Nerves

Chapter 10

Dodd was working artificial respiration and Jenkins had the oxygen mask in his hands, adjusting it over Jorgenson’s face, before Ferrel reached the table. He made a grab for the pulse that had been fluttering weakly enough before, felt it flicker feebly once, pause for about three times normal period, lift feebly again, and then stop completely “Adrenalin!”

“Already shot it into his heart, Doc! Cardiacine, too!” The boy’s voice was bordering on hysteria, but Palmer was obviously closer to it than Jenkins.

“Doc, you gotta —”

“Get the hell out of here!” Ferrel’s hands suddenly had a life of their own as he grabbed frantically for instruments, ripped bandages off the man’s chest, and began working against time, when time had all the advantages. It wasn’t surgery — hardly good butchery; the bones that he cut through so ruthlessly with savage strokes of an instrument could never heal smoothly after being so mangled. But he couldn’t worry about minor details now.

He tossed back the flap of flesh and ribs that he’d hacked out. “Stop the bleeding, Jenkins!” Then his hands plunged into the chest cavity, somehow finding room around Dodd’s and Jenkins’, and were suddenly incredibly gentle as they located the heart itself and began working on it, the skilled, exact massage of a man who knew every function of the vital organ. Pressure here, there, relax; pressure again — take it easy, don’t rush things! It would do no good to try to set it going as feverishly as his emotions demanded. Pure oxygen was feeding into the lungs and the heart could safely do less work. Hold it steady, one beat a second, sixty a minute.

It had been perhaps half a minute from the time the heart stopped before his massage was circulating blood again; too little time to worry about damage to the brain, the first part to be permanently affected by stoppage of the circulation. Now if the heart could start again by itself within any reasonable time death would be cheated again. How long? He had no idea. They’d taught him ten minutes when he was studying medicine, then there’d been a case of twenty minutes once, and while he was interning it had been pushed up to a record of slightly over an hour, which still stood; but that was an exceptional case. Jorgenson, praise be, was a normally healthy and vigorous specimen, and he had been in first-class condition, but with the torture of those long hours, the radioactive, narcotic and curare all fighting against him, still one more miracle was needed to keep his life going.

Press, massage, relax; don’t hurry it too much. There! For a second, his fingers felt a faint flutter, then again; but it stopped. Still, as long as the organ could show such signs there was hope, unless his fingers grew too tired and he muffed the job before the moment when the heart could be safely trusted by itself.

“Jenkins!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Ever do any heart massage?”

“Practiced it in school, on a model, but never actually. Oh, a dog in dissection class, for five minutes. I–I don’t think you’d better trust me, Doc.”

“I may have to. If you did it on a dog for five minutes, you can do it on a man. Probably. You know what hangs on it.”

Jenkins nodded, the tense nod he’d used earlier. “I know — that’s why you can’t trust me. I told you I’d let you know when I was going to crack; well, it’s damned near here!”

Could a man tell his weakness, if he was about finished? Doc didn’t know; he suspected that the boy’s own awareness of his nerves would speed up such a break, if anything, but Jenkins was a queer case, taut nerves sticking out all over him, yet a steadiness under fire that few older men could have equaled. If he had to use him, he would. There was no other answer.

Doc’s fingers were already feeling stiff — not yet tired, but showing signs of becoming so. Another few minutes, and he’d have to stop. There was the flutter again, one — two — three! Then it stopped. There had to be some other solution to this; it was impossible to keep it up for the length of time probably needed, even if he and Jenkins spelled each other. Only Michel at Mayo’s could — Mayo’s! If they could get it here in time, that device he’d seen demonstrated at their last medical convention was the answer.

“Jenkins, call Mayo’s — you’ll have to get Palmer’s okay, I guess — ask for Kubelik, and bring the extension where I can talk to him!”

He could hear Jenkins’ voice, level enough at first, then with a depth of feeling he’d have thought impossible in the boy. Dodd looked at him quickly and managed a grim smile, even as she continued with the respiration; nothing could make her blush, though it should have done so.

The boy jumped back. “No soap, Doc! Palmer can’t be located, and that post-mortem misconception at the board won’t listen!”

Doc studied his hands in silence, wondering, then gave it up; there’d be no hope of his lasting while he sent out the boy. “Okay, Jenkins, you’ll have to take over here, then. Steady does it, come on in slowly, get your fingers over mine. Now, catch the motion? Easy, don’t rush things. You’ll hold out; You’ll have to! You’ve done better than I had any right to ask for so far, and you don’t need to mistrust yourself. There, got it?”

