Robert Adams - The Witch Goddess

“What is it, Corbett? Damn you, what is it?”

Jay Corbett sank back onto his haunches and looked his patient straight in the eye. “It’s gangrene, Dr. Braun. I’d hoped earlier that the discolorations would fade as the infections were overcome. Apparently that was just wishful thinking on my part. The only way to save the life of your present body is to amputate this leg, the more of it the better.”

“Good God, man!” Braun almost shrieked, his eyes wide and wild. “You don’t have the skill to do that kind of a procedure. Or the equipment and supplies, either. If you just tie me down and saw it off, you’ll kill me of shock. Then who’ll speak for you and your schemes on the Board?”

Corbett just nodded, tiredly, finding that simple act a real effort. He’d been feeling strangely exhausted all day and part of the day before, too, come to think of it.

“No, Braun, don’t worry. I’m not going to try to put you through a battlefield amputation. I do have the equipment— there’s a full instrument kit with the medical pack—but the drugs are almost all gone. Besides, you’re right, it would be premeditated murder, for I don’t have the requisite training and skills for such a radical procedure.

“No, in the morning, I’m going to have you tied into the saddle of a mule. Then you and Gumpner and a couple more men will set out at top speed for Broomtown base. I’d not told you this before, but Cabell spotted a landmark he knows, which means we’re closer than I’d thought—only some hundred kilometers from the northwestern border of Broomtown. Barring misfortune, you could be there in two or three days. Then you can transfer and let this body finish dying.”

But Braun shook his head vehemently, tears welling up in his dark eyes. “Oh, damn you, damn you!” he half-whined. “Haven’t you tortured and degraded me enough these last weeks? Do you think I can take the jolting, the pain of riding a damn mule, on just these nauseous little roots? You haven’t given me an injection of anything except antibiotics in days, and I know it, too. I can tell the difference between them and drugs, you know.”

Corbett sighed. “Doctor, there are only three ampules of morphine left in the packs, along with a little pentathol. After they are gone, you’ll be on toothache roots or nothing. I knew we’d have to move on sooner or later, so I’ve been hoarding the real drugs against that time.”

” Bullshit !” Braun snarled. “You just wanted me to suffer, damn you, wanted to watch me squirm, waiting to hear me beg you for a cessation of the pain, damn you. But I didn’t, damn you, I didn’t! I’m stronger than you or anybody else gives, has ever given me, credit for.”

“Fine,” Jay Corbett said soberly. “It’s good that you do have a hidden reservoir of strength, Braun, because I think you’re going to need it on the ride from here to Broomtown. It’s either ride out in the morning, or give me any last requests you have before you go out of your head. Gangrene is not an easy or a pretty death, you know.”

But the next morning dawned on disaster. Gumpner and most of the troopers were unable to arise from their blankets, all of them feverish and either writhing and sweating on soggy blankets or in the throes of tooth-chattering chills, their own damp blankets drawn tightly around their shuddering bodies. It was an effort requiring every last ounce of his will for Major Jay Corbett to drag himself out of his own sweat-wet blankets, but his centuries of self-discipline won out, finally… for a while.

Sergeant Cabell showed no signs or symptoms of whatever had struck down the rest of the command, nor did Trooper Horner, nor old Johnny Skinhead. So the three became at that juncture the party that would accompany Harry Braun to Broomtown, then send back help to the rest of them.

Under Corbett’s supervision, Cabell and Horner put one of the flaring warkaks back on the doctor’s big mule, then lifted him into that saddle and tied him in place. The officer gave Cabell the last of the narcotics and a few syringes, warning him to try to make them last.

“Old Johnny will have his bag of toothache roots, of course, and swears that they are common in these mountains. The doctor doesn’t like them, but if there’s nothing else, he will chew them. Keep going even if he passes out in the saddle, because if he isn’t in competent medical hands within two or three days—four, at the outside—he’ll be dead, or so far gone that he can’t be helped in any way.

“Johnny, you take my horse—he’s in better condition than yours is. Cabell, you and Horner take whichever animals you fancy, and spares, too, if you wish. We at least have plenty of mounts.”

At that point, the valley began to swim before Corbett’s eyes. He stumbled and would have fallen had not Cabell taken his arm and slowly eased him down into a sitting posture, his back against the trunk of a maple sapling.

“My God, Major, sir, you’re hot as a stove! All three of us can’t leave you and the others here. Who’ll take care of you?” Cabell expostulated.

” Nonono !” snouted Braun, suddenly. “You heard what he said, Sergeant. If I don’t get back in three days I’ll be dead ! It’s your duty to get me back, to get me —Dr. Harry Braun—back to Broomtown. I’m a highly valuable scientist, the Center needs me, can’t you understand that, you cretin? Major Corbett can be easily replaced if he does die. He’s not valuable to the Center, just another damned soldier.”

Jay Corbett had heard little of what Braun shouted, so loud was the sound of rushing, crashing water in his ears. He was wondering slowly, vaguely, disjointedly how and when and why he had arrived on an oceanside beach, when he felt himself shaken violently. Full consciousness returned as he looked into the lined, bearded face of old Skinhead Johnny Kilgore, the Ganik, with the sunlight glinting off his shiny pate.

“Majuh,” he said softly and quickly, “I thank I knows whut you and the mens has got. Me and my brothuh and my boy, Lowng Willy, wuz with a bunch sum yars back whut had done set up camp in a mess of ruins fum way back whin, and aftuh a coupla weeks, purt neah awl of ’em had done come down with suthin jes’ zackly lahk yawl has, but none of the three of us got it thet tahm neethuh.”

Blinking his eyes rapidly against the salt sweat coursing down his forehead, Corbett asked, “How many died, Johnny?”

The older man sighed and averted his eyes. “Bout haf, I rackons… mebbe a maht mo’ than haf. But they din’t hev them stick-you thangs, neethuh, of cuss.”

Beckoning Cabell, the officer gave his instructions and, shortly, heedless of Braun’s screaming tantrum that they had not yet left the campsite, the sergeant had gone from man to suflfering man and injected a healthy quantity from the supply of antibiotics.

After he had given the shot to Corbett, he shook his head and said, “Major, sir, I still don’t think we all ought to just ride off and leave you like this. Homer and old Johnny, they ought to be able to get the doctor back. Let me stay here to take care of you and Gumpner and the rest.”

With great effort, the officer shook his head. “No, Cabell, thank you, but no. I’ll let you help me back to my shelter, but then the three of you take Braun and ride like hell. Old Johnny has led me to believe that this may well be a flare-up of those terrible mutated plagues that killed off millions, hundreds of millions, a millennium ago. The like has happened before. The damned germs lie dormant in old sites for hundreds of years just waiting for a vulnerable human.”

Cabell looked around, then stated flatly, “But there’re no ruins in this valley, sir.”