René Lafayette

“ As he threw the switch he heard a gasp behind him. "That's all!" said O'Hara. "You convert thirty-eight thousand one hundred and some odd extragalactic invaders to human beings and you say, 'that's all'! Man, I've heard legends about the Soldiers of Light, but I never realized what superboys you fellows really are."
Ole Doc gave him a very bored look and then and thereafter ignored him.
"Hippocrates," said Ole Doc, "we're almost home. Let's open those last two bottles of wine." ”

“ He tried to clutch Ole Doc's cape as the Soldier of Light moved away. "You've got to answer some riddles for me! Why is the gestation period three months? Why do they develop in six months to raging beasts! Why are they so antisocial? What have I done wrong in these vats and what can I do to correct it! You've got to help me?"
"I," said Ole Doc, "am going fishing. No doubt to a bacteriologist, a biochemist or a mutologist your problem would be fascinating. But after all, it's just a problem. I am afraid it is not going to upset the Universe. Good day."
O'Hara stood in trembling disbelief. ”

“ It would have taken a very good poker player to have told what passed between them. But Ole Doc knew what he wanted to know. During his chicken treatments his orders had been carried out. He laid his hypo on the table with an histrionic sigh and carelessly thumbed the button on the magnetic release. Very small in the distance there were slight, pinging sounds.
"You know," said Ole Doc, "I wouldn't be too much in a hurry, Smalley."
"And why not?"
Because I was just giving this kid a treatment to save his life."
"Yeah. I believe you."
"Happens to be the truth," said Ole Doc. ”

“ He rang "underweigh" so that Hippocrates would have warning to grab something and, without seating himself in the control chair, shot the Morgue toward the only hole in the towering jungle trees, a thousand yards from her former location. Lights flashed as the force screen went out and then re-adjusted itself to the natural contour of the landscape, and obstacles. Ole Doc dusted his hands. The ship was safe for a moment. Now if that battle cruiser wanted to come low enough to prowl it would get a most frightening surprise. ”

“ I haven't got anything."
"Hippocrates," said Ole Doc, "dismount two turrets and have them set in towers here. They won't do much but they'll stop an attack from land. And, if I'm right, that's all we have to fear."
Hippocrates looked helplessly around for a place to put down the half ton of equipment he was lugging like a mountain above him.
"Just drop it," said Ole Doc. "We're making a lab right here on the porch where it's cool."
O'Hara suddenly flamed brightly. "You mean," he cried in sudden hope, "that you're going to help me? You mean it?" ”

“ I am supposed to make this planet habitable in case Earth ever wants a colony planted. This is an agricultural and animal husbandry station. I'm supposed to make things easy for any future colonist. But no colonists have come so far and I don't blame them. This Savannah here is the coolest place on the planet and yet it's hot enough. But I haven't got an assistant or anyone and so when this happened—"
"Well, come on, man," said Ole Doc. "What has happened."
"You'll see!" cried O'Hara, getting wild-eyed with excitement and concern once more. "Come along." ”

“ In his hand he carried a sling and on his wrist, hung by a thong, a knife.
"Whoa!" said Ole Doc. "Wait a minute! You're not sacrificing that kid just for my amusement." And he had a blaster up so fast that only a lunge by O'Hara deflected his aim at the catbeast.
The kid looked curiously at the plowed hole the blast had made and then glanced disdainfully at the box. O'Hara, recovered from the lunge hastily pushed a button and got a bulletproof shield in place.
"All right, all right," said Ole Doc. "I'll stand here and watch murder." But he held the blaster ready just in case. ”

“ Ole Doc threw a switch which put an alpha force field around the ship to keep wild animals off and, with a final glance at the tumbled wrecks of buildings which had once housed a military post, descended the ladder and strolled after Hippocrates into the thick growth. ”

“ But as for the problem of getting these babies—"
"Oh, that isn't it!" said O'Hara. "You see, it's these condemned Achnoids. "They're so confounded routine in everything they do. And I guess maybe its my fault, too, because there are so many details on this station that if one Earthman had to listen to them all and arrange them every day he would go crazy. So I guess I'm pretty humpy with them—the ambulating pinwheels! Well, this is the lion shed. We turn out eighteen thousand lions every three months, that being our charted gestation period. ”

“ He had headed for the only opening he had seen in the jungle wall ahead and that opening had been made by a killed ship.
He came back up through the air lock and opened all the switches on the battle panel except the screens.
"We can go now, master," said Hippocrates brightly. "Scanner shows nothing to stop us."
"Shut that off and fix me a biological kit," said Ole Doc.
"You're not going?" gaped Hippocrates.
"According to article something or other when the majority of a human population on a planet is threatened a soldier has to stay on the job." ”

“ Ole Doc paid him no attention. He was already fishing in the pile of equipment for a portable ultraelectron microscope and a box of slides. He put them on the table. "Have somebody start bringing me phials out of that preservation room. One sample from every box you've got!"
In the many, many weeks which followed there was no wine, there was only work. And over Ole Doc hung two intelligences which made him very skeptical of his chances of getting out of this one alive. ”

“ Ole Doc grunted in satisfaction and tipped the mass into a huge graduate. He stuffed a rayrod into the middle of the mass and left it.
"Another chicken," he said. O'Hara closed his mouth and ran into the yard to scoop up another one. It squawked and beat its wings until a rayrod was aimed at it. Then, like its relative, it went under the belljar, became jellylike, turned into a translucent mass and got dumped into another graduate.
Five chickens later there were seven graduates full of cells, each with a different kind of rayrod sticking out. ”