“Got it, Doc. I’ll try, but for Pete’s sake whatever you’re planning get back here quick! I’m not lying about cracking! You’d better let Meyers replace Dodd and have Sue called back in here; she’s the best nerve tonic I know.”

“Call her in then, Dodd.” Doc picked up a hypodermic syringe, filled it quickly with water to which a drop of iodine added a brownish-yellow color, and forced his tired old legs into a reasonably rapid trot out of the side door and toward Communications. Maybe the switchboard operator was stubborn but there were ways of handling people.

He hadn’t counted on the guard outside the communications building, though. “Halt!”

“Life or death; I’m a physician.”

“Not in here — I got orders.” The bayonet’s menace apparently wasn’t enough; the rifle went up to the man’s shoulder, and his chin jutted out with the stubbornness of petty authority and reliance on orders. “Nobody sick here. There’s plenty of phones elsewhere. You get back, and fast!”

Doc started forward and there was a faint click from the rifle as the safety went off; the darned fool meant what he said. Shrugging, Ferrel stepped back — and brought the hypodermic needle up inconspicuously in line with the guard’s face. “Ever see one of these squirt curare? It can reach before your bullet hits!”

“Curare?” The guard’s eyes flicked to the needle and doubt came into them. The man frowned. “That’s the stuff that kills people on arrows, ain’t it?”

“It is — cobra venom, you know. One drop on the outside of your skin and you’re dead in ten seconds.” Both statements were out-and-out lies, but Doc was counting on the superstitious ignorance of the average man about poisons. “This little needle can spray you with it very nicely, and it may be a fast death, but not a pleasant one. Want to put down the rifle?”

A regular might have shot; but the militiaman was taking no chances. He lowered the rifle gingerly, his eyes on the needle, then kicked the weapon aside at Doc’s motion. Ferrel approached, holding the needle out, and the man shrank backward and away, letting him pick up the rifle as he went past to avoid being shot in the back. Lost time! But he knew his way around this little building, at least, and went straight toward the girl at the board.

“Get up!” His voice came from behind her shoulder and she turned to see the rifle in one of his hands, the needle in the other, almost touching her throat. “This is loaded with curare, deadly poison, and too much hangs on getting a call through to bother with physician’s oaths right now, young lady. Up! No plugs! That’s right; now get over there, out of the cell — there, on your face, cross your hands behind your back, and grab your ankles — right! Now if you move, you won’t move long!”

Those gangster pictures he’d seen were handy at that. She was thoroughly frightened and docile. But perhaps not so much so she might not have bungled his call deliberately. He had to put it through himself. Darn it, the red lights were trunk lines, but which plug —? Try the inside one, it looked more logical; he’d seen it done, but couldn’t remember. Now you flip back one of these switches — uh-uh, the other way. The tone came in assuring him he had it right, and he dialed the operator rapidly, his eyes flickering toward the girl lying on the floor, his thoughts on Jenkins and the wasted time running on.

“Operator, this is an emergency. I’m Walnut 7654; I want to put in a long-distance call to Dr. Kubelik, Mayo’s Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota. If Kubelik isn’t there I’ll take anyone else who answers from his department. Speed is essential.”

“Very good, sir.” Long-distance operators, mercifully, were usually efficient. There were the repeated signals and clicks of relays as she put the call through, the answer from the hospital board, more wasted time, and then a face appeared on the screen; but not that of Kubelik. It was a much younger man.

Ferrel wasted no time in introduction. “I’ve got an emergency case here where all hades depends on saving a man, and it can’t be done without that machine of Dr. Kubelik’s; he knows me, if he’s there — I’m Ferrel, met him at the convention, got him to show me how the thing worked.”

“Kubelik hasn’t come in yet, Dr. Ferrel; I’m his assistant. But if you mean the heart-and-lung exciter, it’s already boxed and supposed to leave for Harvard this morning. They’ve got a rush case out there, and may need it —”

“Not as much as I do.”

“I’ll have to call — Wait a minute, Dr. Ferrel, seems I remember your name now. Aren’t you the chap with National Atomic?”

Doc nodded. “The same. Now about that machine, if you’ll stop the formalities —”

The face on the screen nodded, instant determination showing, with an underlying expression of something else. “We’ll ship it down to you instantly, Ferrel. Got a field for a plane?”

“Not within three miles, but I’ll have a truck sent out for it. How long?”

