Roger Zelazny: To Die In Italbar

Amid music and with folded hands, therefore, he waited. Once he glanced at Lavona, in its black and tawny beauty above him, a tiger in the night. Then he turned his mind to other matters.

For two decades he had wrestled with a particular disease. Realizing then that he was only a little further along than when he had begun, he decided upon a different avenue of attack: locate the one man who survived it and find out why.

With this in mind, he had set out in a roundabout fashion for the hub of the Combined Leagues--Solon, Elizabeth and Lincoln, the three artificial worlds designed by Sandow himself, orbiting Kwale's Star--where he might consult the Panopath computer for information as to the whereabouts of the man called H, whose identity he had recently ascertained. The information should be there, though few would know the proper questions to put to the machine.

Dr. Pels stopped along the way, however, to make inquiry at various worlds. It would be worth the extra time, should he locate his man in this fashion. Once he reached SEL he might wait over a year before obtaining access to Panopath, as major public health projects had automatic priority.

So he beat a circuitous route toward SEL, hub of the Combined Leagues, concerts streaming about him, death-analysis gear at the ready. He doubted that he would ever reach SEL, or need to. From the little that he had learned in his two decades' struggle against _mwalakharan khurr_, the Deiban fever, he was certain that he would recognize as clues items that another man would dismiss as isolated phenomena. He was also certain that from these clues he would locate the man he sought, and that he would be able to extract from him the weapon which would lay another shade of the Reaper.

Ten seconds away from eternity, Dr. Pels bared his teeth in a white, white grin above his bony knuckles, as the tempo of the music increased. Soon he would have his answer from the tiger in the night.

When he awakened, his chrono told him that two and a half days had passed. He propped himself up, seized one of the canteens and began to drink water. He was always terribly thirsty after the catharsis-coma. Once he had slaked his thirst, however, he felt perfect; he was vibrant and in tune with everything about him. This balance achieved, it generally stayed strong for several days.

It was only after minutes of drinking that he noticed it to he a pleasant, cloudless morning.

Hurriedly, he cleaned his body by means of canteen and handkerchief. Then he donned fresh garments, re-rolled his pack, located his staff, moved toward the trail.

The downhill way was easy, and he whistled as he went. The trek through the forest seemed a thing that had happened to another person, years ago. In less than an hour he reached level ground. Shortly, he began to pass dwelling places. As he advanced, they became more common. Almost before he realized it, he was walking along the main street of the small town.

He stopped the first man he met and asked directions to the hospital. When he tried the second major language of the planet, he received an answer rather than a shrug. Ten blocks. No trouble.

As he neared the eight-story building, he withdrew a narrow sliver of crystal from a case he carried. Fed into their med-bank, it would tell the doctors all they needed to know about Heidel von Hymack.

However, when he entered the smoky, periodical-strewn lobby, he found that he did not need to present immediate identification. The receptionist, a middle-aged brunette in a silver, sleeveless thing, belted at the waist, was on her feet and moving toward him. She wore an exotic native amulet on a chain about her neck.

"Mr. H!" she said. "We've been so worried! There were reports--"

He leaned his staff against the coat rack.

"The little girl ... ?"

"Luci's still holding on, thank the gods. We heard that you were flying up here, and then they lost radio contact; and--"

"Take me to see her doctor at once."

The three other inhabitants of the lobby--two men and a woman--stared at him.

"Just a moment."

She returned to her desk, touched controls behind it and spoke into a communications unit.

"Please send someone to the front desk to fetch Mr. H," she said; and to him, "Won't you be seated while you wait?"

"I'll stand, thank you."

Then she regarded him again, through blue eyes which for some reason made him feel uncomfortable.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Power failure in several systems," he said, looking away. "I had to belly-land it and walk."

"How far?"

"Quite a distance."

"After all this time and no report, we thought that--"

"I had to take certain medical precautions before I could enter your town."

"I see," she said. "We are so relieved that you made it. I hope that--"

"So do I," he said, seeing for a moment the nine graves he had helped to fill.

Then a door beside her desk opened. An old man dressed in white emerged, saw him, moved toward him.

"Helman," he said, extending his hand. "I'm treating the Dorn girl."

"You'll want this then," said Heidel, and handed him the gleaming sliver.

The doctor was about five and a half feet in height and very pink. What remained of his hair stood out in wisps from his temples. Like all doctors he had known, Heidel noted that his hands and fingernails seemed the cleanest things in the entire room. The right hand, bearing a slim ring with a twisted design, moved now to clutch his biceps, steered him through the door.

"Let's find an office where we can discuss the case," he was saying.

"I'm not a doctor of medicine, you know."

"I did not know. But I guess it doesn't really matter, if you are H."

"I am H. I would not like to have it widely known, of course. I--"

"I understand," said Helman, leading him along a wide corridor. "We will naturally cooperate in the fullest."

He stopped another man in white.

"Run this through the med-bank," he told him, "and send me the results in Room 17.

"In here, please," he said to Heidel. "Have a seat."

They seated themselves beside a large conference table and Heidel hooked an ashtray toward him and withdrew a moldy cigar from his jacket. He stared out the window at the green sky. On a pedestal in tile corner beside it crouched a native deity--exquisitely carved from some yellow-white substance--about eighteen inches in height.

"Your condition fascinates me," said the doctor. "It has been written up so many times that I almost feel I know you personally. A walking antibody, a living pool of remedies--"

"Well," said Heidel, "I suppose you could put it that way. But it is oversimplifying. With proper preparation I can effect the cure of almost any disease, if the patient is not too far gone. On the other hand, my own condition is not a completely one-sided thing. It might be more appropriate to say that I am a living pool of diseases which I can bring into a sort of balance. When that balance is achieved, I can act as a remedy. Only then, though. The rest of the time, I can be very dangerous."

Dr. Helman plucked a dark string from his sleeve and deposited it in the ashtray. Heidel smiled at this, wondering how he must look to the doctor.

"But there is no indication as to the mechanism involved?"

"Nobody seems to be certain," Heidel said, finally lighting the cigar. "I seem to find diseases wherever I go. I contract them, then some sort of natural immunity seems to stave off the worst of the symptoms and I recover. Thereafter, under the proper circumstances, a serum made from my blood is effective against the same condition in someone else."

"What, specifically, are the preparations, the circumstances you speak of?"

"I go into a coma," Heidel began, "which I can induce at will. During this time, my body does something which seems to purify it. This takes anywhere from a day and a half to several days. I am told--" He paused here, quickly drawing upon his cigar. "I am told that during this time my body undergoes frightful symptoms from all the diseases I carry. I don't know. I never have any memory of this. And I have to be alone at such times, as my diseases then become quite contagious."