And most of the instruments appeared intact. That, though, was only on the outside. Inside, they contained fantastically delicate webs of electronic circuitry; solidstate though it was, without the master checkboard to confirm normal functioning, he had to suspect that it might have been deranged by the crash. You didn’t pick up a modern diagnostic device and throw it at the wall. If you only let it fall to the floor, you checked it out before re-using it.
And the checkboard had been filled with drifting sand. So even if—as he was half-thinking—he did contrive to jury-rig a power source, he wouldn’t be able to rely on it.
Forget the instruments, then, except the most ancient of all, like limb-tractors and scalpels. For thousands of years doctors had had to depend on the data they could carry in their own heads, and by modern standards his mind was well-stocked because he had always been blessed with an atavistically good memory. Just as the invention of writing put paid to the blind bards who could recite ten thousand lines of Homer without prompting, and the invention of computers put paid to the mathematicians who could multiply ten-digit numbers in their heads, so the invention of diagnostic tools had discouraged the kind of doctor who could distinguish five hundred types of fever by simple inspection. But Pavel had taken a great interest, when he was a student, in the history of medicine, and he was confident that most of what he had learned was there in his mind, ready to be used—
Or was it? Was that a euphoric delusion due to the stimulant he’d injected into his arm?
He had no way of telling. He could only order himself to proceed very cautiously.
Right: he had a patient waiting, providing he hadn’t died in the meantime. He selected what he thought would prove most helpful from the pile of drugs and instruments before him and for want of anything better as a light source added a retinal examination torch, whose beam was no thicker than his finger even at maximum spread but was at least nice and bright.
And went back to Andrew’s cabin.
As he put out his hand to slide the door back, he was struck by a terrifying premonition. During his search of the wreck, he had seen few actual corpses—apart from that disgustingly squashed body hurled against the end of the corridor—but he knew the rest of them must be there, under the near-mountain of sand which had collapsed on the hull.
Suppose while he was gone Andrew had died? He was hardly what you’d call a fit young man; he overindulged in liquor, probably in drugs too, and certainly he over-ate. He was far too fat for his age, twenty-two or twenty-three.
If he had died, Pavel would be compelled to wait alone for a rescue party, with no one to talk to, even if the talking were no more than an exchange of insults . . . and no proof that he was going to be rescued.
Until this moment, he’d taken rescue for granted. He’d been aware that they had dropped out of subspace almost an hour before the explosion, leaving as usual plenty of margin, because emerging from subspace close to a sun was dangerous and an old ship like the Pennyroyal had to allow some one and a half to two AU when entering a system like this.
This voyage from Halys to Carteret was a routine affair—a milk run, as the ancient argot termed it. Nonetheless, even if Captain Magnusson didn’t keep what you would call a tight ship, he would presumably have signaled ahead to tell the port controller on Carteret that they were in real space again. . . .
Presumably.
Pavel felt abruptly ill. No, he was being too kind to the captain—nil mortuis. Putting it bluntly, Magnusson had run a sloppy ship, the worst of the dozen or so Pavel had signed aboard. The chances were that the explosion which had wrecked the Pennyroyal had been due to neglect of some official safety-precaution. And there was a risk, small but not to be ignored, that Magnusson might have thought signaling ahead to their destination was superfluous.
In which case there might be a long wait before him. A very long wait! And if he had to face it on his own—could he stand the strain?
He slammed back the cabin door violently to wipe out the picture which had arisen in his head: the sight of himself, face in the rictus of Hippocrates, surrounded by the empty drug phials he had retrieved from the surgery.
At once a whining voice came to his ears, and he was so relieved by that, he almost failed to pay attention to the words.
“You went away and left me!”
What?
He turned on the torch and approached the bunk. Andrew spoke again.
“You came in before—I heard you! You left me lying in this terrible pain! Damn you, damn you!”
Pavel was about to blurt an angry rejoinder, but he caught himself. Instead he said soothingly, “I went to get some drugs and instruments. You’re in a bad way, Andrew.”
“You went away and left me alone in the dark!” The voice would have become hysterically loud, but on the last breath it broke into a whimper, and then there were sobs, shrill and grating, like those of a spoiled child denied a piece of candy.
It should have been anyone but Andrew—anyone!
Maybe, though, this petulance was ascribable to his pain, which must be agonizing. That would be dealt with. Pavel selected an injector from the handful he had brought and placed it against Andrew’s exposed right arm. A few seconds, and— “Oh, it’s you.” As though time had been turned back, the voice had reverted to normal, complete