“Take too long by truck, if you need it down there, Ferrel; I’ll arrange to trans-ship in air from our special speedster to a helicopter, have it delivered wherever you want. About — Let’s see, loading plane, flying a couple hundred miles, trans-shipping — About half an hour’s the best we can do.”

“Make it the square of land south of the Infirmary, which is crossed visibly from the air. Thanks!”

“Wait, Dr. Ferrell” The younger man checked Doc’s cutoff. “Can you use it when you get it? It’s tricky work.”

“Kubelik gave quite a demonstration and I’m used to tricky work. I’ll chance it — have to. Too long to rouse Kubelik himself, isn’t it?”

“Probably. Okay, I’ve got the telescript already from the shipping office; it’s starting for the plane. I wish you luck!”

Ferrel nodded his thanks, wondering. Service like that was welcome, but it wasn’t the most comforting thing, mentally, to know that the mere mention of National Atomic could cause such an about-face. Rumors, it seemed, were spreading, and in a hurry, in spite of Palmer’s best attempts. Good Lord, what was going on here? He’d been too busy for any serious worrying or to realize… Well, it had got him the exciter, and for that he should be thankful.

He put through a call to Palmer, hoping the man was in his office. Luck was with him, for once, and Palmer agreed to okay the arrival of the helicopter without argument.

The guard was starting uncertainly off for reinforcements when Doc came out, and he realized that the seemingly endless calls must have been over in short order. He tossed the rifle well out of the man’s reach and headed back toward the Infirmary at a run, wondering how Jenkins had made out. It had to be all right!

Jenkins wasn’t standing over the body of Jorgenson; Brown was there instead, her eyes moist and her face pinched in and white around the nostrils, which stood out at full width. She looked up, shook her head at him as he started forward, and went on working at Jorgenson’s heart.

“Jenkins cracked?”

“Nonsense! This is woman’s work, Dr. Ferrel, and I took over for him, that’s all. You men try to use brute force all your lives and then wonder why a woman can do twice as much delicate work where strong muscles are a nuisance. I chased him out and took over, that’s all.” But there was a catch in her voice as she said it, and Meyers was looking down entirely too intently at the work of artificial respiration.

“Hi, Doc!” It was Blake’s voice that broke in. “Get away from there; when this Dr. Brown needs help, I’ll be right in there. I’ve been sleeping like a darned fool all night, from four this morning on. I guess we were really tanked up. We decided to cut the bell and put the phone under a pillow, for some reason. So I didn’t hear a darned thing until some idiot came around trying to break in and the neighbors chased her. You go rest.”

Ferrel grunted in relief; Blake might have been dead-drunk when he finally reached home, which would explain his actions with the phone, but his animal virility had soaked it out with no visible sign. The only change was the absence of the usual cocky grin on his face as he moved over beside Brown to test Jorgenson. “Thank the Lord you’re here, Blake. How’s Jorgenson doing?”

Brown’s voice answered in a monotone, words coming in time to the motions of her fingers. “His heart shows signs of coming around once in a while, but it doesn’t last. He isn’t getting worse, from what I can tell, though.”

“Good. If we can keep him going half an hour more, we can turn all this over to a machine. Where’s Jenkins?”

“A machine? Oh, the Kubelik exciter, of course. He was working on it when I was there. We’ll keep Jorgenson alive until then anyway, Dr. Ferrel.”

“Where’s Jenkins?” he repeated sharply, when she stopped with no intention of answering the former question.

Blake pointed toward Ferrel’s office, the door of which was now closed. “In there. But lay off him, Doc. I saw the whole thing, and he feels like the deuce about it. He’s a good kid, but only a kid, and this kind of hell could get any of us.”

“I know all that.” Doc headed toward the office, as much for a smoke as anything else. The sight of Blake’s rested face was somehow an island of reassurance in this sea of fatigue and nerves. “Don’t worry, Brown, I’m not planning on dressing him down, so you needn’t defend your man so carefully. If was my fault for not listening to him.”

Brown’s eyes were pathetically grateful in the brief flash she threw him and he felt like a heel for the gruffness that had been his first reaction to Jenkins’ absence. If this kept on much longer, though, they’d all be in worse shape than the boy, whose back was toward him as he opened the door. The still, huddled shape did not raise its head from its arm as Ferrel put his hand onto one shoulder, and the voice was muted and distant.

