The Puppet Masters

Chapter 9

I woke up with my mouth foul, my head buzzing, and a vague sense of impending disaster. Nevertheless I felt fine, by comparison. A cheerful voice said, "Feeling better?"

A small brunet creature was bending over me. She was as cute a little bug as I have ever seen and I was well enough to appreciate the fact, however faintly. She was dressed in a very odd costume, what there was of it-skin-tight white shorts, a wisp of practically transparent stuff that restrained her breasts, but not much, and a sort of metal carapace that covered the back of her neck, her shoulders, and went on down her spine.

"Better," I admitted, then made a wry face.

"Mouth taste unpleasant?"

"Like a Balkan cabinet meeting."

"Here." She gave me some stuff in a glass; it was spicy and burned a little, and it washed away the bad taste at once. "No," she went on, "don't swallow it. 'Pit it out like a little man and I'll get you some water." I obeyed.

"I'm Doris Marsden," she went on, "your day nurse."

"Glad to know you, Doris," I answered and stared at her with increasing appreciation. "Say-why the get up? Not that I don't like it, but you look like a refugee from a comic book."

She looked down at herself and giggled. "I feel like a chorus girl. But you'll get used to it-I did."

"I'm already used to it. I like it fine. But why?"

"The Old Man's orders."

I started to ask why again, then I knew why, and I started feeling worse again. I shut up. Doris went on, "Now for some supper." She got a tray and sat down on my bed.

"I don't believe I want anything to eat."

"Open up," she said firmly, "or I'll rub it in your hair. There! That's a good boy."

Between gulps, taken in self-defense, I managed to get out, "I feel pretty good. Give me one jolt of 'gyro' and I'll be back on my feet."

"No stimulants for you," she said flatly, still shoveling it in. "Special diet and lots of rest, with maybe a sleepy pill later. That's what the man says."

"What's wrong with me?"

"Extreme exhaustion, starvation, and the first case of scurvy I ever saw in all my born days. As well as scabies and lice-but we got those whipped. There, now you know-and if you tell the doctor I told you, I'll call you a liar to your face. Turn over on your tummy."

I did so and she started changing dressings. I appeared to be spotted with sores; the stuff she used stung a bit, then felt cool. I thought about what she had told me and tried to remember just how I had lived under my master.

"Stop trembling," she said. "Are you having a bad one?"

"I'm all right," I told her. I did manage to stop shaking and to think it over calmly. As near as I could remember I had not eaten during that period oftener than every second or third day. Bathing? Let me see– why, I hadn't bathed at all! I had shaved every day and put on a clean shirt; that was a necessary part of the masquerade and the master knew it.

On the other hand, so far as I could remember, I had never taken off my shoes from the time I had stolen them until the Old Man had recaptured me-and they had been too tight to start with. "What sort of shape are my feet in?" I asked.

"Don't be nosy," Doris advised me. "Now turn over on your back."

I like nurses; they are calm and earthy and very tolerant. Miss Briggs, my night nurse, was not the mouth-watering job that Doris was; she had a face like a jaundiced horse-but she had a fine figure for a woman her age, hard and well cared for. She wore the same sort of musical-comedy rig that Doris sported, but she wore it with a no-nonsense air and walked like a grenadier guard. Doris, bless her heart, jiggled pleasantly as she walked.

Miss Briggs refused to give me a second sleeping pill when I woke up in the night and had the horrors, but she did play poker with me and skinned me out of half a month's pay. I tried to find out from her about the President matter, for I figured the Old Man had either won or lost by that time. But she wasn't talking. She would not admit that she knew anything about parasites, flying saucers, or what not-and she herself sitting there dressed in a costume that could have only one purpose!

I asked her what the public news was, then? She maintained that she had been too busy lately to look at a 'cast. So I asked to have a stereo box moved into my room, so I could catch a newscast. She said I would have to ask the doctor about that; I was on the 'quiet' list. I asked when in the deuce I was going to see this so-called doctor? She said she didn't know; the doctor had been very busy lately. I asked how many other patients there were in the infirmary anyway? She said she really didn't remember. About then her call bell sounded and she left, presumably to see another patient.

