Spaceship medic

Chapter 2

There was nothing for a doctor to do in the control-room. A damage-control party was pushing their way in and, as soon as they had cleared the doorway, Don made his way back to the pressurized section of the ship. A temporary airlock had been fastened to the door at the top of the stairwell and he cycled through it. As the pressure hit the valve on his chest the metal cover in the front of his helmet popped open and he was breathing the ships atmosphere again. He went to the nearest viewer, checked the directory posted beside it, then dialled for Damage Control. The line was engaged, but the flashing green light indicated that his call was being held and he would be connected as soon as possible.

Don shifted his weight impatiently from leg to leg. This was not quite the kind of a voyage he had expected. There was supposed to be very little glamour or adventure in the space service these days. Many young doctors, fresh out of medical school as he was, served a hitch on the spacers while they made up their minds as to their future. There were many good positions opened for doctors on the satellite stations and the planetary bases. This was a good way to look at them before coming to a decision. It was also a pleasant change after the years of medical school. Pleasant! He had to smile at his reflected image in the phone screen - just as the call signal chimed.

'Doctor Chase here,' he said to the harried petty officer who swam into focus on the small screen.

'Got some business for you, Doc. Worst one of them seems to be lying outside of compartment 32B. If you go there I'll have the information on the others waiting for you.'

'Positive. Out.'

He ran. In accidents minutes, even seconds, can mean the difference between life and death.

A grey-haired man was lying in the corridor in front of 32B and a young girl was bending over him. She was wearing a yellow playsuit - with only one sleeve. When she moved aside he saw that she had torn it off and wadded it up to make a bandage for the side of the man's face. It was stained red with blood.

'I didn't move him or anything, Doctor, just tried to stop the bleeding. That's all.'

'You did fine,' he said, kneeling and snapping open his case.

The first thing he did was push the recording tell-tale against the man's flaccid wrist. The bands slipped out and automatically clamped the instrument into place. The dials quivered to life and Don saw that the patient's blood-pressure was low, his pulse weak, his temperature normal, his skin cold and clammy. Shock. That was only to be expected. He slipped out a spray hypodermic, that shot the anti-shock drug through the man's skin without making a puncture, before looking at the wound. When he did lift off the makeshift bandage he saw that it was far less serious than the girl had imagined. The wound was superficial, just a jagged tear in the skin. But there was so much bleeding that it had looked bad to her untrained eye. He sprayed the wound with dermafoam. It would stiffen and prevent further bleeding until he could treat the patient in the operating room.

'He'll be all right,' Don said. 'Were you with him when it happened? Are you injured yourself?'

'No, I'm fine. I just came down the corridor and found him like this. Just lying there in the pool of blood. After I put the bandage on and made the call for help I noticed that thing in the wall. But I have no idea how it got there.'

She pointed to a j agged chunk of metal that was embedded in the corridor wall opposite compartment 32B. The red light was on next to the sealed door.

'It was just bad luck,' Don said. 'There was an explosion in that compartment just as he was passing and that piece of metal must have come through the door and hit him.' He did not add that the metal was from the passage of the meteorite and that the compartment was now airless. The metal must have exploded out through the doorway before it automatically closed.

Announcement chimes sounded from the speaker in the corridor, and would be heard at the same time in every compartment in the great ship. There was a pause, then someone coughed and began speaking.

'Attention, please. This is First Engineer Holtz speaking. I have been asked to inform everyone aboard, passengers and crew, that this spacer has had an accident. We have been struck by a meteorite.'

The girl gasped with shock and raised her hands before her face.

'It's all right,' Don said quickly. 'There is no danger. A few compartments were holed, but they are already sealed off.' He thought to himself that Holtz might be a good engineer but he knew nothing at all about people to make a frightening statement like this one. The amplified voice continued.

'I am informed by Damage Control that the holed compartments have been sealed off and repairs are being made. Passengers are ordered to remain in their cabins or wherever they are now, and should not move about. The crewmen are doing their work and you will only interfere with them. That is all.'

A spacesuited man with a folding stretcher came hurrying up.

'Damage Control sent me, Doc,' he said. 'Gave me a message for you.'

He dug the folded slip of paper out of his leg pocket and handed it to Don. It was a computer print-out that listed the location of all the wounded that had been reported so far. Don looked for the nearest one.

'This man will have to go to the sick bay,' he said. 'But you'll need someone else on the other end of that stretcher ...'

'I can help,' the girl said.

Don made a quick decision. She was young and strong and should be able to carry the weight.

'All right,' he said. 'You can stay with the patient in the sick bay.'

'What about me, Doc?' the crewman asked.

'Bring the stretcher back with you. I'll be near compartment 89-HA. Try and pick up someone else for the other end on your way.'

The man at compartment 89-HA was dead. As were the next two people on the list, passengers, an elderly couple. Cold vacuum is a killer that spares very few. But there were survivors, people who had been in the compartments that had been the last to be holed, from which the air had been expelled a little more slowly. Don treated them for shock, burst blood vessels and minor wounds. There were pitifully few of them in comparison to the number of dead. He was bandaging a frostbitten hand when the announcement sounded from the speaker.

'Lieutenant Chase, will you report to the control-room. Officers meeting.'

A very small meeting, Don thought grimly. He looked around at the few patients in the sick bay, all sedated, mostly asleep. A young crewman was rolling up the stretcher for storage and Don called him over.

'Rama, do you think you can keep an eye on things while I go up to control?'

