“We can use you, Dr.—”
“Brown — professional name, Dr. Ferrel. And I’m used to being called just Nurse Brown.”
Jenkins cut in on the formalities. “Sue, is there any news outside about what’s going on here?”
“Rumors, but they’re wild, and I didn’t have a chance to hear many. All I know is that they’re talking about evacuating the city and everything within fifty miles of here, but it isn’t official. And some people were saying the Governor was sending in troops to declare martial law over the whole section, but I didn’t see any except here.”
Jenkins took her off, then, to show her the Infirmary and introduce her to Jones and the two other nurses, leaving Ferrel to wait for the sound of the siren again, and to try putting two and two together to get sixteen. He attempted to make sense out of the article in the Weekly Ray, but gave it up finally; atomic theory had advanced too far since the sketchy studies he’d made, and the symbols were largely without meaning to him. He’d have to rely on Jenkins, it seemed. In the meantime, what was holding up the litter? He should have heard the warning siren long before.
It wasn’t the litter that came in next, though, but a group of five men, two carrying a third, and a fourth supporting the fifth. Jenkins took the carried man over, Brown helping him; it was similar to the former cases, but without the actual burns from contact with hot metal. Ferrel turned to the men.
“Where’s Beel and the litter?” He was inspecting the supported man’s leg as he asked, and began work on it without moving the fellow to a table. Apparently a lump of radioactive matter the size of a small pea had been driven half an inch into the flesh below the thigh, and the broken bone was the result of the violent contractions of the man’s own muscles under the stimulus of the radiation. It wasn’t pretty. Now, however, the strength of the action had apparently burned out the nerves around, so the leg was comparatively limp and without feeling; the man lay watching, relaxed on the bench in a half-comatose condition, his eyes popping out and his lips twisted into a sick grimace, but he did not flinch as the wound was scraped out. Ferrel was working around a small leaden shield, his arms covered with heavily leaded gloves, and he dropped the scraps of flesh and isotope into a box of the same metal.
“Beel — he’s out of this world, Doc,” one of the others answered when he could tear his eyes off the probing. “He got himself blotto, somehow, and wrecked the litter before he got back. Couldn’t take it, watching us grapple ’em out — and we hadda go after ’em without a drop of hooch!”
Ferrel glanced at him quickly, noticing Jenkins’ head jerk around as he did so. “You were getting them out? You mean you didn’t come from in there?”
“Heck, no, Doc. Do we look that bad? Them two got it when the stuff decided to spit on ’em clean through their armor. Me, I got me some nice burns, but I ain’t complaining — I got a look at a couple of stiffs, so I’m kicking about nothing!”
Ferrel hadn’t noticed the three who had traveled under their own power, but he looked now, carefully. They were burned, and badly, by radiations, but the burns were still new enough not to give them too much trouble, and probably what they’d just been through had temporarily deadened their awareness of pain, just as a soldier on the battlefield may be wounded and not realize it until the action stops. Anyway, atomjacks were not noted for sissiness.
“There’s almost a quart in the office there on the table,” he told them. “One good drink apiece — no more. Then go up front and I’ll send Nurse Brown in to fix up your burns as well as can be for now.” Brown could apply the unguents developed to heal radiation burns as well as he could, and some division of work that would relieve Jenkins and himself seemed necessary. “Any chance of finding any more living men in the converter housings?”
“Maybe. Somebody said the thing let out a groan half a minute before it popped, so most of ’em had a chance to duck into the two safety chambers. Figure on going back there and pushing tanks ourselves unless you say no; about half an hour’s work left before we can crack the chambers, I guess, then we’ll know.”
“Good. And there’s no sense in sending in every man with a burn, or we’ll be flooded here; they can wait and it looks as if we’ll have plenty of serious stuff to care for. Dr. Brown, I guess you’re elected to go out with the men — have one of them drive the spare litter Jones will show you. Salve down all the burn cases, put the worst ones off duty, and just send in the ones with the jerks. You’ll find my emergency kit in the office, there. Someones has to be out there to give first aid and sort them out — we haven’t room for the whole plant in here.”
“Right, Dr. Ferrel.” She let Meyers replace her in assisting Jenkins, and was gone briefly to come out with his bag. “Come on, you men. I’ll hop the litter and dress down your burns on the way. You’re appointed driver, mister. Somebody should have reported that Beel person before, so the litter would be out there now.”
The spokesman for the others upended the glass he’d filled, swallowed, gulped, and grinned down at her. “O.K., doctor, only out there you ain’t got time to think — you gotta do. Thanks for the shot, Doc, and I’ll tell Hoke you’re appointing her out there.”
They filed out behind Brown as Jones went out to get the second litter, and Doc went ahead with the quick-setting plastic cast for the broken leg. Too bad there weren’t more of those nursing doctors; he’d have to see Palmer about it after this was over — if Palmer and he were still around. Wonder how the men in the safety chambers about which he’d completely forgotten, would make out? There were two in each converter housing, designed as an escape for the men in case of accident, and supposed to be proof against almost anything. If the men had reached them, maybe they were all right; he wouldn’t have taken a bet on it, though. With a slight shrug, he finished his work and went to help Jenkins.
The boy nodded down at the body on the table, already showing extensive scraping and probing. “Quite a bit of spitting clean through the armor,” he commented. “These wounds were just a little too graphic for me. I-713 couldn’t do that.”
“Hm-m-m.” Doc was in no mood to quibble on the subject. He caught himself looking at the little box in which the stuff was put after they worked what they could out of the flesh, and jerked his eyes away quickly. Whenever the lid was being dropped, a glow could be seen inside. Jenkins always managed to keep his eyes on something else.
They were almost finished when the switchboard girl announced a call, and they waited to make the few last touches before answering, then filed into the office together. Brown’s face was on the screen, smudged and with a spot of rouge standing out on each cheek. Another smudge appeared as she brushed the auburn hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“They’ve cracked the converter safety chambers, Dr. Ferrel. The north one held up perfectly, except for the heat and a little burn, but something happened in the other; oxygen valve stuck, and all are unconscious, but alive. Magma must have sprayed through the door, because sixteen or seventeen have the jerks, and about a dozen are dead. Some others need more care than I can give — I’m having Hokusai delegate men to carry those the stretchers won’t hold, and they’re all piling up on you in a bunch right now!”
Ferrel grunted and nodded. “Could have been worse, I guess. Don’t kill yourself out there, Brown.”
“Same to you.” she blew Jenkins a kiss and snapped off, just as the whine of the litter siren reached their ears.
In the surgery again, they could see a truck showing behind it, and men lifting out bodies in apparently endless succession.