“ There's an awful lot of paper work comes off Earth about this sort of thing and frankly I didn't even know they were shipping babies by this system. I went back through all my reports but I must have misfiled something because there isn't anything on it which I've received. Well—"
"You said you messaged the department," said Ole Doc.
"Oh, heck. You know government like it is these days. Earth has three billion inhabitants and one and three quarters billion are working for the government and they still can't keep up with the administration of colonies and stations in space." ”

“ First was the fact that something or somebody had now supercharged the planet's ionosphere thoroughly enough to damp every outgoing and incoming message and as Ole Doc's last reported whereabouts was many a light-year from Gorgon, the chances of any relief were slender to the vanishing point—for a search party would have to look over at least a hundred planets and a nearly infinite cube of sky. Second was the sporadic presence of a silver dot in the sky, the battle cruiser, out of range, unfriendly, waiting. ”

“ The kid gave his "pants" a hitch, turned on his heel and strode back into the shed. The door dropped. Mookah dropped into the arena and began to call for help to get the catbeast en route to the cookshack.
"I knew he'd shoot at us," said O'Hara. "The shield was for him, not for you, sir."
Ole Doc let out his breath with the realization that he must have been holding it for some time. "Well!"
"Now that's my problem," said O'Hara. "There are eighteen thousand of them and they are all males. ”

“ He wiped a slight smear of mustard and gypsum from his mouth with a guilty hand—for his own supplies of delicacy were so low that he had stolen some of Ole Doc's plaster for casts.
"The formula for making wine," began Hippocrates with his phonograph record-wise mind, "consists of procuring grapes. The grapes are then smashed to relieve them of juice and the juice is strained and set aside to ferment. At the end of—"
"We don't have any grapes," said Ole Doc. "We don't have any fuel. We have no food beyond ham and powdered eggs. ”

“ You're going to unbuckle that blaster belt right where you stand and you're going to walk ahead of me slow to the pens. And you'd better lie telling the truth."
Ole Doc dropped his belt, made a sign to Hippocrates to gather up the graduates and stepped out toward the pens.
Here, under the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun it became very obvious that there wasn't an Achnoid in sight. Instead there were various beings in disordered dress who held carefully ordered weapons commanding all avenues of escape. ”

“ They evidently mature quick."
"Evidently," said Ole Doc.
"Maybe they won't be full grown for several years," said O'Hara. "But every day they get worse. That concrete blockhouse you see down there is just in case."
Ole Doc glanced down to where a dozen Achnoids were slaving in the harsh daylight, building what seemed an impregnable fortress. "Prison?" said Ole Doc.
"Refuge!" said O'Hara. "In six months or less this planet won't be safe for Achnoids, catbeasts, scumsnakes, gargantelephants, pluseagles or me!" ”

“ He ordered up several flasks and put his weird stew into them and then he drew a sketch.
"Make a catapult like this," said Ole Doc. "One on every corner of the pens. That's eight. With eight flasks, one for each. Trigger them with a magnet against this remote condenser so that when it is pushed, off they go into the compounds."
"And everybody dies?" said Hippocrates expectantly, thoughtful of the bruises he had had wrestling these "babies".
"Rig them up," said Ole Doc. Because the rest of this is going to take another day or two."
"What's the sudden rush?" said O'Hara. ”

“ Then we take them out of the vats and put them on artificial udders and we have calves and lambs and such. But this is the lion shed."
"The what?" said Ole Doc.
"For the lions," said O'Hara. "We find that carefully selected and properly evoluted Earth lions kill catbeasts and several other kinds of vermin. I've got the deserts to the south of here crawling with lions and some day we'll be rid of catbeasts."
"And then you'll have lions," said Ole Doc.
"Oh no," said O'Hara impatiently. "Then we'll bacteriacide the lions with a plague. Which is to say I will. There isn't any we. ”

“ In this happy holiday mood they came to the lake, dried up a half acre of mud with one blast of the 110, pitched a canopy at the water's edge complete with table and chairs, made a wharf by extending a log over the water and generally got things ready to fish. ”

“ Ole Doc didn't sleep. He kept himself going on multithyroid, which Hippocrates said was very bad for him indeed. But O'Hara keeled over in nervous and physical exhaustion before they had reached the ten thousandth case. They put him under the influence of the second hypo gun and left him in his own lion pen to snooze it off.
And Hippocrates and Ole Doc went on.
It takes a long while to handle thirty-eight thousand babies and one hundred and ten crewmen, much less treat them. ”

“ Hippocrates looked straight at him. He was somewhat of a space lawyer, Hippocrates. "Article 726 of Code 2, paragraph 80, third from the top of page 607 of the Law Regulating the Behavior of Members of the Universal Medical Society to wit: 'It shall also be unlawful for the Soldier of Light to desert a medical task of which he has been apprised when it threatens the majority of the human population of any planet.'"
Ole Doc looked at his little slave in some annoyance. "Are you going to get my fishing gear?" ”

“ If you'll call up your medico, I'll show him what's to be done—"
"About what?"
"About this illness," said Ole Doc. "Strange thing. Must be a lion disease or something. Very rare. Affects all the nerve centers."
"Those two kids look all right to me!" said Smalley, getting alert and peering at the cages on the porch. ”

“ Synthesized cells and injected them into proper areas where they will harmonize with bodies. They succumb easily to a strawberry allergy and are painfully affected by it. All beings so located and all artificial gestations infected so that they could be treated. ”

“ Smalley looked suspicious. He kept his place at a distance and kept down the visor of his space helmet. Two of his guards came up and, some distance from him, received further orders and went back to watch from the gate. ”