safety and found that there was only one major trouble spot between his block and the Bennett home. Two large rival bands of Maxer mercenaries had started a shootout in the early hours at a shopping complex about four miles away. Casualties were reported to be heavy and ambulances were standing by, but they could not go in because of the danger of their being hijacked and used by the combatants as APCs. City Security forces could not go in either because the situation was complicated by the fact that pockets of property owners and members of their night staffs were trying to defend various buildings against both Maxer factions. The Security forces were being used merely to contain the trouble until it burned itself out. People with business in the area were advised to stay clear for at least three hours unless equipped with vehicles possessing overall armor and gas filtration apparatus.
Devlin mentally plotted a course that would skirt the trouble spot, grabbed his bag and headed for the elevator.
His armored car had been visited during the night or the late morning. On its flank someone had written with a very small finger "Please wash me" in the grime that coated the white paintwork, and all the doors were open. No fittings were missing or damaged, however, and the medical stores were disturbed but otherwise intact. It was possible that someone had investigated the unlocked car on the off-chance of finding hard drugs, but it was much more likely that one of the children from the block, sent by its parents to play in the relatively fresh air and safety of the early morning, had been indulging its curiosity as well as practicing its joined-up writing.
He drove as rapidly as possible along streets that were peaceful and thronged with shoppers. Only once did he pass a suddenly deserted area indicative of an affair about to reach its deadly climax. He did not stop to offer assistance because the city hospital service had that responsibility and professional poaching was frowned on. It was an unusually quiet morning—he heard less than a dozen shots above the traffic noises and none of them close. He was tempted to open the heavy metal hatches covering the vehicle's tiny windows and drive by direct vision instead of with his face bouncing against the periscope, but his sense of caution prevailed.
It was the generally held belief that the people responsible for the greatest amount of disorder and destruction in the city did their work at night and, because of this, tended to sleep late and leave the streets safe for law-abiding folk during the early part of the day. Like all good rules, Devlin knew from experience, this one had its exceptions.
When he arrived at the Bennett home he was checked and passed by the oldest boy, whose angry brown eyes seemed to be the only spots of color in his face. A man in a high white collar was already there. He seemed to be one of the new, relaxed breed of clergymen who occasionally swore or cracked jokes or talked a bit dirty if the situation seemed to warrant it. Even though they did good work in many places, Devlin did not completely approve of the type. An agnostic himself, he still preferred the ministers of the religions he did not believe in to be the proper, old-fashioned kind. He nodded politely.
"My name is Howard," said the minister quietly. "Brother Howard. You cannot help him."
"Can you?" asked Devlin, maintaining his politeness with an effort. It was beginning to look as if the elder Bennett had roped in a faith-healer for his son.
But the Brother was looking sympathetically toward the boy's father as he said, "Probably not, Doctor. But I shall try."
Until then Devlin had not given much attention to the boy's father. Far too much of his mind was being taken over with thoughts of the two patients he had treated in this morning's surgery. Now he turned a more clinical eye on the father of the patient.
He saw at once that Bennett had more on his mind than a young son with a septic hand, which was responding nicely to treatment. He was moving about normally and saying the right things while his expression changed properly to match his words. But all the time his eyes were strangely empty. The mind that should have been looking out of them was somewhere else while the body was switched to auto-pilot.
Without speaking, Devlin hurried into the boy's room.
HE HAD confined Tommy Bennett to his room in an attempt to make him rest the hand and to keep the dressings as clean as possible, but now the bandages were smeared with dried watercolor—some time during the past two days since Devlin's last visit the boy had been playing with his paintbox. That was of no importance now, of course, because there was a lot more primary color on the floor by the window and on the white wool bedspread on which the boy was lying.
The boy looked pale and serious—and apparently uninjured, but that was because his red bathrobe was buttoned up to the neck so that a second look was needed to see the wide, sticky area covering his chest and abdomen. Devlin looked away, noticing the starred window and the small red-flecked crater in the opposite wall.
He cursed. He had made the mistake of liking young Tommy.
Devlin could imagine the boy standing by the direct vision window, watching the smoke rising from the distant trouble spot and listening to the shooting. One of the shots had been wide and from a high-velocity weapon a bullet traveled forever. He could imagine Tommy's father picking him up and laying him on the bed—or perhaps his mother had had to do that.
Whichever it had been, they both needed help—a couple of large-caliber tranquilizers to begin with, and possibly a course of PCs, which would give them a calmer, more fatalistic personality for the next few weeks to allow the shock to be absorbed in easy stages. But Devlin could not, of course, give them that kind of help. No medic who did not work and live in one of the big Government hospitals was allowed to prescribe such drugs.
Any drugs used for the cure or alleviation of psychiatric conditions could be misused and, in the absence of the more common hard drugs, were continually in demand. The price, until they had been withdrawn many years earlier from all but the maximum security hospitals, had very often been the life of the doctor who had carried or stocked them in his surgery. The only course left open to Devlin would be to refer the Bennetts to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, where the waiting list might not stretch for longer than a few minutes and where, if they elected to risk the outpatient department, they would be lucky not to be robbed of their medication on the way out. In short, he could not help them at all, beyond going through the motions.
But when Devlin had left Tommy's bedroom, Bennett was still being absently polite and asking no help. Brother Howard and Devlin both finally asked if there was anything they could do and Bennett made it evident that he simply wanted them to go away.
Devlin caught the Brother's eye and said, "Can I give you a lift anywhere?"
"That is very kind of you, Doctor," said the other and they began a brief conversational disengagement.
WHEN THEY were on the street Brother Howard said quietly, "Mr. Bennett probably wants to curse or cry or break things or, more probably, try to console his wife. He could not do any of those things with us there. So I really don't need a lift, Doctor. I live only a few miles away and at this time of day unaccompanied pedestrians are in very little danger."
"I have to divert anyway," said Devlin, "and there are no other urgent calls."
He held open the door on the passenger's side, then walked around the car checking for tire damage or the attachment of foreign and possibly explosive objects. Then he climbed in himself. But for a long time he made no move toward starting the car, nor did he speak.
"Perhaps," said Brother Howard, when the silence had begun to drag, "you would like to break a few things yourself, Doctor?"
He did not sound impatient at the delay, just sympathetic and angry.
