I could find a uniform tunic but no pants. Then when I found the pants, I had mislaid the tunic. I found my cap underneath the mattress. I couldn’t find my rank locket anywhere.
The place looked like a hurricane had struck it. But I managed to get pants, tunic, boots and cap assembled and on. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the lack of a rank locket.
I heard the taxi coming. I went into my bedroom. The driver rushed in and thrust a bottle at me: Haige and Haige. Counterfeit Scotch. Made by Arabs. They can’t spell.
“This is bad Scotch,” I said.
“It’s a bad situation,” he said.
It would have to do. I got him out of there with a fistful of lira.
I went tearing down the tunnel from my secret room to the hangar.
They hadn’t dollied the Blixo into position yet. I waited.
Finally, they got all two hundred and fifty skinny, battered feet of her off to the side of the landing pad and plunked a wobbly, far-too-tall landing ladder up to her air lock. They got another one. It didn’t fit either. The Blixo spacers put their own landing gangway out. I got aboard.
Captain Bolz was in his cabin getting into a sloppy-looking civilian suit, ready to have a night on the town. He was buttoning a ragged shirt across his hairy chest. I handed him the Scotch. He let go of the shirt. He chomped his teeth down on the cap and tore it off. He had a long, long drink. He shuddered and went a trifle popeyed.
“Gods!” he spluttered. “Gods, but that’s good.” He took another swallow. He said, “Well, Gris, how are you?”
I reached into my pocket and got the key to the storeroom where I had locked in my gold.
“Your passengers arrived in great shape. Somebody named Gunsalmo Silva was in deep sleep so he wasn’t heard from. Prahd Bittlestiffender, he just stayed in his cabin the whole way, studying like fury. That little (bleepard)—what’s his name, Too-Too?—I had to put him in irons: it wasn’t him, it was the crew, they kept trying to get at him to sleep with. So, it’s all in order. So, if you’ll just stamp a few papers, they’re yours and so’s the cargo.”
I promptly got out my identoplate and began to stamp. Shortly, I noticed my wrist was getting tired so I looked at what I was stamping. The last half of the pack was blank gate passes so he could land contraband on Voltar. I stamped them.
He grinned. “We understand each other,” he said. “Now if you’ll let my mates do the unloading, I’m on my way. Have some Scotch. No? Then here I go and the Gods help Turkey.” He was gone.
He must have shouted at his spacers as he left for here was a mate to help me. We opened the locker. And there it was! Nine beautiful cases. Eighteen fifty-troy-pound bars of gold! Allowing for difference of gravity—Earth being only about five-sixths as massive—this was only seven hundred and fifty pounds of gold. At twelve troy ounces to the pound that was nine thousand ounces. Gold at the moment was selling at seven hundred dollars an ounce. So I was looking at six million, three hundred thousand dollars worth of gold! Shows you that crime pays after all.
I grabbed a couple of hangar helpers and soon the gold was trundling up my tunnel to my secret room. I went in, threw a blanket over the viewer and then let the helpers pack it in a corner. It didn’t take up as much space as you’d think. They, of course, didn’t know what it was. The cases were all marked as medical and radioactive.
I was about to shut the door on them and gloat when a messenger came up.
“They want to unload the rest of the cargo! Where does it go?”
I closed my room and went back down the tunnel. They were discharging boxes and boxes and boxes of Zanco material.
Oh, Hells! The hospital! I had forgotten to check if the hospital was complete!
I found a phone and got the contractor. “Of course, it’s complete!” he said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.”
Aha! So I was rich there, too! I got my mind off it. “Where’s the keys?”
“Faht Bey has them.”
Better and better. I sent a messenger for Faht Bey.
“Trucks,” I said. “I need trucks! All this goes to the new hospital!”
“All that?”
I looked again. They were still unloading! They had a mountain-sized pile already and they were still unloading! This was not correct.
I grabbed an invoice sheet out of the hands of a mate. It turned out to be three invoice sheets. One from the goods used at the Widow Tayl’s, one from my original purchase and then a third!
My Gods! There was no end to what crooked things superiors will do. Lombar had quadrupled the Zanco order to make another million and a half credits in graft for himself! There were enough cellological supplies here to take care of an army. Two armies! And they had quadrupled all the extra odd bits I had ordered blind as well. There was no telling what was in this growing pile. It must have strained the tonnage capacity of the Blixo!
Then it suddenly struck me. The dirty crooks. They hadn’t given me my extra thirty-thousand-credit personal rake-off! I was about to rush off and write them an angry letter but Faht Bey said, “You mean all this goes to the hospital?”
“Yes, yes. Overpaste the labels. Get your hangar crews on it.”
“But you’ll mess up all the markings,” he said.
Oh, Hells. Details, details.
I said to a mate, “Where’s that Prahd Bittlestiffender?”
The name was unknown to him but I described him and the mate went up and let him out of his cabin. Tall and spindly, he came gawkily down the gangway, burdened with recorders and baggage.
“You’re in charge of the hospital! These labels can’t be seen in public. Change all the labels and get this stuff into trucks.”