“I cracked, Doc — high, wide and handsome, all over the place. I couldn’t take it! Standing there, Jorgenson maybe dying because I couldn’t control myself, the whole plant blowing up, all my fault. I kept telling myself I was okay, I’d go on, then I cracked. Screamed like a baby! Dr. Jenkins — nerve specialist!”

“Yeah…. Here, are you going to drink this, or do I have to hold your blasted nose and pour it down your throat?” It was crude psychology but it worked. Doc handed over the drink, waited for the other to down it and passed a cigarette across before sinking into his own chair. “You warned me, Jenkins, and I risked it on my own responsibility, so nobody’s kicking. But I’d like to ask a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead — what’s the difference?” Jenkins had obviously recovered a little, judging from the note of defiance that managed to creep into his voice.

“Did you know Brown could handle that kind of work? And did you pull your hands out before she could get hers in to replace them?”

“She told me she could. I didn’t know before. I dunno about the other; I think… Yeah, Doc, she had her hands over mine. But —”

Ferrel nodded, satisfied with his own guess. “I thought so. You didn’t crack, as you put it, until your mind knew it was safe to do so, and then you simply passed the work on. By that definition, I’m cracking, too. I’m sitting in here, smoking, talking to you, when out there a man needs attention. The fact that he’s getting it from two others, one practically fresh, the other at least a lot better off than we are, doesn’t have a thing to do with it, does it?”

“But it wasn’t that away, Doc. I’m not asking for grandstand stuff from anybody.”

“Nobody’s giving it to you, son. All right, you screamed — why not? It didn’t hurt anything. I growled at Brown when I came in for the same reason: exhausted over-strained nerves. If I went out there and had to take over from them, I’d probably scream myself, or start biting my tongue. Nerves have to have an outlet; physically it does them no good but there’s a psychological need for it.” The boy wasn’t convinced and Doc sat back in the chair, staring at him thoughtfully. “Ever wonder why I’m here?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, you might. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was about your age, there wasn’t a surgeon in this country — or the world, for that matter — who had the reputation I had: any kind of surgery, brain, what have you. They’re still using some of my techniques… Yes, I thought you’d remember when the association of names hit you… I had a different wife then, Jenkins, and there was a baby coming.

Brain tumor — I had to do it, no one else could. I did it, somehow, but I went out of that operating room in a haze, and it was three days later before they’d tell me she’d died: not my fault — I know that now — but I couldn’t realize it then.

“So I tried setting up as a general practitioner. No more surgery for me! And because I was a fair diagnostician, which most surgeons aren’t, I made a living, at least. Then when this company was set up I applied for the job and got it; I still had a reputation of sorts. It was a new field, something requiring study and research and damned near every ability of most specialists plus a general practitioner’s, so it kept me busy enough to get over my phobia about surgery. Compared to me, you don’t know what nerves or cracking means. That little scream was a minor incident.”

Jenkins made no comment, but lighted the cigarette he’d been holding. Ferrel relaxed farther back into the chair, knowing that he’d be called if there was any need for his work, and glad to get his mind at least partially off Jorgenson. “It’s hard to find a man for this work, Jenkins. It takes too much ability at too many fields, even though it pays well enough. We went through plenty of applicants before we decided on you and I’m not regretting our choice. As a matter of fact, you’re better equipped for the job than Blake was. Your record looked as if you’d deliberately tried for this kind of work.”

“I did.”

“Mmm.” That was the one answer Doc had least expected; so far as he knew, no one deliberately tried for a job at Atomics; they usually wound up trying for it after comparing their receipts for a year or so with the salary paid by National. “Then you knew what was needed and picked it up in toto. Mind if I ask why?”

Jenkins shrugged. “Why not? Turnabout’s fair play. It’s kind of complicated, but the gist of it doesn’t take much telling. Dad — my stepfather, that is — had an atomic plant of his own, and a darned good one too, Doc, even if it wasn’t as big as National. I was working in it as an engineer when I was fifteen. But we were a little weak on medical radioactive development, so Dad insisted I take up medicine at the university. That’s where I met Sue, in her last year. I had money enough to give her a rush then, even though she wasn’t around after the one year. She was already holding down a job at Mayo’s while I was boning up on medicine. Anyway…

“Dad got a big contract on a new process we’d worked out. It took some swinging, but he financed the equipment and started it…. My guess is that one of the controls broke through faulty construction; the process itself was right! We’d been over it too often not to know what it would do. But when the estate was cleaned up, I had to go back to medicine full time. Sue supported us, and she had enough pull to swing me an interneship at Mayo’s. It wasn’t atomics, but I figured I’d still use what I learned on that if I could get on here. Then you hired me.”

