Latest / Galactic Patrol / 17 - Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen of Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith. This
- 0:05Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Kinnison did not
- 0:10Speaker 1: lose consciousness quite. There was too much to do, too
- 0:14Speaker 1: much that had to be done. He had to get
- 0:16Speaker 1: out of here. He had to get back to his speedster.
- 0:19Speaker 1: He had by hook or by crook to get back
- 0:22Speaker 1: to prime base. Therefore, grimly doggedly, teeth tight locked in
- 0:27Speaker 1: the enhancing agony of every movement, he drew again upon
- 0:30Speaker 1: those hidden, those deeply buried resources, which even he had
- 0:34Speaker 1: no idea he possessed. His code was simple, the code
- 0:38Speaker 1: of the lens. While a lensman lived, he did not quit.
- 0:41Speaker 1: Kinnison was a lensman. Kinnison lived. Kinnison did not quit.
- 0:46Speaker 1: He fought back that engulfing tide of blackness, wave by
- 0:50Speaker 1: wave as it came. He beat down, by sheer force
- 0:53Speaker 1: of will, those tenderly beckoning, those sweetly seducing arms of oblivion.
- 0:58Speaker 1: He forced the mass of protests putty that was his
- 1:01Speaker 1: body to do what had to be done. He thrust
- 1:04Speaker 1: styptic gauze into the most copiously bleeding of his wounds.
- 1:07Speaker 1: He was burned too, he discovered. Then they must have
- 1:10Speaker 1: had a high powered needle ray on that truck as
- 1:12Speaker 1: well as the rifle, but he could do nothing about burns.
- 1:15Speaker 1: There simply wasn't time. He found the power lead that
- 1:18Speaker 1: had been severed by a bullet. Stripping the insulation was
- 1:21Speaker 1: an almost impossible job, but it was finally accomplished after
- 1:24Speaker 1: a fashion. Bridging the gap proved to be even a
- 1:27Speaker 1: worse one, since there was no slack. The ends could
- 1:30Speaker 1: not be twisted together, but they had to be joined
- 1:33Speaker 1: by a short piece of spare wire, which in turn
- 1:35Speaker 1: had to be stripped and then twisted with each end
- 1:37Speaker 1: of the severed lead. That task, too, he finally finished,
- 1:41Speaker 1: although he was working purely by feel and half conscious
- 1:44Speaker 1: withal in a racking haze of pain. Soldering those joints was,
- 1:49Speaker 1: of course out of the question. He was afraid even
- 1:51Speaker 1: to try to insulate them with tape, lest the loosely
- 1:54Speaker 1: twined strand should fall apart in the attempt. He did
- 1:57Speaker 1: have some dry handkerchiefs, however, if he could reach them,
- 2:00Speaker 1: he could, and did, and wrapped one carefully about the
- 2:03Speaker 1: wire's bare joints. Then apprehensively he tried his neutralizer, and
- 2:08Speaker 1: wonder of wonders, it worked, so did his driver. In
- 2:12Speaker 1: moments then he was rocketing up the shaft, and as
- 2:14Speaker 1: he passed the opening out of which he had been blown,
- 2:17Speaker 1: he realized with amazement that what had seemed to him
- 2:19Speaker 1: like hours must have been minutes only, and few even
- 2:23Speaker 1: of them, for the frantic wheelmen were just then lifting
- 2:26Speaker 1: into place the temporary shield which was to stem the
- 2:29Speaker 1: mighty outrush of their atmosphere. Wonderingly, Kinnison looked at his
- 2:33Speaker 1: air gages, and he had enough if he hurried, and
- 2:37Speaker 1: hurry he did. He could hurry, since there was practically
- 2:40Speaker 1: no atmosphere to impede his flight up the five mile
- 2:43Speaker 1: deep shaft, he shot and out into space. His chronometer,
- 2:47Speaker 1: built to withstand even severer shocks than that of his fall,
- 2:51Speaker 1: told him where his speedster was to be found, and
- 2:53Speaker 1: in a matter of minutes he found her. Against her side,
- 2:56Speaker 1: he flashed in inertialss's collision. He forced his rebels right
- 3:00Speaker 1: arm into the sleeve of his armor and fumbled at
- 3:02Speaker 1: the lock it yielded. The port swung open. He was
- 3:06Speaker 1: inside his own ship again. The encroaching universe of blackness threatened,
- 3:11Speaker 1: but again he fought it off. He could not pass
- 3:14Speaker 1: out yet. Dragging himself to the board, he laid his
- 3:18Speaker 1: course upon distant tellus, too distant far to permit of
- 3:21Speaker 1: the selection of such a tiny objective as prime base.