“Hello, Officer Gris,” he said. “I can speak Turkish. Listen. I’m speaking Turkish now. Does my pay start now?”
I started to rush off again to write my angry letter.
A mate stopped me. “Where do we put this one?”
They were carrying a stretcher. Somebody in deepsleep. The vicious face of Gunsalmo Silva, no better in repose. “A cell. Any cell. Don’t wake him up. I’ll take care of him later.”
I tried to rush off again. Two spacers were leading somebody out. He was in chains, wrapped up in cloth with a lock on it. He could barely walk. He had a sack over his head.
The mate asked, “What do we do with him?” He pulled the sack off his head. It was Twolah, Too-Too, from my office. The second he saw me, he started to cry.
“Put him in a cell,” I said. “They’ll show you where the detention cells are. Incommunicado, completely.”
I tried to rush off again. A spacer said, “He’s got about two hundred pounds of papers in his cabin. What do we do with those?”
“Put them in my office. And don’t produce anybody else out of that ship. I’m busy!”
Finally I got away.
I went and wrote the nastiest burning letter I could possibly write! To Zanco. They owed me thirty thousand credits and were trying to gyp me out of it! Not only that, I told them they had denied me the opportunity to buy gold with it! Villains!
And only then did I feel better. The Blixo had arrived. I foolishly thought my troubles were over. They were just beginning!
PART TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 4
My gold had arrived so I was sleeping peacefully in the dawn.
Karagoz was shaking my shoulder violently.
“Sultan Bey!” he was saying. “Come quick. Maybe riot!”
I got out of bed, got on some pants and boots and a turtleneck sweater. I went tearing out after Karagoz.
Faht Bey was in a car by the gate. He was holding the door open. It was barely light enough to see his face but what I saw was ashen.
“The hospital!” he said and the driver raced toward it.
“They’ve been gathering since before dawn. They heard the hospital would be opened today.”
“Who?”
“The mothers.”
“Why?”
/> “Because of the sign.”
I said, “That doesn’t sound like much trouble to me.”
“No?” he said. “If we lose the support of mothers in this district our supply of birth certificates will dry up! So be careful how you handle them.”
“Me handle them?” I said. “What about the rest of the Apparatus here? Isn’t that your job?”
“It’s your hospital. You didn’t clear it with the Officer’s Council.”
“I have to do everything!” I wailed.
“And be careful how you handle the picket line,” he said.
“What picket line?”
“The local doctors and their assistants.”
When we arrived at the hospital, there was a huge mob. They were mostly mothers and children. They were standing there docilely the way Turkish people do. They are a very docile people, particularly just before they explode. They are obedient to the will of Allah. But Allah apparently wants holy wars at the first chance.
I pushed my way through them. There was a lot of coughing. Tuberculosis is endemic in Turkey. Eyes turned my way. Diseased eyes. Trachoma is also endemic in Turkey. There was the occasional twisted limb and the inevitable sores.
The hospital was surrounded by mounds of raw earth—it had not been landscaped. But the building itself was imposing—spreading and low. It was approached by some broad steps and a wide walk and a big front door.
A huge white board was nearby. It had a red crescent moon on it. On most of Earth they use a red cross on ambulances and such, but in Turkey it’s a crescent, the symbol of rebirth.
There was another big sign. It said:
WORLD UNITED CHARITIES MERCY AND
BENEVOLENT HOSPITAL
Mudlick Construction Company
I could see nothing wrong with this. What riot? Faht Bey always exaggerates so.
I went up the broad steps, pushing through the crowd standing on them. I collided with the picket line!
“Stop!” said an overbearing man carrying a placard. “Anyone crossing this picket line is an enemy of the Turkish national pride.” He pointed at the placards they were carrying.
The crude placards said:
UNFAIR TO ORGANIZED MEDICINE!
NO SCABS!
DOWN WITH CHARITY!
The doctors and assistants carrying them looked very tough.
There was a pedestal on the flat place at the top of the steps. Probably it was for a statue not yet arrived. Faht Bey was pushing at me from behind to get up on the pedestal. I had no choice. I mounted up.
What a sea of faces!
What a lot of coughs and sick eyes.
What a lot of limbs and other ailments being held up!
I knew the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Turkey was very active against disease. Also the Ministry of Labor. Also a lot of philanthropic organizations. But handling Turkey was a big job. I hadn’t realized there were so many sick people about. Riffraff.
I opened my mouth. I was going to tell them all to go home. I didn’t get a chance.
The big doctor on the picket line shouted, “I was trained in the United States. I know how doctoring must be run. THERE MUST BE NO FREE CLINIC!”
Instantly, the picket line closed against the bottom of the pedestal and began to hit me with their placards and sticks!
I dodged, I ducked, I tried to defend myself.
The others in the picket line began to chant, hitting at me to keep time, “NO FREE CLINIC! NO FREE CLINIC!”
I screamed, “Of course, there will be no free clinic!”
The crowd went into instant action. They had mud clods! The air was suddenly dark with them! They were throwing the mud at ME!
The doctors let up first. The huge one turned to the crowd. “You see! There will be no free clinic!”