“National can give a degree in atomics,” Doc reminded the boy. The field was still too new to be a standing university course, and there were no better teachers in the business than such men as Palmer, Hokusai and Jorgenson. “They pay a salary while you’re learning too.”

“Umm. Takes ten years that way, and the salary’s just enough for a single man. No, I’d married Sue with the intention she wouldn’t have to work again; well, she did until I finished the interneship, but I knew if I get the job here I could support her. As an atomjack, working up to an engineer, the prospects weren’t so good. We’re saving a little money now and some day maybe I’ll get a crack at it…. Doc, what’s all this about? You babying me out of my fit?”

Ferrel grinned at the boy. “Nothing else, son, though I was curious. And it worked. Feel all right now, don’t you?”

“Mostly, except for what’s going on out there — I got too much of a look at it from the truck. Oh, I could use some sleep, I guess, but I’m okay again.”

“Good.” Doc had profited almost as much as Jenkins from the rambling off trail talk, and had managed more rest from it than from nursing his own thoughts. “Suppose we go out and see how they’re making out with Jorgenson? What happened to Hoke, come to think of it?”

“Hoke? Oh, he’s in my office now, figuring out things with a pencil and paper since we wouldn’t let him go back out there. I was wondering —”

“Atomics? Then suppose you go in and talk to him; he’s a good guy and he won’t give you the brush-off. Nobody else around here apparently suspected this Isotope R business, and you might offer a fresh lead for him. With Blake and the nurses here and the men out of the mess except for the tanks, there’s not much you can do to help on my end.”

Ferrel felt more at peace with the world than he had since the call from Palmer as he watched Jenkins head off across the surgery toward his office; and the glance that Brown threw, first toward the boy, then back at Doc, didn’t make him feel worse. That girl could say more with her eyes than most women could with their mouths! He went over toward the operating table, where Blake was now working the heart massage with one of the fresh nurses attending to respiration and casting longing glances toward the mechanical-lung apparatus; it couldn’t be used in this case, since Jorgenson’s chest had to be free for heart attention.

Blake looked up, his expression worried. “This isn’t so good, Doc. He’s been sinking in the last few minutes. I was just going to call you. I —”

The last words were drowned out by the bull-throated drone that came dropping down from above them, a sound peculiarly characteristic of the heavy Sikorsky freighters with the modified blades they used to gain lift. Ferrel nodded at Brown’s questioning glance, but he didn’t choose to shout as his hands went around those of Blake and took over the delicate work of stimulating the natural heart action. As Blake withdrew the sound stopped and Doc motioned him out with his head.

“You’d better go to them and oversee bringing in the apparatus — and grab up any of the men you see to act as porters — or send Jones for them. The machine is an experimental model and pretty cumbersome; must weigh three-four-hundred pounds.”

“I’ll get them myself; Jones is sleeping.”

There was no flutter to Jorgenson’s heart under Doc’s deft manipulations, though he was exerting every bit of skill he possessed. “How long since there was a sign?”

“About four minutes now. Doc, is there still a chance?”

“Hard to say. Get the machine, though, and we’ll hope.”

But still the heart refused to respond, though the pressure and manipulation kept the blood circulating and would at least prevent any starving or asphyxiation of the body cells. Carefully, delicately, he brought his mind into his fingers, trying to woo a faint quiver. Perhaps he did, once, but he couldn’t be sure. It all depended on how quickly they could get the machine working now and how long a man could live by manipulation alone. That point was still unsettled.

But there was no question about the fact that the spark of life burned faintly and steadily lower in Jorgenson, while outside the man-made hell went on ticking off the minutes that separated it from becoming Mahler’s Isotope. Normally Doc was an agnostic, but now unconsciously his mind slipped back into the simple faith of his childhood, and he heard Brown echoing the prayer that was on his lips. The second hand of the watch before him swung around and around and around again before he heard the sound of men’s feet at the back entrance, and still there was no definite quiver from the heart under his fingers. How much time did he have left, if any, for the difficult and unfamiliar operation required?

His side glance showed the seemingly innumerable filaments of platinum that had to be connected into the nerves governing Jorgenson’s heart and lungs, all carefully coded, yet almost terrifying in their complexity. If he made a mistake anywhere it was at least certain there would be no time for a second trial; if his fingers shook or his tired eyes clouded at the wrong instant there would be no help from Jorgenson. Jorgenson would be dead!