He would sever an artery, the robot would sense what was being done, and would shoulder in to repair the damage. Bergman would slash another vein, and the robot would work at two jobs. He would slash again, and again, and yet again, till finally the robot would overload, and freeze. Then Bergman would overturn the table, the girl would be dead, there would be an inquiry and a trial, and he would be able to blame the robot for the death … and tell his story … make them check it … make them stop using phymechs till the problem had been solved.
All that as the electro-blade moved in his hand.
Then the eyes of the girl fastened to his own, closed for a moment to consider what he was doing. In the darkness of his mind, he saw those eyes and knew finally:
What good was it to win his point, if he lost his soul?
The electro-blade clattered to the floor.
He stood there unmoving, as the phymech rolled near silently beside him, and completed the routine closure.
He turned away, and left the operating room quickly.
He left the hospital shortly after, feeling failure huge in his throat. He had had his opportunity, and had not been brave enough to take it. But was that it? Was it another edge of that inner cowardice he had shown before? Or was it that he realized nothing could be worth the taking of an innocent girl’s life? Ethics, softheartedness, what? His mind was a turmoil.
The night closed down stark and murmuring around Bergman. He stepped from the light blotch of the lobby, and the rain misted down over him, shutting him away from life and man and everything but the dark wool of his inner thoughts. It had been raining like this the night Calkins had intimidated him. Was it always to rain on him, throughout his days?
Only the occasional whirr of a heater ploughing invisibly across the sky overhead broke the steady machine murmur of the city. He crossed the silent street quickly.
The square block of darkness that was Memorial was dotted with the faint rectangles of windows. Lighted windows. The hollow laughter of bitterness bubbled up from his belly as he saw the lights. Concessions to Man … always concessions by the Almighty God of the Machine.
Inside Bergman’s mind, something was fighting to be free. He was finished now, he knew that. He had had the chance, but it had been the wrong chance. It could never be right if it started from something like that girl’s death. He knew that, too … finally. But what was there to do?
And the answer came back hollowly: Nothing.
Behind him, where he could not see it, a movement of metal in the shadows.
Bergman walked in shadows, also. Thoughts that were shadows. Thoughts that led him only to bleak futility and despair. The Zsebok Mechanical Physicians. Phymechs.
The word exploded in his head like a Roman candle, spitting sparks into his nerve ends. He never wanted to destroy so desperately in his life. All the years of fighting for medicine, and a place in the world of the healer … they were wasted.
He now knew the phymechs weren’t better than humans … but how could he prove it? Unsubstantiated claims, brought to Calkins, would only be met with more intimidation, and probably a revoking of his license. He was trapped solidly.
How much longer could it go on?
Behind him, mechanical ears tuned, robot eyes fastened on the slumping, walking man. Rain was no deterrent to observation.
The murmur of a beater’s rotors caused Bergman to look up. He could see nothing through the swirling rain-mist, but he could hear it, and his hatred reached out. Then: I don’t hate machines, I never did. Only now that they’ve deprived me of my humanity, now that they’ve taken away my life. Now I hate them. His eyes sparked again with submerged loathing as he searched the sky beneath the climate dome, hearing the whirr of the beater’s progress meshing with the faint hum of the dome at work; he desperately sought something against which he might direct his feelings of helplessness, of inadequacy.
So intent was he that he did not see the old woman who stepped out stealthily from the service entrance of a building, till she had put a trembling hand on his sleeve.
The shadows swirled about the shape watching Bergman — and now the old woman — from down the street.
“You a doctor, ain’cha?”
He started, his head jerking around spastically. His dark eyes focused on her seamed face only with effort. In the dim light of the illumepost that filtered through the rain, Bergman could see she was dirty and ill-kempt. Obviously from the tenements in Slobtown, way out near the curve-down edge of the climate dome.
She licked her lips again, fumbling in the pockets of her torn jumpette, nervous to the point of terror, unable to drag forth her words.
“ Well . What do you want?” Bergman was harsher than he had intended, but his banked-down antagonism prodded him into belligerence.
“I been watchin’ for three days and Charlie’s gettin’ worse and his stomach’s swellin’ and I noticed you been comin’ outta the hospital every day now for three days …” The words tumbled out almost incoherently, slurred by a gutter accent. To Bergman’s tutored ear — subjected to these sounds since Kohlbenschlagg had taken him in — there was something else in the old woman’s voice: the helpless tones of horror in asking someone to minister to an afflicted loved one.
Bergman’s deep blue-black eyes narrowed. What was this? Was this filthy woman trying to get him to attend at her home? Was this perhaps a trap set up by Calkins and the Hospital Board? “What do you want , woman?” he demanded, edging away.
“Ya gotta come over ta see Charlie. He’s dyin’, Doctor, he’s dyin’! He just lays there twitchin’, and evertime I touch him he jumps and starts throwin’ his arms round and doublin’ over an’ everything!” Her eyes were wide with the fright of memory, and her mouth shaped the words hurriedly, as though she knew she must get them out before the mouth used itself to scream.
The doctor’s angry thoughts, suspicious thoughts, cut off instantly, and another part of his nature took command. Clinical attention centered on the malady the woman was describing.
“… an’ he keeps grinnin’ , Doctor, grinnin’ like he was dead and everything was funny or somethin’! That’s the worst of all … I can’t stand ta see him that way, Doctor. Please … please … ya gotta help me. Help Charlie, Doc, he’s dyin’. We been tagether five years an’ ya gotta … gotta … do … somethin’ …” She broke into convulsive weeping, her faded eyes pleading with him, her knife-edged shoulders heaving jerkily within the jumpette.
My God , thought Bergman, she’s describing tetanus! And a badly advanced case to have produced spasms and risus sardonicus. Good Lord, why doesn’t she get him to the hospital? He’ll be dead in a day if she doesn’t. Aloud, he said, still suspicious, “Why did you wait so long? Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?” He jerked his thumb at the lighted block across the street.
All his earlier anger, plus the innate exasperation of a doctor confronted with seemingly callous disregard for the needs of a sick man, came out in the questions. Exploded. The old woman drew back, eyes terrified, seamed face drawn up in an expression of beatenness. The force of him confused her.
“I — I couldn’t take him there, Doc. I just couldn’t! Charlie wouldn’t let me, anyhow. He said, last thing before he started twitchin’, he said, don’t take me over there to that hospital, Katie, with them metal things in there, promise me ya won’t. So I hadda promise him, Doc, and ya gotta come ta see him — he’s dyin’, Doc, ya gotta help us, he’s dyin’! ”
She was close up to him, clutching at the lapels of his jumper with wrinkled hands; impossibly screaming in a hoarse whisper. The raw emotion of her appeal struck Bergman almost physically. He staggered back from her, her breath of garlic and the slums enfolding him. She pressed up again, clawing at him with great sobs and pleas.