I fixed her. While she was gone, I cold-decked the next deal, so that she got a pat hand-then I wouldn't bet against her.

I got to sleep later on and was awakened by Miss Briggs slapping me in the face with a cold, wet washcloth. She got me ready for breakfast, then Doris relieved her and brought it to me. This time I fed myself and while I was chomping I tackled her for news, with the same perfect score I had made with Miss Briggs. Nurses run a hospital as if it were a nursery for backward children.

Davidson came around to see me after breakfast. "Heard you were here," he said. He was wearing shorts and nothing else, except that his left arm was covered by a dressing.

"More than I've heard," I complained. "What happened to you?"

"Bee stung me."

I dropped that subject; if he didn't want to tell how he had gotten burned, that was his business. I went on, "The Old Man was in here yesterday, getting my report, when he left very suddenly. Seen him since?"

"Yep."

"Well?" I answered.

"Well, how about you. Are you straightened out? Have the psych boys cleared you for classified matters, or not?"

"Is there any doubt about it?"

"You're darn tootin' there's doubt. Poor old Jarvis never did pull out of it."

"Huh?" I hadn't thought about Jarvis. "How is he now?"

"He isn't. Never did get right in his head. Dropped into a coma and died the next day-the day after you left. I mean the day after you were captured. No apparent reason-just died." Davidson looked me over. "You must be tough."

I did not feel tough. I felt tears of weakness welling up again and I blinked them back. Davidson pretended not to see and went on conversationally, "You should have seen the ruckus after you gave us the slip. The Old Man took out after you wearing nothing but a gun and a look of grim determination. He would have caught you, too, my money says-but the civil police picked him up and we had to get him out of hock." Davidson grinned.

I grinned feebly myself. There was something both gallant and silly about the Old Man charging out to save the world single-handed dressed in his birthday suit. "Sorry I missed it. But what else has happened– lately?"

Davidson looked me over carefully, then said, "Wait a minute." He stepped out of the room and was gone a short time. When he came back, he said, "The Old Man says it's all right. What do you want to know?"

"Everything! What happened yesterday?"

"I was in on that one," he answered, "That's how I got this." He waved his damaged wing at me, "I was lucky," he added, "three agents were killed. Quite a fracas."

"But how did it come out? How about the President? Was he-"

Doris hustled into the room. "Oh, there you are!" she said to Davidson. "I told you to stay in bed. You're due in prosthetics at Mercy Hospital right now. The ambulance has been waiting for ten minutes."

He stood up, grinned at her, and pinched her cheek with his good hand. "The party can't start until I get there."

"Well, hurry!"

"Coming." He started out the door with her.

I called out, "Hey! How about the President?"

Davidson paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Oh, him? He's all right-not a scratch on him." He went on.

Doris came back a few minutes later, fuming. "Patients!" she said, like a swear word. "Do you know why they call them 'patients'? Because it's patience you have to have to put up with them. I should have had at least twenty minutes for his injection to take hold; as it was I gave it to him when he got into the ambulance."

"Injection for what?"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"No."

"Well . . . no reason not to tell you. Amputation and graft, lower left arm."

"Oh." Well, I thought, I won't hear the end of the story from Davidson; grafting on a new limb is a shock. They usually keep the patient hopped up for at least ten days. I wondered about the Old Man: had he come out of it alive? Of course he had, I reminded myself; Davidson checked with him before he talked.

But that didn't mean he hadn't been wounded. I tackled Doris again. "How about the Old Man? Is he on the sick list? Or would it be a violation of your sacred run-around rules to tell me?"

"You talk too much," she answered. "It's time for your morning nourishment and your nap." She produced a glass of milky slop, magician fashion.

"Speak up, wench, or I'll spit it back in your face."

"The Old Man? You mean the Chief of Section?"

"Who else?"

"He's not on the sick list, at least not here." She shivered and made a face. "I wouldn't want him as a patient."

I was inclined to agree with her.