- 3:24Speaker 1: He connected the automatic controls. He was weakening fast, and
- 3:28Speaker 1: he knew it. But from somewhere and in some fashion
- 3:30Speaker 1: he must get strength to do what must be done,
- 3:33Speaker 1: And somehow he did it. He shoved his levers out
- 3:36Speaker 1: to maximum blast. Hang on, kim, hang on for just
- 3:40Speaker 1: a second more. He disconnected the spacer, he killed the
- 3:44Speaker 1: detector nullifiers, and then, with the utterly last remnant of
- 3:47Speaker 1: his strength, he thought into his lens Haines. The thought
- 3:52Speaker 1: went out, blurred, distorted, weak, kinnison, I'm coming coming. He
- 3:59Speaker 1: was dune out, cold, utterly spent. He had already done
- 4:04Speaker 1: too much, far, far too much. He had driven that
- 4:07Speaker 1: pitifully mangled body of his to its ultimately last possible movement,
- 4:11Speaker 1: his racked and tortured mind to its ultimately last possible thought.
- 4:15Speaker 1: The last iota of even his tremendous reserve of vitality
- 4:20Speaker 1: was consumed, and he plunged parsecs deep into the black
- 4:24Speaker 1: depths of oblivion which had so long and so unsuccessfully
- 4:27Speaker 1: been trying to engulf him. But Kimball, Kinnison, Gray Lensman
- 4:32Speaker 1: had done everything that had had to be done before
- 4:35Speaker 1: he blacked out. His final thought, Feeble though it was,
- 4:39Speaker 1: and incomplete, did its work. Port Admiral Haynes was seated
- 4:43Speaker 1: at his desk discussing matters of import with his office
- 4:45Speaker 1: full of executives when that thought arrived, hardened, old spacehound
- 4:50Speaker 1: that he was, and survivor of many encounters and hospitalizations,
- 4:54Speaker 1: he knew instantly what that thought connoted, and from the
- 4:57Speaker 1: depths of what dire need it had been and sent
- 5:01Speaker 1: therefore to the amazement of the officers in the room,
- 5:03Speaker 1: he suddenly leaped to his feet, seized his microphone, and
- 5:06Speaker 1: snapped out orders, orders, and still more orders. Every vessel
- 5:11Speaker 1: in seven sectors, of whatever class or tonnage was to
- 5:13Speaker 1: shove its detectors out to the limit. Kinnison speech to her,
- 5:17Speaker 1: is out there somewhere, find her, get her, kill her drive,
- 5:20Speaker 1: and drag it in here. Number ten landing Field, Get
- 5:23Speaker 1: a pilot here fast. No two pilots in armor. Get
- 5:26Speaker 1: them off the top of the board too, Watson and
- 5:29Speaker 1: Smerhorn if they're anywhere within range. He then called Bass Hospital. Lacy,
- 5:35Speaker 1: he barked at the dignified chief surgeon. I got a
- 5:37Speaker 1: boy out that's badly hurt. He's coming in free. You
- 5:41Speaker 1: know what that means. Send over a good doctor, and
- 5:44Speaker 1: have you got a nurse who knows how to use
- 5:45Speaker 1: a personal neutralizer? And he wasn't afraid to get into
- 5:48Speaker 1: the net coming myself. Yes, the doctor's voice was as
- 5:51Speaker 1: crisp as the admirals. When do you want us? As
- 5:54Speaker 1: soon as they get their tractors on that speedster. You'll
- 5:57Speaker 1: know when that happens. Then, electing all other business, the
- 6:01Speaker 1: port Admiral directed in person the far flung screen of ships,
- 6:05Speaker 1: searching for Kinnison's flying midget. Eventually she was found, and Haines,
- 6:10Speaker 1: cutting off his plates, leaped to a closet in which
- 6:13Speaker 1: was hanging his own armor. Unused for years, Nevertheless, it
- 6:16Speaker 1: was kept in readiness for instant service, and now, at
- 6:19Speaker 1: long last the old space flea had a good excuse
- 6:23Speaker 1: to use it again. Armored, he strode out into the
- 6:26Speaker 1: landing field across the paved way. There awaiting him were
- 6:29Speaker 1: two armored figures. The two top ranked pilots there were
- 6:33Speaker 1: the doctor and the nurse. He barely saw, or rather
- 6:37Speaker 1: he saw without noticing, a saucy white cap atop a
- 6:40Speaker 1: riot of red bronze auburn curls a symmetrical young body
- 6:44Speaker 1: in spotless white. He did not notice the face at all.
