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Read Ebook: The Old Ones by Curtis Betsy Raymond Ramon Illustrator
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Ebook has 447 lines and 21494 words, and 9 pages
THE OLD ONES
They had outlived their usefulness on Earth and society waited patiently for them to die. Thus it was only natural for them to seek a new world....
Dr. Warner didn't usually burst into Dr. Farrar's office. Usually he paced slowly up the hospital corridor, pulling down his glistening white lastijac uniform, meditating on all the mistakes he might have made during the past week, reluctantly turning the knob on the outer door, hesitatingly asking Miss Herrington if the doctor wished to see him now, stepping humbly through the inner door into the presence. But this morning he burst in and slammed the inner door.
"Two this morning in Block Nineteen!" he blurted. "Two suicides at once; Saul Forsythe and Madam LePays!"
Only a few minutes before, Dr. Farrar had been reading and sighing, sighing at the thought that there were no excitements left, only annoyances and minor gratifications.
His office door now flew open with a crash against the 50-year file case, then was banged shut again and Bob Warner's white-jacketed body was leaning toward him over his desk.
"Two suicides at once, Dr. Farrar!" Dr. Warner was almost shouting at him, "and one last week and four others in the past year! They'll investigate us and upset the subjects and everybody. They'll get out of Block Nineteen and go poking around in genetics and new diseases and want to know where and why every cent is being spent and wind up trying to cut the staff or change the diets or some other stupidity." "I tell you, Doctor, we've got to hush this up. Congress won't let us get away with firing a couple of floor nurses this time!" Ione Phillips was in Nineteen and much too pretty for a scapegoat. It wasn't his responsibility anyway. "What are we going to do, Doctor?"
"Saul Forsythe and Madame LePays," Jules Farrar's voice was low with concern, "How old were they? What was the matter?"
"No animosities, no quarrels with other subjects?"
"No, no! They weren't very social types, you know; we haven't had much culture-pattern data on either of them for some time. It's not as if they were a great loss to the experiments," he added reassuringly. Mustn't get old Farrar upset.
The older doctor looked oddly at the younger. "There must be something wrong in Block Nineteen. We'll call a meeting of staff. You can't cover up this sort of thing, Doctor. Everybody probably knows it already. You know how nurses gossip. But we'd better talk to Daneshaw first. He's always sound on what's going on in Block Nineteen."
"But Dr. Farrar, Daneshaw can't bring them back. He's just another subject. You could swear the nurses to secrecy for the good of the hospital. It's not as if it were anything strange or exciting. If we get an investigation, the subjects will run amok. Blood pressures will go up and some of them won't eat and others won't sleep thinking up fancy stories to tell the investigating commission and the smooth curve charts will be all shot to...."
Farrar laughed, "Intriguing thought, a thousand near-200-year-oldsters running amok. But seriously, if they kill themselves off this way, it will mess things up. Don't worry about your job yet, Doctor. Daneshaw will think of something. On your way out, ask Miss Herrington to get in touch with him. Now you get back to Block Nineteen and see that everything stays quiet for a while. I'd rather not have an investigation either."
"But, Doctor...."
"It's an order. Well, on second thought, get everybody over 150 out of the hospital on an expedition of some kind." He scribbled on a pad.
"But, Dr. Farrar...."
"Here's an order for cars ... and ... ... buses and field kitchens. Take them out in the country for a picnic. Come back here as soon as you can get away." He held out a paper.
"A picnic! For a thousand?"
"You can do it. You're the best organizer in the hospital."
"Well ... I suppose so."
"Excellent," concluded Dr. Farrar and rose, indicating dismissal. "Daneshaw will think of something," he repeated to himself as Warner walked out and slammed the door.
R. N. Ione Phillips flounced down Corridor Five of Block Nineteen, white elaston uniform rustling with permanent and indignant starch.
"Those old biddies," she muttered. "Both of them say they want lilac pattern dresses and then when they come they're mad because they have dresses just alike. They're just like children!" Miss Phillips didn't care much for children.
"Won't wash for meals but spend hours taking up all the driers in the beauty salon. Bob Warner doesn't realize what we have to put up with."
Her angry stalk slowed to a demure mincing as she approached the elevator and imagined Dr. Warner coming out of it.
Behind the door she had just closed with apparently thoughtful gentleness, Mrs. Maeva McGaughey and Mrs. Alice Kaplan in lilac acelle were considering the meal on the table between them.
"Creamed spinach, Maeva, for breakfast!" Mrs. Kaplan was withering in her distaste.
"And that Miss Phillips--treats us as if we were babies," whined Mrs. McGaughey. "The way she talks you'd think she'd brought us a couple of wedding gowns. Shoddy stuff these days, too."
Mrs. Kaplan looked slyly at Mrs. McGaughey. "I know how to fix her, Maeva. Let's pour this spinach down our fronts."
Ione had reached the end of the corridor and was tripping abstractedly by the desk facing the row of elevators.
"Phillips," the receptionist's voice was startling and cool, "will you tell Mr. Daneshaw, Room 563, that Dr. Farrar would like to see him at once in his office."
"It's my breakfast hour! I'm just going off duty." Receptionists thought they owned the hospital ordering people around all the time.
"I can't leave the desk and your relief hasn't come up. Dr. Farrar says it's urgent."
"Oh, all right." Ione turned on her heel and strode with something of the old swish up the hall to the left of the one she'd come from.
She knocked sharply at the door of room 563. "Mr. Daneshaw?"
"Come in."
She turned the knob and economically stuck only her head around the frame. "Dr. Farrar wants you in his office at once." She withdrew and closed the door in one motion. Don't give them a chance to argue or ask questions. They'd waste your whole day for you if you gave them a chance. She headed for the elevators once more.
Professor Emeritus Charles Timothy Daneshaw had lain in bed in the comfortable insulation of the bulky grey plastine autometab case which covered him to the waist. He really enjoyed this five minutes after waking when the world was entirely shut off and he could collect his thoughts for the day with no other business but regular inhale and exhale.
The bell next to his ear pinged--the machine had finished his daily metabolic record--he pressed the button that raised the heavy case to the ceiling. He stretched and put his feet over the edge of the bed.
"Mr. Daneshaw?"
"Come in."
"Dr. Farrar wants you in his office at once." Miss Phillips' white-capped head bobbed in and out, the door shut, and he could hear the click of her retreating heels.
He stepped out of the bathroom and began pulling on his clothes. "Poor Jules," he mused. "Hard at work on a beautiful spring morning before I've even had breakfast. Maybe he'll give me a cup of coffee."
He was half-way to the elevator, pacing slowly, imagining the aroma of a hot cup of coffee, seeing a thin twist of steam, when a door opened a few steps ahead of him. A wiry little man in a maroon bathrobe beckoned.
"Come in here a minute, Tim," said the little man, his voice almost a whisper.
"Jules wants me over in Administration Block, El."
Elbert Avery grabbed Daneshaw's arm. "He can wait. This is important, Tim."
"Just for a minute, then. The nurse said 'at once'." He went in and Avery closed the door quickly.
"Have you heard about Saul and Clarice? How they both got out this morning?" Avery seated himself in the swivel chair beside the tremendous desk that made his room look much smaller than Daneshaw's.
"Got out?"
"They were both found dead this morning at breakfast time. I just heard about it. Saul cut his wrist with his razor and Clarice fiddled with the autometab so it wouldn't raise and then went to sleep in it. Some people are just born with more nerve than others!" Avery sounded actually envious.
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