Дэймон Найт - Orbit 10

But then his next patient was entering and he knew any attempt to dissipate the childlike adulation in her eyes would only delay the release from her private hell. Through twenty years of mar­riage she had been cleaning her apartment over and over each day. “Yesterday I only picked up a dust rag once!” she was exult­ing. “Suddenly things don’t look filthy endlessly!”

She was on the way to being cured and by the end of the follow­ing week not only had such compulsive symptoms disappeared but the generating root complaint itself. In fact, by then all the new patients were cured and the only tiny qualm Bruch had about them was their wildly adoring gratitude.

“I am not Jesus or any prophet,” he told one patient, an aging, hard-bitten tax lawyer who certainly should have realized this on his own, “only a human scientist.”

“Only? You may not be the Christ, Doctor, but to me you’re barely lower than the angels—a, a Christling, that’s how I’d put it, yes, sir!”

The wages of virtue are hard, Bruch was forced to concede, but the best thing evidently was to leave this excessive father-transference alone since so much good went with it and in the months ahead it was bound to fade. Meanwhile, there was the next list of distraught people to start considering, and this time there would be even more of them.

Again within two weeks they were cured and again there was the same mad display of gratitude to emphasize the depth of the cures. He reached the end of each working day drained of physical energy but even that quickly revived as the Juno dose faded, and he always faced the next morning adequate to the tasks ahead.

With the increasing workload he saw less of his partner. Any­way, Jack was spending more of his time in the country labora­tory. He seemed very distant during their rare meetings, utterly preoccupied with his work. One evening Max said as much.

Jack looked with unblinking eyes at him, then asked: “Still no side effects, right?”

“Right!”

“Great, Max, because I’m now certain there’ll be several ways for the big pharmaceutical houses to synthesize the pure, potent fraction cheaply. An unlimited supply is assured!” Even Bruch was surprised to find himself so un reassured. “What’s the mat­ter now, Max? The greatest boon to humanity in unlimited—”

“Don’t get me wrong, Jack, I’m terribly pleased. It’s just that the idea of an unlimited, uncontrollable supply of anything makes me uneasy.”

“Meaning,” Grainger snapped, closing the discussion, “that there are no real problems—and won’t be!”

But within three days this prophecy was proved doubly wrong.

On Sunday there was the call from the answering service, right in the middle of a Menuhin recording of an unaccompanied Bach partita. “You know this is the one day I’m not to be disturbed,” Bruch protested.

“I really tried not to,” explained the girl, “but this Mr. Putz­man has phoned a dozen times and he’s threatening, violent, so really mean, Doctor, that I almost called the police!”

“Thank you, miss, and good-bye!”

The record player clicked off, all that beauty unheard, and the old Putzman-inspired disgust returned; there had been no Juno A pill today.

The novelist’s immediate reaction to Bruch’s call was: “Took your own sweet time, didn’t you?” The question mark soared into a whine. “I’ve got to see you now!”

“Perhaps you could explain—”

“No! I’ve got to be with you, AT&T isn’t my doctor. I’m in misery and you’re like every other medico-shyster when the fees stop, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll pay.”

Bruch tried once more.

“I said misery, Doctor, misery caused, not cured, by you. Well?”

“All right, I’ll be waiting.”

“You damned well’d better be!”

Profoundly depressed, Bruch broke a Juno in two and swal­lowed the half dose without even a mouthful of water. Was Putz­man’s cure a failure?

He arrived in a fine spray of saliva. “I feel lousy. You said I’d feel better, you said—”

“Please, Harvey, sit down and tell me everything.”

“Well-” His indignation collapsed. “Nothing serious anymore. I’d just like to talk to you awhile.”

An hour later he was grinning and reluctantly followed Max to the door. “You’re the most reassuring person I’ve ever seen, Doc, but of course I should stand on my own two feet, not yours.” Here he began to wheedle pitifully. “I wouldn’t want ever to be a burden.”

“No burden,” Bruch said and rushed to offer unasked advice. “Any time you’re troubled call, Harvey, any time.”

Monday brought a problem even more monstrous than Putz­man in the form of a remark from a middle-aged nightclub comic, Ben Herbie. This man had the bulging eyes and sag-heavy skin of a classic hyperthyroid, but his hectic behavior went even beyond endocrine excess. “Am I lucky, you bet your life,” he said, “am I lucky to see you, old cock. The rumors are flying around Sardi’s about your cures and Lieberraan’s and nobody can even talk to Lieberman’s nurse now!”

“Lieberman?”

“Dr. Vladimir Lieberman, the other head specialist pulling off so many miracle cures lately. Real guru stuff.”

That dabbler in Jung and Adler! Bruch had always considered Lieberman definitely second-rate. But he couldn’t pursue the mat­ter now. A patient’s rights came first and this man needed help even more than his audiences. He then gently chided himself for so many unkind thoughts and launched into the interview.

At noon Max phoned Grainger at the country place and asked if he were coming into town. “I don’t know, Max—late this week, I guess.”

“Try today, Jack, after five thirty. Got to speak to you.”

There was a long pause, then a sigh. “All right. Might as well.”

For the rest of the afternoon Bruch felt guilty about pressuring Jack, when Lieberman’s sudden fame could have nothing to do with him. But as soon as he mentioned the other analyst late that afternoon, Grainger flushed and threw up his hands. “You were bound to find out—but I’m not ashamed.”

“You mean you told him about Juno A concentrate?”

“Of course. Gave him a supply, too. Three weeks ago and he’s had the same great results.” Grainger did seem a bit ashamed, though. “Okay, I know that from one angle it was a sneaky betrayal. But I only gave some to one other psychiatrist.”

Bruch was appalled. “You mean there were two psychiatrists and others?”

“Five chemists. They’ve all worked out great production angles in their labs.”

“My God, what have you done!”

“Nothing to worry about,” Grainger assured him. “Each man signed statements conceding our priority.”

“Who’s worried about patent infringements? Juno A’s now loose in the world and we can’t ever pull it back.”

“Who wants to pull it back?” Grainger shouted, angrily pacing about. “Who has the right to pull the greatest blessing in human history back?”

“But-”

“But hell, Max! I’ll admit I practiced some deceit, but only for all those who would have had to wait in needless agony while you played Hamlet!” He drew a deep breath. “And I did keep my word about self-dosing.”

“Thanks for small blessings,” Bruch muttered.

“Your pill’s worn off, Max. Maybe you should take another be­fore we continue.”

“Double my sensitivity for the day? I’m not sure a psyche could absorb that much pain from other people. Don’t you understand yet, Jack? We’re cultivating an enormously risky virtue.”

“No, I don’t - and you don’t either!”