'In the green, Doctor. I'll call if there is any trouble.'

Rama Kusum was an engine-room mate - but his ambition was to be a doctor some day. He saved most of his salary so he could go to medical school at home in India. In his off-duty hours he had been helping Don and learning what he could.

Damage Control had called through earlier that the hull seals were in place, so that spacesuits could now be removed. Don had not had the time to do anything about it. Now he gratefully peeled off the hot suit and quickly washed before putting on a clean shipsuit.

He retraced his earlier route to the control-room. Only now all the doors were open. As he went down the stairs to A deck he found the railing was cold to his touch, and that the metal walls were damp where moisture was condensing out of the air. They would warm up quickly enough and the water would evaporate.

The bodies were gone from the control-room and a heavy metal plate had been welded over the raw hole in the floor where the meteorite had crashed through. Someone had been at work on the ruined radio and its parts were spread across the deck. At first Don thought he was alone, until he heard the cough and saw someone was sitting in the astroga-tor's high-backed chair. It was First Engineer Holtz.

'Come in and close that door,' Holtz said when he looked up and saw Don. And sit down, Lieutenant, we have a lot here to talk about. A very lot.' He waved the handful of papers he held, and looked unhappy.

Don dropped into a chair and waited for the other man to begin. It was a long wait. Holtz brooded over the papers, flipping through them slowly, as though there was an answer hidden there that he had missed. He was not a young man, and he seemed even older after the shocking events of the past few hours. The skin hung in dark bags under his eyes, and sagged loosely under his chin.

'Things look very bad,' he finally said.

'What exactly do you mean?' Don asked, controlling his impatience. Holtz was the senior officer and therefore automatically in command of the ship.

'Just look at these!' He shook the papers angrily. 'Every officer dead except you and me. How could that have happened? And this flying piece of rock has destroyed our radio, the big one we must have. Sparks is making a jury-rig, but the power will be limited. Not that it makes much difference. There are no ships in any orbit that could possibly help us. And almost half our water is gone, thrown out when that hole was made. Terrible!'

Don felt he had to do something to interrupt the tale of woe.

'It's bad, sir, but it's not the end of the ship. The death of the Captain, and the others, is a tragedy, but we are just going to have to learn to live with it. We can get the ship through. We're on course and in orbit, and when we get closer to Mars we'll make contact and navigating officers can come out to meet us. The ship is sealed and sound. We'll make it. You can count upon me for any help I can offer.' He smiled. 'It will work out, Captain.'

'Captain!' Holtz sat up, his eyes widening.

'Of course. You're the senior officer and the rank passes automatically to you

'No it doesn't!' He shook his head fiercely. 'I am the First Engineer. The atomic pile and the engines are my duty. I know nothing about astrogation, nothing. I cannot leave the power-room, I'm sorry. You want someone to call Captain, then call yourself Captain'

'But - I'm just a doctor,' Don protested. 'This is my first space trip. You have to...'

'Don't tell me what I have to do. I tell you. I must be in the power-room, there is no way to get around that. You are in charge, the Captain until other officers come aboard. The ratings know their jobs, they'll help you.' Holtz's anger collapsed suddenly, and when he clasped his big hands together before him Don could see that they were shaking.

'You're a young man,' Holtz explained. 'You'll find a way to do the job. I can't. I'm going to retire, you know about that, this was supposed to be my last trip. I know atomics and I know engines. I know where I belong.' He straightened and looked Don in the eye. 'That is the way it has to be. You're in charge.'

'Don started to protest just as the door opened to the passageway. Computer-man Boyd came in. He saluted quickly in the direction of the Captains chair, then turned to the two officers.

'I have the readings here on the observations,' he said, but Holtz interrupted him.

'You will make your report to Lieutenant Chase. I must return to the power-room. We have reached agreement that he is to be in charge until other officers come aboard. Make your report to him.'

Holtz got up as he finished speaking and stamped out. There was nothing that Don could say. The Chief Engineer could not be forced to take on the Captain's responsibilities. There was no way out of this. The computerman turned to Don and handed him a sheet of paper.

'Here are the course corrections worked out from the hourly observations, Doc. The first ones since the rock hit.'

Don looked blankly at the rows of numbers on the paper. 'What does all this mean? You're going to have to do some translation for me, Boyd.'

'I don't know much about this myself, Doc, but I used to work with the astro-gator. He was talking about making a course correction during the next watch, but now I don't know. That rock hit right on the plane of rotation and it had enough mass and speed to affect us. Didn't slow the rotation enough to feel, we still have about one G on us, but it knocked us a bit off centre and the ship is starting to precess.'

Don sighed and handed the paper back. 'You're going to have to make it a lot simpler than that, Boyd, if you want me to make head or tail of the problem.'

The computerman was not smiling. 'Well - our main axis, the thrust of our atomic jets is aimed ahead on our course. At least it used to be, and it has to be for any course corrections. But now we're beginning to tumble, you know, sort of turn end over end. While the ship is doing that we cant make any course corrections. And, Doc, unless we make those corrections were going to miss Mars and keep right on going. Forever.'

Don nodded. He could understand that. Something had to be done - and fast - and he was the only one who could do it. Holtz wasn't going to help and there was no one else aboard the Johannes Kepler whom he could turn to.

'All right, Boyd,' he said, 'I'll take care of this. But if I do, you are going to have to stop calling me "Doc"'

'Yes, sir,' the computerman said, straightening up and saluting. 'I understand, Captain.'