- 6:47Speaker 1: What he saw was that there was a neutralizer strapped
- 6:49Speaker 1: snugly into the curve of her back, and that it
- 6:52Speaker 1: was fitted properly, and that it was not yet functioning.
- 6:55Speaker 1: For this that faced them was no ordinary job. The
- 6:58Speaker 1: speedster would land free. Worse, the Admiral feared, and rightly,
- 7:02Speaker 1: that Kinnison would also be free, but independently with a
- 7:06Speaker 1: latent velocity different from that of his ship. They must
- 7:10Speaker 1: enter the speedster, take her out into space, and inert her.
- 7:14Speaker 1: Kinnison must then be taken out of the speedster, inerted
- 7:17Speaker 1: his velocity matched to that of the flier, and brought
- 7:20Speaker 1: back aboard. Then and only then could doctor and nurse
- 7:23Speaker 1: begin to work on him. Then they would have to
- 7:25Speaker 1: land as fast as a landing could be made. The
- 7:28Speaker 1: boys should have been in the hospital long ago and
- 7:31Speaker 1: during all these evolutions, and until they returned to ground,
- 7:35Speaker 1: the rescuers themselves would remain inertiless. Ordinarily, such visitors left
- 7:39Speaker 1: the ship inerted themselves, and then came back to it
- 7:42Speaker 1: inert under their own power. But now there was no
- 7:45Speaker 1: time for that. They had to get Kinnison to the hospital.
- 7:47Speaker 1: And besides, the doctor and the nurse, particularly the nurse
- 7:50Speaker 1: could not be expected to be space suit navigators. They
- 7:54Speaker 1: would all take it in the net. And that was
- 7:56Speaker 1: another reason for haste, for while they were gone, their
- 7:59Speaker 1: latent veloci would remain unchanged, while the actual velocity of
- 8:03Speaker 1: their present surroundings would be constantly changing. The longer they
- 8:06Speaker 1: were gone, the greater would become the discrepancy. Hence the net.
- 8:11Speaker 1: The net a leather and canvas sack lined with softly
- 8:15Speaker 1: padded inner spring mattresses anchor to ceiling and to walls
- 8:18Speaker 1: and to floor through every shock absorbing artifice of steel
- 8:22Speaker 1: spring and of rubber cable that the mind of man
- 8:25Speaker 1: had been able to devise. It takes something to absorb
- 8:28Speaker 1: and to dissipate the kinetic energy which may reside within
- 8:31Speaker 1: a human body when its latent velocity does not match
- 8:34Speaker 1: exactly the actual velocity of its surroundings, that is, if
- 8:38Speaker 1: that body is not to be matched to a pulp.
