Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

The smell of the city had changed, too. Near the Galactica Hotel the air had been full of the scent of beings from all across the galaxy, mixed together in a pleasant muddle. There had been warm and cool pockets of odor where restaurants catered to as many different tastes as there were beings. In the part of the city they were in now, the air smelled mostly of age. Natural and synthetic building materials decomposed in buildings put up when Spangle was still a struggling colony. Old creatures waited for death. And there was the occasional smell of mittlebran. The smells came and went with the night wind, playing tag with Nert’s olfactory nerves. “It looks deserted,” he said.

“Just an illusion. There’s a pair of eyes, or something that does the same thing as a pair of eyes, looking at us from almost every black hole.”

Nert nervously clicked his claws. He hoped they looked formidable enough to anybody watching to make them think twice about attacking.

“This doesn’t look like the kind of place I’d look for a doctor,” he said. “Not one I’d trust, anyway.”

Arvin said, “You can trust Dr. Billingsley. He’s a personal friend of mine.”

Nert considered asking Arvin if Dr. Billingsley helped him with kwishing, but decided he didn’t want to start an argument there, in unfamiliar territory. They traveled in silence, watching for sudden movements in the shadows. Nert tried to trace by scent anyone lurking close by, but the overwhelming stench of age and ancient fear was too strong.

Arvin said, “Stop here.” He let go of Nert’s arm and hovered, bobbing gently in the air.

They were in front of a narrow, dark passageway with steps that led down into a pool of obscurity. On either side of the opening were posters and handbills advertising the virtues of products that had long since gone out of use. They were marked up with sketches and indecipherable phrases whose meanings Nert guessed were in violation of some local taboo, but meant nothing to him. The smell of mittlebran, though faint, was all around and was mixed with the constant smell of decaying buildings, bodies, and minds.

“Here? What kind of a doctor is he, anyway?”

“I vouch for him personally. Just down the steps and a sharp turn to the right. Dr. Billingsley is the name. There’ll be a blue-and-white light over the door.”

Nert peered down into the darkness, his eyes bulging more than usual. He said, “Are you sure about this?” He heard the small, skittering sounds of the local vermin. “Arvin?” When no one answered, Nert turned around to find the street empty.

Didn’t even say good-bye, Nert thought. The shadows seemed, if anything, more menacing than before. But Nert had no idea where Amusement Central was, and hunting for it would be fruitless. Besides, Herbie did need a doctor. It was just possible that Dr. Billingsley was a good one. Nert looked around and wished again that Arvin hadn’t left him alone.

Cautiously he walked down the stone steps, one tripod leg at a time. The darkness closed around him like a blanket and stifled him with unmoving air. He looked back and saw the street a few feet above him glistening with dew. It looked almost friendly, compared with the unknown well below.

In the few moments it took to reach the bottom of the stairs, Nert’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. The walls were made of synthetic bricks mortared with what looked like the local mud, though in the dim light it was hard to be sure. A walkway, separated from the open lot beyond by a low concrete wall, crossed the passage at the bottom. Nert looked to the left and saw a series of identical doorways which faced the alley growing smaller monotonously into the distance. On the right, a rusty metal stairway which looked as if it had once been a fire escape led precariously up to a second-floor door with two lights over it—one blue, the other white.

His footsteps echoed between the walls as he walked through the alley and clanged up the metal stairs. He wondered if rooms here were at a premium because of the impossibility of sneak attack. From the landing in front of the door, Nert could look out over the dormant city to the brilliant splash of Amusement Central. He convinced himself that he could pick out the Galactica Hotel, and it made him feel less alone.

Nert turned his back to the city and knocked on the door. It had an elegant mahogany sign screwed to it on which was cut the name, “Arthur Billingsley, MD.” The paint on the door was chipped and weatherworn, and Nert could just barely see the remains of a colorful and optimistically implausible drawing of a naked Terran female.

In a few moments a small panel slid open and a pair of eyes stared blearily out at him. The owner of the eyes said, “What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Dr. Billingsley. I was told—”

“Who sent you?”

“Arvin the Moretam.”

“Come back in the morning.” The panel slid shut with a loud bang that echoed back from the walls and made it sound as if a hundred people had turned Nert down instead of one.

He pounded on the door, and when the slide opened he threw in a ten-credit note. The pair of eyes disappeared for a moment and left the peephole a dark square. He heard the being on the other side of the door scratching around and mumbling strings of mild profanity. Nert shouted up at the hole, “It’s an emergency,” and a thousand Nerts called out their predicament

The being said through the peephole, “Damn all emergencies.” He slammed the panel shut, and Nert was about to knock again when he heard the sound of bolts being drawn back, locks being jiggled, and the slow whine of a dying privacy shield. The door opened and Nert crossed the threshold into a large, dark room. The spindly legs of unseen tables and chairs made long shadows in the light that came through the doorway from the room beyond. Nert followed the Terran as he shuffled along the illuminated path between the ranks of furniture into the brightly-lit examining room.

A desk and a long wooden table stood close together in the center. A powerful wave of mittlebran washed over his olfactory nerves, leaving him more awake than he wanted to be and a little lightheaded. There was a glass-fronted cupboard against one wall which the doctor was locking with a thin metal key. A few lighting panels were out, making parts of the ceiling look like a checkerboard.

The man walked wearily to the desk, sniffling, and sat down. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. For a while he just stared at Nert wide-eyed. “So you’re a friend of Arvin’s,” he said at last.

It sounded more like a statement than a question, but Nert said, “Actually, I just met him this evening. He said you might be able to help my friend.”

“Good old Arvin,” the man said.

“Can you help?” Nert began to pace around the room nervously. The mittlebran was taking effect and he hoped the doctor wouldn’t take long to decide whether or not he wanted the case.

“Don’t rush me, boy. I’m a doctor. Never rush a doctor.” He smiled pleasantly and said, “Tell me about this ‘friend.’“

Nert suspected from the way Dr. Billingsley spoke that he didn’t believe it was a friend who had the problem. It was fortunate Nert had been exposed to Terrans early, on his brindle’s farm, or he would have been angry that he wasn’t trusted. But he knew that with Terrans it wasn’t a matter of trust but of understanding. No matter how much contact a Terran had with other races, he could never quite believe their thought-processes and logic patterns were any different from his own. It was a bad assumption, but Nert accepted it, and told him about Herbie.

Dr. Billingsley said, “A most interesting case. Reminds me of one similar to it that I treated out in the Sack. Most interesting. Very.” He gnawed gently on his knuckle while he thought