“Kemp found it in the street,” said Angela quickly. “It’s stopped crying now.”
“Is this a joke?” Doc asked, half wrathfully. “If it is, young man, I consider it in the worst possible taste.”
Hart shook his head. “It’s no joke. I thought that you might know –”
“Well, I don’t,” said Doc, with aggressive bitterness.
He let go of the blanket edge and it quickly flopped back upon the bed.
He paced up and down the room for a turn or two. Then he whirled angrily on Angela and Hart.
“I suppose you think that I should do something,” he said. “I should at least go through the motions. I should act like a doctor. I’m sure that is what you’re thinking. I should take its pulse and its temperature and look at its tongue and listen to its heart. Well, suppose you tell me how I do these things. Where do I find the pulse? If I could find it, what is its normal rate? And if I could figure out some way to take its temperature, what is the normal temperature for a monstrosity such as this? And if you would be so kind, would you tell me how – short of dissection – I could hope to locate the heart?”
He picked up his bag and started for the door.
“Anyone else, Doc?” Hart pleaded, in a conciliatory tone. “Anyone who’d know?”
“I doubt it,” Doc snapped.
“You mean there’s no one who can do a thing? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Look, son. Human doctors treat human beings, period. Why should we be expected to do more? How often are we called upon to treat an alien? We’re not expected to treat aliens. Oh, possibly, once in a while some specialist or researcher may dabble in alien medicine. But that is the correct name for it – just plain dabbling. It takes years of a man’s life to learn barely enough to qualify as a human doctor. How many lifetimes do you think we should devote to curing aliens?”
“All right, Doc. All right.”
“And how can you even be sure there’s something wrong with it?”
“Why, it was crying and I quite naturally thought –”
“It might have been lonesome or frightened or grieving. It might have been lost.”
Doc turned to the door again.
“Thanks, Doc,” Hart said.
“Not at all.” The old man hesitated at the door. “You don’t happen to have a dollar, do you? Somehow, I ran a little short.”
“Here,” said Hart, giving him a bill.
“I’ll return it tomorrow,” Doc promised.
He went clumping down the stairs.
Angela frowned. “You shouldn’t have done that, Kemp. Now he’ll get drunk and you’ll be responsible.”
“Not on a dollar,” Hart said confidently.
“That’s all you know about it. The kind of stuff Doc drinks –”
“Let him get drunk then. He deserves a little fun.”
“But –” Angela motioned to the thing upon the bed.
“You heard what Doc said. He can’t do anything. No one can do anything. When it wakes up – if it wakes up – it may be able to tell us what is wrong with it. But I’m not counting on that.”
He walked over to the bed and stared down at the creature. It was repulsive and abhorrent and not in the least humanoid. But there was about it a pitiful loneliness and an incongruity that made a catch come to his throat.
“Maybe I should have left it in the areaway,” he said. “I started to walk on. But when it began to cry again I went back to it. Maybe I did wrong bothering with it at all. I haven’t helped it any. If I’d left it there it might have turned out better. Some other aliens may be looking for it by now.”
“You did right,” said Angela. “Don’t start in fighting with windmills.”
She crossed the room and sat down in a chair. He went over to the window and stared somberly out across the city.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“But your clothes. Just look at your clothes.”
“I got thrown out of a dive. I tried to take some film.”
“Without paying for it.”
“I didn’t have the money.”
“I offered you a fifty.”
“I know you did. But I couldn’t take it. Don’t you understand, Angela? I simply couldn’t take it.”
She said softly, “You’re bad off, Kemp.”
He swung around, outraged. She hadn’t needed to say that. She had no right to say it. She –
He caught himself up before the words came tumbling out.
She had the right. She’d offered him a fifty – but that had been only a part of it. She had the right to say it because she knew that she could say it. No one else in all the world could have felt the way she did about him.
“I can’t write,” he said. “Angela, no matter how I try, I can’t make it come out right. The machine is haywire and the tapes are threadbare and most of them are patched.”
“What have you had to eat today?”
“I had the beers with you and I had some bocca.”
“That isn’t eating. You wash your face and change into some different clothes and we’ll go downstairs and get you some food.”
“I have eating money.”
“I know you have. You told me about the advance from Irving.”
“It wasn’t an advance.”
“I know it wasn’t, Kemp.”
“What about the alien?”
“It’ll be all right – at least long enough for you to get a bite to eat. You can’t help it by standing here. You don’t know how to help it.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am. Now get going and wash your dirty face. And don’t forget your ears.”
Jasper Hansen was alone in the Bright Star bar. They went over to his table and sat down. Jasper was finishing a dish of sauerkraut and pig’s knuckles and was drinking wine with it, which seemed a bit blasphemous.
“Where’s everyone else?” asked Angela.
“There’s a party down the street,” said Jasper. “Someone sold a book.”
“Someone that we know?”
“Hell, no,” Jasper said. “Just someone sold a book. You don’t have to know a guy to go to his party when he sells a book.”
“I didn’t hear anything about it.”
“Neither did the rest of the bunch. Someone looked in at the door and hollered about the party and everyone took off. Everyone but me. I can’t monkey with no party. I’ve got work to do.”
“Free food?” asked Angela.
“Yeah. Don’t it beat you, though. Here we are, honorable and respected craftsmen, and every one of us will break a leg to grab himself a sandwich and a drink.”
“Times are tough,” said Hart.
“Not with me,” said Jasper. “I keep working all the time.”
“But work doesn’t solve the main problem.”
Jasper regarded him thoughtfully, tugging at his chin.
“What else is there?” he demanded. “Inspiration? Dedication? Genius? Go ahead and name it. We are mechanics, man. We got machines and tapes. We went into top production two hundred years ago. We mechanized so we could go into top production, so that people could turn out books and stories even if they had no talent at all. We got a job to do. We got to turn out tons of drivel for the whole damn galaxy. We got to keep them drooling over what is going to happen next to sloe-eyed Annie, queen of the far-flung spaceways. And we got to shoot up the lad with her and patch him up and shoot him up and patch him up and…”
He reached for an evening paper, opened it to a certain page and thumped his fist upon it.