- 8:40Speaker 1: It takes something also to enable any human being to
- 8:43Speaker 1: face without flinching the prospect of going into that net,
- 8:46Speaker 1: especially in ignorance of exactly how much kinetic energy will
- 8:49Speaker 1: have to be dissipated. Haines cogitated, studying the erect supple
- 8:54Speaker 1: young back, and then he spoke, maybe we'd better cancel
- 8:58Speaker 1: the nurse Lacy or get her a sued or time
- 9:01Speaker 1: is too important. The girl herself put in crisply, don't
- 9:05Speaker 1: worry about me, Admiral, I've been in the net before.
- 9:08Speaker 1: She turned toward Haines as she spoke, and for the
- 9:10Speaker 1: first time he really saw her face. Why she was
- 9:14Speaker 1: a raving beauty, a knockout, a seven sector call out.
- 9:19Speaker 1: There she is in the grip of a tractor. The
- 9:21Speaker 1: speedster had flashed to ground in front of the waiting five,
- 9:25Speaker 1: and they hurried aboard. They hurried, but there was no flurry,
- 9:28Speaker 1: no confusion. Each knew exactly what to do, and each
- 9:31Speaker 1: did it. Out into space, shot the little vessel jerking
- 9:35Speaker 1: savagely downward and sideways. As one of the pilots cut
- 9:38Speaker 1: the Bergenholm out of the airlock, flew the port Admiral
- 9:41Speaker 1: and the helpless, unconscious Kinnison inertialus both and now chained together,
- 9:47Speaker 1: off they darted in a new direction and with tremendous speed.
- 9:50Speaker 1: As Haines cut Kennisson's neutralizer, there was a mighty double
- 9:53Speaker 1: flare as the drivers of both space suits struggled against
- 9:57Speaker 1: that which had been the young Lensman's latent velocity. As
- 10:00Speaker 1: soon as it was safe to do so, out darted
- 10:03Speaker 1: an armored figure with a space line, whose grappling end
- 10:06Speaker 1: clinked into a socket of the old man's armor as
- 10:08Speaker 1: the pilot rammed it home. Then, as an angler plays
- 10:11Speaker 1: a fish, two husky pilots, feet wide braced against the
- 10:15Speaker 1: steel portal of the airlock, and bodies sweating with effort,
- 10:18Speaker 1: heaving when they could and giving line only when they must,
- 10:21Speaker 1: helped the laboring drivers to overcome the difference in velocity.
- 10:24Speaker 1: Soon the Lensmen, young and old, were inside. Doctor and
- 10:28Speaker 1: nurse went instantly to work, with the calmness and precision
- 10:31Speaker 1: so characteristic of their highly skilled craft. In a trice
- 10:35Speaker 1: they had him out of his armor, out of his leather,
- 10:37Speaker 1: into a hammock, perceiving at once that except for a
- 10:39Speaker 1: few pads of gauze, they could do nothing for their
- 10:42Speaker 1: patient until they had him upon an operating table. Meanwhile,
- 10:45Speaker 1: the pilots, having swung the hammocks, had been observing, computing
- 10:49Speaker 1: and conferring. She's got a lot of speed, Admiral, most
- 10:52Speaker 1: of it straight down, Watson reported, on her landing jets.
- 10:56Speaker 1: It'll take two g's on a full revolution to bring
- 10:58Speaker 1: her in. With both of us at the controls. We
- 11:01Speaker 1: could balance her down, but it'll have to be on
- 11:03Speaker 1: our tail, and it'll mean over five g's all the way.
- 11:06Speaker 1: So which do you want? Which is more important? Lacy?
- 11:10Speaker 1: Time or pressure? Haines transferred decision to the surgeon time.
