Chapter 1: Pariah

The air of the city’s cheapest flophouse was thick with the smells of harsh antiseptic and unwashed bodies. The early Christmas snowstorm had driven in every bum who could steal or beg the price of admission, and the long rows of cots were filled with fully clothed figures. Those who could afford the extra dime were huddled under thin, grimy blankets.

The pariah who had been Dr. Daniel Feldman enjoyed no such luxury. He tossed fitfully on a bare cot, bringing his face into the dim light. It had been a handsome face, but now the black stubble of beard lay over gaunt features and sunken cheeks. He looked ten years older than his scant thirty-two, and there were the beginnings of a snarl at the corners of his mouth. Clothes that had once been expensive were wrinkled and covered with grime that no amount of cleaning could remove. His tall, thin body was awkwardly curled up in a vain effort to conserve heat and one of his hands instinctively clutched at his tiny bag of possessions.

He stirred again, and suddenly jerked upright with a protest already forming on his lips. The ugly surroundings registered on his eyes, and he stared suspiciously at the other cots. But there was no sign that anyone had been trying to rob him of his bindle or the precious bag of cheap tobacco.

He started to relax back onto the couch when a sound caught his attention, even over the snoring of the others. It was a low wail, the sound of a man who can no longer control himself.

Feldman swung to the cot on his left as the moan hacked off. The man there was well fed and clean-shaven, but his face was gray with sickness. He was writhing and clutching his stomach, arching his back against the misery inside him.

“Space-stomach?” Feldman diagnosed.

He had no need of the weak answering nod. He’d treated such cases several times in the past. The disease was usually caused by the absence of gravity out in space, but it could be brought on later from abuse of the weakened internal organs, such as the intake of too much bad liquor. The man must have been frequenting the wrong space-front bars.

Now he was obviously dying. Violent peristaltic contractions seemed to be tearing the intestines out of him, and the paroxysms were coming faster. His eyes darted to Feldman’s tobacco sack and there was animal appeal in them.

Feldman hesitated, then reluctantly rolled a smoke. He held the cigarette while the spaceman took a long, gasping drag on it. He smoked the remainder himself, letting the harsh tobacco burn against his lungs and sicken his empty stomach. Then he shrugged and threaded his way through the narrow aisles toward the attendant.

“Better get a doctor,” he said bitterly, when the young punk looked up at him. “You’ve got a man dying of space-stomach on 214.”

The sneer on the kid’s face deepened. “Yeah? We don’t pay for doctors every time some wino wants to throw up. Forget it and get back where you belong, bo.”

“You’ll have a corpse on your hands in an hour,” Feldman insisted. “I know space-stomach, damn it.”

The kid turned back to his lottery sheet. “Go treat yourself if you wanta play doctor. Go on, scram--before I toss you out in the snow!”

One of Feldman’s white-knuckled hands reached for the attendant. Then he caught himself. He started to turn back, hesitated, and finally faced the kid again. “I’m not fooling. And I was a doctor,” he stated. “My name is Daniel Feldman.”

The attendant nodded absently, until the words finally penetrated. He looked up, studied Feldman with surprised curiosity and growing contempt, and reached for the phone. “Gimme Medical Directory,” he muttered.

Feldman felt the kid’s eyes on his back as he stumbled through the aisles to his cot again. He slumped down, rolling another cigarette in hands that shook. The sick man was approaching delirium now, and the moans were mixed with weak whining sounds of fear. Other men had wakened and were watching, but nobody made a move to help.

The retching and writhing of the sick man had begun to weaken, but it was still not too late to save him. Hot water and skillful massage could interrupt the paroxysms. In fifteen minutes, Feldman could have stopped the attack completely.

He found his feet on the floor and his hands already reaching out. Savagely he pulled himself back. Sure, he could save the man--and wind up in the gas chamber! There’d be no mercy for his second offense against Lobby laws. If the spaceman lived, Feldman might get off with a flogging--that was standard punishment for a pariah who stepped out of line. But with his luck, there would be a heart arrest and another juicy story for the papers.

Idealism! The Medical Lobby made a lot out of the word. But it wasn’t for him. A pariah had no business thinking of others.

As Feldman sat there staring, the spaceman grew quieter. Sometimes, even at this stage, massage could help. It was harder without liberal supplies of hot water, but the massage was the really important treatment. It was the trembling of Feldman’s hands that stopped him. He no longer had the strength or the certainty to make the massage effective.

He was glaring at his hands in self-disgust when the legal doctor arrived. The man was old and tired. Probably he had been another idealist who had wound up defeated, content to leave things up to the established procedures of the Medical Lobby. He looked it as he bent over the dying man.

The doctor turned back at last to the attendant. “Too late. The best I can do is ease his pain. The call should have been made half an hour earlier.”

He had obviously never handled space-stomach before. He administered a hypo that probably held narconal. Feldman watched, his guts tightening sympathetically for the shock that would be to the sick man. But at least it would shorten his sufferings. The final seizure lasted only a minute or so.

“Hopeless,” the doctor said. His eyes were clouded for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Well, I’ll make out a death certificate. Anyone here know his name?”

His eyes swung about the cots until they came to rest on Feldman. He frowned, and a twisted smile curved his lips.

“Feldman, isn’t it? You still look something like your pictures. Do you know the deceased?”

Feldman shook his head bitterly. “No. I don’t know his name. I don’t even know why he wasn’t cyanotic at the end, if it was space-stomach. Do you, doctor?”

The old man threw a startled glance at the corpse. Then he shrugged and nodded to the attendant. “Well, go through his things. If he still has a space ticket, I can get his name from that.”