It was more serious than Derec had thought. Hesitantly, he asked, “Do you feel like going to the section kitchen?”
“No. I don’t feel like doing anything, except drinking a liter of water and going back to bed.”
“You must go to section hospital at once,” said R. David decisively, stepping forward.
Derec could have groaned. “What kind of medical care can you expect in an Earthly hospital?” he asked. “We’ve got to get you back to the Spacer worlds-”
“There’s no cure for me there,” she said quietly. Damn. That was true. Derec hesitated, torn, and said, “Well, back to Robot City, then. Maybe the Human Medical Team has a cure.”
“My medical knowledge is limited, primarily to the effects of Earthly ills on Spacers. But that knowledge makes me doubt that Miss Avery will-will live long enough for a space journey,” said R. David, the catch in his voice obvious. “She is obviously in, or approaching, the-crisis of her disease.”
Derec hesitated. That was too obviously true.
Ariel smiled sadly and said, “I fear he is right, Derec. I-I’m losing my memory-my mind. And it’s getting worse. I couldn’t remember my way back here the other night-”
Abruptly, she was weeping.
Oh. frost.Derec thought helplessly.
R. David gave them an argument; he wanted to accompany them-to carry Ariel, in fact.
“No!” said Derec. “I may be ignorant of many things about Earth, but I know well enough what Earthers do to any robots they catch on the ways. And if we tried to do anything about it, our first words would give us away as Spacers. They’d be allover us. I’ve been chased once by yeast farmers. Frost! I don’t want to have every Earther we meet at our throats.”
It took the firmest commands reinforcing Dr. Avery’s to keep R. David in the apartment. Only when Ariel perked up, as she usually did at the prospect of change, was the robot’s First Law conditioning allayed. Ariel was even almost gay as she left, rendering a zany marching song: “One-two-three! Here we go! Bedlam, Bedlam, ho ho ho! Drrringding ding, brrrumbum bum, brrrreebeedeebee Dabbabba-dumbum-bum!”
But once the door had closed she looked haggard.
“Water,” she said, smiling wanly at Derec’s concerned look.
After she had drunk a liter or so, she gasped for breath a few minutes, but was game to go on. The route to the section hospital was longer than the one to the kitchen, and she drooped visibly. Worse, it was morning now and the express was jammed. They had to stand; Threes weren’t allowed to sit during rush hour.
Itseemed that the nightmare of rushing ways and whistling wind and unconcerned, self-centered Earthers would go on forever. Derec had to watch Ariel-he feared she would collapse-and also watch the signs overhead, fearing that he would forget or confuse the instructions he had carefully impressed on his memory.
But even the longest journey ends at last, and the exit was clearly marked SECTION HOSPITAL, with the same red cross on white that Spacers used.
The anteroom smelled of antiseptic and was mobbed with men, women, and children. Children. thought Derec vaguely -never seen so many children in my life as on Earth.Though his memories still were lost, he was sure, by his astonished reaction, that he had not. Of course, they had to keep replacing this huge population.
Fumbling, he inserted Ariel’s newly forged ID tags into the computer, whose panel lit with CHECK-UP, ILLNESS, EMERGENCY? Ariel was leaning against him, gasping and pale after the ordeal, and even the usually unconcerned Earthers were looking at them in some alarm. Emergency, he decided, panicky, and punched it.
Instantly a red star appeared in the panel, blinking; apparently alarms rang elsewhere, for a strong-looking woman appeared, started to remonstrate with him for mistaking an ILLNESS for an EMERGENCY-young husbands! But Ariel turned a ghastly, apologetic smile on her, and the woman’s mouth closed with a snap.
“Here!”
She half carried Ariel past three rooms full of still more waiting Earthers, to a room with a wheeled, knee-high cart in it.
“Lie down, baby!”
The gurney stood up, she strapped Ariel on, and an older woman entered. “Dr. Li-”
“Mmm. I see.” She began to check over Ariel, not bothering with instruments-she took Ariel’s temperature by placing her hand on Ariel’s head!
A harassed-looking man entered. He wore a curious ornament in the form of a frame holding glass panes in front of his eyes. Derec had noticed some of these on the ways. It gave his face a dashing, futuristic look. “What is it, Dr. Li?”
“Don’t know yet, Dr. Powell. Elevated temperature, febrile heartbeat, hectic flush, exhaustion. I want to measure everything first, of course.” She reached to the bottom of the gurney and started pulling out instruments, to Derec’s considerable relief. Ariel had closed her eyes, and seemed to be asleep.
The doctors bent over her, shaking their heads and measuring everything about Ariel. Tense as he was, Derec looked about for a place to sit, content for the moment to leave it in their hands. Abruptly the nurse said. “How long has it been since she’s eaten?”
The doctors ignored this till Derec said, “Uh-yesterday afternoon. Not long after noon.”
Dr. Li grunted, and Dr. Powell said, “Inanition!”
“Young as she is, that shouldn’t have brought on this collapse. Feel that arm. She’s practically starving.” The three of them looked at each other, plainly shocked.
“Why hasn’t she been eating, young man?” Dr. Li demanded.
“She hasn’t felt like it, Ma’am,” said Derec, and all three of them frowned at his accent.
“Settler prospects, eh?” Powell removed his frame and wiped the panes with a tissue. “You’ll not have much need of Spacer talk on a frontier planet. Better to learn some good medieval jargon: brush, creek, log cabin. Not to mention ‘sweat.’ What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. She said,” he gulped, “it could be fatal if it crossed the blood-brain barrier. It’s-it’s affecting her mind. She’s had th-this low-level fever and lethargy, with occasional muscular aches and pains, for a long time.”
“Vomiting? Night sweats?” asked Dr. Li tensely.
“I don’t know. She-she didn’t want to worry me.”
They looked outraged; he should know.
“There’s a number of things it could be,” said Dr. Li unhappily. “I have a few ideas, though-”
“So do I!” said Dr. Powell sourly. “Look here, young fella, I don’t doubt that accent caused you many a pain, but you’d better doff it in here. It antagonizes too many people.”
“He can’t,” said Dr. Li expressionlessly. “He’s a real Spacer.”
Dr. Powell and the nurse goggled. “Impossible! A Spacer running around on Earth? He’d drop down dead of -”
The doctors whirled to look at Ariel. Frowning, the nurse stepped out. “It could be any of a hundred common and harmless diseases!” said Dr. Powell.
“Yes! Harmless to Earth people!”
“How about yourself, young man? Do you feel all right?”
Derec nodded. “Never better.”
“Why, then?” Dr. Powell exploded. “You should be sick a dozen times over!”
“I’ve been given a prophylactic regimen-so has Ariel,” said Derec, hoping they wouldn’t ask too many questions. “I don’t know too much about it.”
“Apparently it didn’t take in her case,” said Dr. Li somberly. “You let us know the moment you feel unwell, young man.”
“They can’t be Spacers,” said the nurse grimly, holding Ariel’s ID tag in her hand. “How could they be, and travel around Earth? Without ration cards, ID, and so on? This is perfectly ordinary Earth ID, City of St. Louis-”
They looked at him, frowning harder, and Derec felt himself hot…not to mention sweating. “That’s all arranged, sir. It’s part of a trade agreement…we’re doing sociological research…”