- 11:15Speaker 1: Lacey decided instantly fight Hut down. His patient had been
- 11:20Speaker 1: through so much already of force and pressure that a
- 11:22Speaker 1: little more would not do additional hurt. And time was
- 11:25Speaker 1: most decidedly of the essence. Starkly incandescent flares, ripped and
- 11:30Speaker 1: raved from driving jets and side jets, the speedster spun
- 11:34Speaker 1: around viciously, only to be curbed skillfully, if savagely, at
- 11:38Speaker 1: the precisely right instant, without an orbit, without even a
- 11:41Speaker 1: corkscrew or other spiral, she was going down, straight down,
- 11:45Speaker 1: And not upon her under jets was this descent to
- 11:47Speaker 1: be nor upon her more powerful breaking jets. Those two
- 11:51Speaker 1: master pilots prime bases best were going to kill the
- 11:54Speaker 1: awful inertia of the speedster by balancing her down on
- 11:57Speaker 1: her tail or. To translate from the jargon of space,
- 12:01Speaker 1: they were going to hold the tricky, cranky little vessel
- 12:04Speaker 1: upright upon the terrific blasts of her driving projectors against
- 12:08Speaker 1: the Earth's gravitation and against all other perturbing forces, while
- 12:12Speaker 1: her driving force counteracted, overcame and dissipated the full frightening
- 12:16Speaker 1: measure of the kinetic energy of her mass and speed,
- 12:20Speaker 1: and balance her down they did. Haines was afraid for
- 12:23Speaker 1: a while that that intrepid pair were actually going to
- 12:25Speaker 1: land the speeds to her on her tail. They didn't quite,
- 12:28Speaker 1: but they had only a scant few hundred feet to
- 12:30Speaker 1: spare when they nosed her over and eased her to
- 12:33Speaker 1: ground on her under jets. The crash wagon and its
- 12:36Speaker 1: crew were waiting, and as Kinnison was rushed to the hospital,
- 12:39Speaker 1: the others hurried to the net room, doctor Lacey first,
- 12:42Speaker 1: of course, and then the nurse, and to Haines' approving surprise,
- 12:46Speaker 1: she took it like a veteran, hardly had the surgeon
- 12:48Speaker 1: let himself out of the cocoon than she was in it,
- 12:51Speaker 1: and hardly had the terrific surges and recoils of her own,
- 12:54Speaker 1: not inconsiderable one hundred and forty five pounds of mass
- 12:58Speaker 1: abated than she herself would out and sprinting across the
- 13:01Speaker 1: sward toward the hospital. Haines went back to his office
- 13:04Speaker 1: and tried to work, but he couldn't concentrate. He made
- 13:07Speaker 1: his way back to the hospital. There he waited, and
- 13:10Speaker 1: as Lacy came out of the operating room, he button
- 13:13Speaker 1: holed him. How about it, Lacy? Will he live? Live? Course,
- 13:18Speaker 1: he'll live, the surgeon replied, gruffly. Can't tell you the
- 13:21Speaker 1: details yet, won't know ourselves for a couple of hours yet,
- 13:25Speaker 1: Just buzz off, Haines, come back at six o'clock, not
- 13:27Speaker 1: a second before. I'll tell you all about it. Then,
- 13:31Speaker 1: since there was no help for it, the port Admiral
- 13:33Speaker 1: did buzz off, but he was back promptly on the
- 13:36Speaker 1: tick of the designated hour. How is he? He began,
- 13:39Speaker 1: without preamble. Will he really live? Or were you just
- 13:42Speaker 1: given me a shot in the arm? Better than that?
- 13:46Speaker 1: Much better, the surgeon assured him. Definitely, so yes, he's
- 13:51Speaker 1: in much better shape than we dared. Hope. Must have
- 13:53Speaker 1: been a very light crash. Indeed, nothing seriously the matter
- 13:56Speaker 1: with him at all. We won't even have to amputate.
- 13:59Speaker 1: From what we can see now, he should make a
- 14:01Speaker 1: one hundred percent recovery, not only without artificial members, but
- 14:04Speaker 1: with scarcely a scar. He couldn't have been in a
- 14:07Speaker 1: space crack up at all, or he would not have
- 14:09Speaker 1: come out with so little injury. Fine, dark, wonderful. Now
- 14:13Speaker 1: the details. Here's the picture, and the doctor unrolled a
- 14:18Speaker 1: full length X ray print showing every anatomical detail of
- 14:21Speaker 1: the lensman's interior structure. First, though, just notice that skeleton.
