Chapter 12: The Showdown

It was hours later when their ship reached the contact point co-ordinates. There had been little talk during the transit; each of them knew already what the other was thinking, and there wasn’t much to be said. The message had said it for them.

Dal’s worst fears were realized when the inspection ship appeared, converting from Koenig drive within a few miles of the Lancet. He had seen the ship before--a sleek, handsomely outfitted patrol class ship with the insignia of the Black Service of Pathology emblazoned on its hull, the private ship of a Four-star Black Doctor.

But none of them anticipated the action taken by the inspection ship as it drew within lifeboat range of the Lancet.

A scooter shot away from its storage rack on the black ship, and a crew of black-garbed technicians piled into the Lancet‘s entrance lock, dressed in the special decontamination suits worn when a ship was returning from a plague spot into uninfected territory.

“What is this?” Tiger demanded as the technicians started unloading decontamination gear into the lock. “What are you doing with that stuff?”

The squad leader looked at him sourly. “You’re in quarantine, Doc,” he said. “Class I, all precautions, contact with unidentified pestilence. If you don’t like it, argue with the Black Doctor, I’ve just got a job to do.”

He started shouting orders to his men, and they scattered throughout the ship, with blowers and disinfectants, driving antiseptic sprays into every crack and cranny of the ship’s interior, scouring the hull outside in the rigid pattern prescribed for plague ships. They herded the doctors into the decontamination lock, stripped them of their clothes, scrubbed them down and tossed them special sterilized fatigues to wear with masks and gloves.

“This is idiotic,” Jack protested. “We aren’t carrying any dangerous organisms!”

The squad leader shrugged indifferently. “Tell it to the Black Doctor, not me. All I know is that this ship is under quarantine until it’s officially released, and from what I hear, it’s not going to be released for quite some time.”

At last the job was done, and the scooter departed back to the inspection ship. A few moments later they saw it returning, this time carrying just three men. In addition to the pilot and one technician, there was a single passenger: a portly figure dressed in a black robe, horn-rimmed glasses and cowl.

The scooter grappled the Lancet‘s side, and Black Doctor Hugo Tanner climbed wheezing into the entrance lock, followed by the technician. He stopped halfway into the lock to get his breath, and paused again as the lock swung closed behind him. Dal was shocked at the physical change in the man in the few short weeks since he had seen him last. The Black Doctor’s face was gray; every effort of movement brought on paroxysms of coughing. He looked sick, and he looked tired, yet his jaw was still set in angry determination.

The doctors stood at attention as he stepped into the control room, hardly able to conceal their surprise at seeing him. “Well?” the Black Doctor snapped at them. “What’s the trouble with you? You act like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“We--we’d heard that you were in the hospital, sir.”

“Did you, now!” the Black Doctor snorted. “Hospital! Bah! I had to tell the press something to get the hounds off me for a while. These young puppies seem to think that a Black Doctor can just walk away from his duties any time he chooses to undergo their fancy surgical procedures. And you know who’s been screaming the loudest to get their hands on me. The Red Service of Surgery, that’s who!”

The Black Doctor glared at Dal Timgar. “Well, I dare say the Red Doctors will have their chance at me, all in good time. But first there are certain things which must be taken care of.” He looked up at the attendant. “You’re quite certain that the ship has been decontaminated?”

The attendant nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And the crewmen?”

“It’s safe to talk to them, sir, as long as you avoid physical contact.”

The Black Doctor grunted and wheezed and settled himself down in a seat. “All right now, gentlemen,” he said to the three, “let’s have your story of this affair in the Brucker system, right from the start.”

“But we sent in a full report,” Tiger said.

“I’m aware of that, you idiot. I have waded through your report, all thirty-five pages of it, and I only wish you hadn’t been so long-winded. Now I want to hear what happened directly from you. Well?”

The three doctors looked at each other. Then Jack began the story, starting with the first hesitant “greeting” that had come through to them. He told everything that had happened without embellishments: their first analysis of the nature of the problem, the biochemical and medical survey that they ran on the afflicted people, his own failure to make the diagnosis, the incident of Fuzzy’s sudden affliction, and the strange solution that had finally come from it. As he talked the Black Doctor sat back with his eyes half closed, his face blank, listening and nodding from time to time as the story proceeded.

And Jack was carefully honest and fair in his account. “We were all of us lost, until Dal Timgar saw the significance of what had happened to Fuzzy,” he said. “His idea of putting the creature through the filter gave us our first specimen of the isolated virus, and showed us how to obtain the antibody. Then after we saw what happened with our initial series of injections, we were really at sea, and by then we couldn’t reach a hospital ship for help of any kind.” He went on to relate Dal’s idea that the virus itself might be the intelligent creature, and recounted the things that happened after Dal went down to talk to the spokesman again with Fuzzy on his shoulder.