Instantly, the crowd began to throw at both me and the doctors! The jeers rose to a savage roar.
“Where are the security troops?” I screamed at Faht Bey.
He was cowering at the far end of the steps. “It’s your hospital!” he shouted above the din.
A mud clod hit me in the face!
It knocked me off the pedestal!
The blood started to pour out of my nose!
Suddenly, a tall, gawky figure in a white coat leaped up on the pedestal, holding up his arms. It was Prahd Bittlestiffender!
The crowd stopped throwing to see what he would say.
In purist, scholarly Turkish, Prahd bellowed, “Fellow citizens! Fellow Turks! I come before you today to issue the clarion call to freedom! It is time, due time, that we, the children of Allah, rose as one and cast from off our necks the iron heel of the foreign oppressor!”
My nose was bleeding so much, I thought I would bleed to death. There must be cold water in that hospital. I scrabbled backwards to the door. I got into a hall.
Prahd’s voice carried. “A United Turkey facing outward against her rapacious enemies . . .” I was too far away to hear more.
I got into a bathroom, closed the door and found cold water. I sat on a toilet seat and held wet toilet paper against the back of my neck.
I half expected the mob, at any moment, to tear down the door and rip me limb from limb. But my nose and precious blood came first.
At long last, the bleeding stopped.
It was awfully quiet outside. Had the security guards arrived and shot them all?
I risked a peek. I was looking into a big waiting room. There were lines of mothers there, all quiet, all orderly.
Tables had been set up.
The local doctors were working around the tables, doing the various things doctors do. They seemed very cheerful as they handled people one by one. I didn’t see any money being passed over by the mothers. I couldn’t understand it.
Afraid that I would be seen and pelted again, I crept down a hall.
A hand on my shoulder. I jumped.
“I was just coming to find you.” It was young Dr. Prahd Bittlestiffender. He led me into a small operating room. He began to examine my nose.
“What did you do?” I said. “What was that speech?”
“That was a speech made by Kemal Ataturk at the beginning of the revolution,” said Prahd.
Ah, Kemal Ataturk. The Turks worshipped him. They’d recognized the speech and so they’d stopped to listen.
“Ouch,” I said. He was probing up into my nose.
“Hold still, please.”
“What about the free clinic?” I said, shuddering at the idea of the expense.
“Oh,” said Prahd, putting a probe in deeper, “I told them it was all free.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“I told them it was, after all, their hospital, so they ought to volunteer and fix up the grounds and act as nurses and things. They thought that was wonderful.”
“Ouch,” I said. “But those doctors?”
“I appointed them all part-time staff to serve a couple hours a day at high salary.”
“Ouch,” I said. And not because he’d stabbed me. This hospital was suddenly a liability, not a profit! “Where do you think you got authority to do that?”
“Last night, you told me I was in charge of the hospital,” said Prahd. “So I did exactly what I knew you would want me to do, Officer Gris. Cure the sick. Help the poor and needy. Better relations with the tribes of this primitive outpost. I admire you for your broad grasp of interstellar relations. Does my salary start now?”
“Oh, my Gods!” I said.
“I can speak Italian, too,” he said persuasively.
“How do I know you can cure anybody?” I snarled. “Your test has just begun! It is just barely possible you will get paid when this hospital starts to make money. Real money!” He was jabbing harder at my nose. “Ouch!”
PART TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 5
Because my sweater was all clogged up with mud, Prahd took a white coat he’d brought and put it on me. “I want to show you the place because it has problems,” he said
.
I bristled. How could it have problems? I had designed it myself. Spent a long time at it, too.
I followed him out. The lines were moving in the main room and it seemed peaceful.
We went down a hall. An operating room, equipment not fully set up. Interview rooms not wholly set up. Then a lot of doors. Wards. A vast number of them. I started to go in one.
“No,” said Prahd. “It’s full.”
“That many patients already?”
“No, no. All these ward rooms and all these private rooms are full of equipment and stores. The base crew and I worked all night. We didn’t get further than changing the labels and moving it over here. There’s enough equipment and supplies here to operate several hospitals and operate them for years. That’s what I wanted to show you. We’ve got no room for patients. It’s all in use for storage space. I need another building just to store things! And a big refrigerated room when I start to build up cultures and cell banks.”
He didn’t know. I pressed a panel. A stairway was revealed. I took him down to the basement.
It was a whole hospital complex in itself. It had innumerable private rooms as well.
He was amazed. “What’s this? A secret hospital under a hospital!”
“Precisely,” I said. And I told him about the master plan of changing the identity of wanted men and gangsters.
“They look like prison cells,” he said.
“That’s to make them feel at home,” I said. “Can you do it?”
“Oh, no difficulty with that. It’s just that the upstairs hospital should run, too.”
“That’s for cover,” I said.
“That still doesn’t solve the storage space, Officer Gris. Nor the refrigeration. It will be all the more necessary because of the increased cultures I will have to make, changing fingerprints and larynxes and so on.”
I could see he was being mulish. We went back upstairs to where he had established his office. And a nice office it was. The phone was in and connected. I phoned Mudlick Construction Company and was shortly talking to the contractor.