- 14:28Speaker 1: It's really remarkable. Slightly out of true here and there
- 14:31Speaker 1: right now, of course, but I believe it's going to
- 14:34Speaker 1: turn out to be the second absolutely perfect male skeleton
- 14:38Speaker 1: i've ever seen that young man will go far, Haines
- 14:42Speaker 1: Surry will Why else do you suppose we put him
- 14:44Speaker 1: in gray? But I didn't come over here to be
- 14:47Speaker 1: told that. Show me the damage. Look at the picture,
- 14:51Speaker 1: see for yourself, multiple compound fractures. You notice of legs
- 14:55Speaker 1: and arms, few ribs, scapula of course there, Oh, yes,
- 15:00Speaker 1: and there's a skull fracture too, but it doesn't amount
- 15:02Speaker 1: too much. And that's all. The spine you see isn't
- 15:06Speaker 1: injured at all. What do you mean that's all? How
- 15:09Speaker 1: about his wounds? I saw some of them myself, and
- 15:12Speaker 1: they were not pin pricks, nothing of the least importance.
- 15:15Speaker 1: A few puncture wounds, a couple of incized ones, but
- 15:18Speaker 1: nothing even close to a vital part. He won't even
- 15:21Speaker 1: need a transfusion, since he stopped the major hemorrhages himself
- 15:25Speaker 1: shortly after he was wounded. There are a few burns,
- 15:28Speaker 1: of course, but they're mostly superficial, none that will not
- 15:30Speaker 1: yield quite readily to treatment. Mighty glad of that. He'll
- 15:34Speaker 1: be here, what six weeks? Then? Better call it twelve?
- 15:38Speaker 1: I think ten? At least. You see some of the fractures,
- 15:41Speaker 1: especially those in the left leg. Couple of the burns,
- 15:44Speaker 1: they are rather severe, as such things go. Then two,
- 15:48Speaker 1: the length of time elapsing between injury and treatment didn't
- 15:50Speaker 1: do anything a bit of good. In two weeks he'll
- 15:53Speaker 1: be wanting to get up and go places and do things,
- 15:56Speaker 1: and in six he'll be tearing down your hospital stone
- 15:59Speaker 1: by stone. Yes he's not the type to make an
- 16:03Speaker 1: ideal patient. But as I've told you before, I like
- 16:06Speaker 1: to have patients that we do not like. And another thing,
- 16:10Speaker 1: I want the files on his nurses, particularly that redheaded one.
- 16:15Speaker 1: He suspected that you would, so I had them sent
- 16:17Speaker 1: down already. Here you are glad you noticed McDougall. She
- 16:21Speaker 1: is by way of being my favorite Clarissa MacDougall, Scotch,
- 16:26Speaker 1: of course, with that name. Twenty six years old, height
- 16:29Speaker 1: one hundred sixty eight centimeters, weight sixty six kilos. Here
- 16:34Speaker 1: are her pictures. Never mind the conventional photo. This X
- 16:38Speaker 1: ray is the one that counts. Man. Look at that skeleton. Beautiful,
- 16:44Speaker 1: the only really perfect skeleton I've ever seen in a woman.
- 16:47Speaker 1: It isn't the skeleton I'm interested in, grunted haines. It's
- 16:51Speaker 1: what's outside the skeleton that my lensman will be looking at. Oh,
- 16:56Speaker 1: you needn't worry about McDougall, declared the surgeon. One good
- 17:00Speaker 1: look at that picture will tell you that she classifies.
- 17:03Speaker 1: With that skeleton. She has to. She couldn't leave the
- 17:05Speaker 1: beam a millimeter even if she wanted to. Good, bad,
- 17:09Speaker 1: or indifferent male or female, physical, mental, moral, psychological, The
- 17:13Speaker 1: skeleton tells the whole story. Well, maybe it does to you,
- 17:17Speaker 1: but not to me. And Haines took up the conventional photograph,
- 17:21Speaker 1: a stereoscope in full and absolutely true color and almost
- 17:25Speaker 1: living duplicate of the girl in question. Her thick, heavy
- 17:28Speaker 1: hair was not red, but was a vividly intense, indescribable auburn,
- 17:34Speaker 1: a gorgeous mass of coppery bronze flashed with red and gold.