Through it all the Black Doctor listened sourly, glancing occasionally at Dal and saying nothing. “So is that all?” he said when Jack had finished.

“Not quite,” Jack said. “I want it to be on the record that it was my failure in diagnosis that got us into trouble. I don’t want any misunderstanding about that. If I’d had the wit to think beyond the end of my nose, there wouldn’t have been any problem.”

“I see,” the Black Doctor said. He pointed to Dal. “So it was this one who really came up with the answers and directed the whole program on this problem, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Jack said firmly. “He should get all the credit.”

Something stirred in Dal’s mind and he felt Fuzzy snuggling in tightly to his side. He could feel the cold hostility in the Black Doctor’s mind, and he started to say something, but the Black Doctor cut him off. “Do you agree to that also, Dr. Martin?” he asked Tiger.

“I certainly do,” Tiger said. “I’ll back up the Blue Doctor right down the line.”

The Black Doctor smiled unpleasantly and nodded. “Well, I’m certainly happy to hear you say that, gentlemen. I might say that it is a very great relief to me to hear it from your own testimony. Because this time there shouldn’t be any argument from either of you as to just where the responsibility lies, and I’m relieved to know that I can completely exonerate you two, at any rate.”

Jack Alvarez’s jaw went slack and he stared at the Black Doctor as though he hadn’t heard him properly. “Exonerate us?” he said. “Exonerate us from what?”

“From the charges of incompetence, malpractice and conduct unbecoming to a physician which I am lodging against your colleague in the Red Service here,” the Black Doctor said angrily. “Of course, I was confident that neither of you two could have contributed very much to this bungling mess, but it is reassuring to have your own statements of that fact on the record. They should carry more weight in a Council hearing than any plea I might make in your behalf.”

“But--but what do you mean by a Council hearing?” Tiger stammered. “I don’t understand you! This--this problem is solved. We solved it as a patrol team, all of us. We sent in a brand new medical service contract from those people...”

“Oh, yes. That!“ The Black Doctor drew a long pink dispatch sheet from an inner pocket and opened it out. The doctors could see the photo reproductions of their signatures at the bottom. “Fortunately--for you two--this bit of nonsense was brought to my attention at the first relay station that received it. I personally accepted it and withdrew it from the circuit before it could reach Hospital Earth for filing.”

Slowly, as they watched him, he ripped the pink dispatch sheet into a dozen pieces and tossed it into the disposal vent. “So much for that,” he said slowly. “I can choose to overlook your foolishness in trying to cloud the important issues with a so-called ‘contract’ to divert attention, but I’m afraid I can’t pay much attention to it, nor allow it to appear in the general report. And of course I am forced to classify the Lancet as a plague ship until a bacteriological and virological examination has been completed on both ship and crew. The planet itself will be considered a galactic plague spot until proper measures have been taken to insure its decontamination.”

The Black Doctor drew some papers from another pocket and turned to Dal Timgar. “As for you, the charges are clear enough. You have broken the most fundamental rules of good judgment and good medicine in handling the 31 Brucker affair. You have permitted a General Practice Patrol ship to approach a potentially dangerous plague spot without any notification of higher authorities. You have undertaken a biochemical and medical survey for which you had neither the proper equipment nor the training qualifications, and you exposed your ship and your crewmates to an incredible risk in landing on such a planet. You are responsible for untold--possibly fatal--damage to over two hundred individuals of the race that called on you for help. You have even subjected the creature that depends upon your own race for its life and support to virtual slavery and possible destruction; and finally, you had the audacity to try to cover up your bungling with claims of arranging a medical service contract with an uninvestigated race.”

The Black Doctor broke off as an attendant came in the door and whispered something in his ear. Doctor Tanner shook his head angrily, “I can’t be bothered now!”

“They say it’s urgent, sir.”

“Yes, it’s always urgent.” The Black Doctor heaved to his feet. “If it weren’t for this miserable incompetent here, I wouldn’t have to be taking precious time away from my more important duties.” He scowled at the Lancet crewmen. “You will excuse me for a moment,” he said, and disappeared into the communications room.

The moment he was gone from the room, Jack and Tiger were talking at once. “He couldn’t really be serious,” Tiger said. “It’s impossible! Not one of those charges would hold up under investigation.”

“Well, I think it’s a frame-up,” Jack said, his voice tight with anger. “I knew that some people on Hospital Earth were out to get you, but I don’t see how a Four-star Black Doctor could be a party to such a thing. Either someone has been misinforming him, or he just doesn’t understand what happened.”

Dal shook his head. “He understands, all right, and he’s the one who’s determined to get me out of medicine. This is a flimsy excuse, but he has to use it, because it’s now or never. He knows that if we bring in a contract with a new planet, and it’s formally ratified, we’ll all get our Stars and he’d never be able to block me again. And Black Doctor Tanner is going to be certain that I don’t get that Star, or die trying.”