- 17:37Speaker 1: Her eyes, bronze was all he could think of, with
- 17:40Speaker 1: flecks of topaz and of tawny gold. Her skin, too,
- 17:44Speaker 1: was faintly bronze, glowing with even more than healthy youth's
- 17:48Speaker 1: normal measure of sparkling vitality. Not only was she beautiful,
- 17:52Speaker 1: the poort Admiral decided, in the words of the surgeon,
- 17:55Speaker 1: she classified worse even than I thought, he muttered. She's
- 18:00Speaker 1: a menace to civilization. And he went on to read
- 18:03Speaker 1: the documents family history, experiences, reactions, characteristics, behavior, psychology, mentality.
- 18:14Speaker 1: She'll do lacey, he advised the surgeon. Finally, keep her
- 18:17Speaker 1: on with him. But see here, Haines, you suspicious old granny,
- 18:22Speaker 1: snorted the doctor. He won't be falling for anybody yet.
- 18:26Speaker 1: Why he's just been unattached. He'll be bulletproof for quite
- 18:29Speaker 1: a while. You ought to know that young lensmen, especially
- 18:32Speaker 1: young gray lensmen, can't see anything but their jobs for
- 18:35Speaker 1: a couple of years. Anyway, his skeleton tells you that too. Huh,
- 18:39Speaker 1: Haines grunted skeptically. Ordinarily, yes, but you can never tell,
- 18:44Speaker 1: especially in hospitals. More of your layman's misinformation, Lacy snapped.
- 18:50Speaker 1: Contrary to popular belief, romance does not thrive in hospitals, except,
- 18:55Speaker 1: of course, among the staff. Patients oftentimes think they fall
- 18:58Speaker 1: in love with nurses, but it takes two people to
- 19:01Speaker 1: make one romance. Nurses do not fall in love with patience,
- 19:04Speaker 1: because a man is never at his best under hospitalization.
- 19:08Speaker 1: In fact, the better a man is, the poorer showing
- 19:10Speaker 1: he's apt to make. And as I forget who said
- 19:13Speaker 1: a long time ago, no generalization is ever true, not
- 19:18Speaker 1: even this one, retorted the poort admiral. When it does
- 19:21Speaker 1: hit him, it'll hit hard, and we'll take no chances.
- 19:25Speaker 1: How about the black haired one, Well, I just told
- 19:28Speaker 1: you that McDougall has the only perfect skeleton I've ever
- 19:30Speaker 1: seen in a woman. Browne is very good too, of course,
- 19:34Speaker 1: but but not good enough to rate Lensman's mate. Eh
- 19:38Speaker 1: Haines completed the thought. Then take her out, pick the
- 19:42Speaker 1: best skeletons you've got for this job, and see that
- 19:44Speaker 1: no others come anywhere near him. Transfer them to some
- 19:47Speaker 1: other hospital, to some other floor of this one. At
- 19:50Speaker 1: least any woman that he ever falls for will fall
- 19:53Speaker 1: for him in spite of your ideas as to the
- 19:56Speaker 1: one wayeness of hospital romance. And I don't want him
- 19:59Speaker 1: to have such a chance of making a dive at
- 20:01Speaker 1: something that doesn't raid up? Am I right or wrong?
- 20:04Speaker 1: You old saw bones? And for how much? Well, I
- 20:08Speaker 1: haven't had time yet to really study his skeleton, but
- 20:11Speaker 1: better take a week off and study it. I've studied
- 20:14Speaker 1: a lot of people in the last sixty five years,
- 20:17Speaker 1: and I'll match my experience against your knowledge of bones
- 20:20Speaker 1: any time. Not saying that he will fall this trip,
- 20:23Speaker 1: you understand, just playing safe well, Goodbye Lacy. End of
- 20:29Speaker 1: chapter seventeen.