Альфред Бестер - Star of Stars [Anthology]

No one knew. The doors were double locked. No visitors were permitted to enter. No patients were permitted to leave. Physicians were seen to arrive and depart. Their perplexed expressions stimulated the wildest speculations but revealed nothing. The nurses who ministered to Ward T were questioned eagerly but they were close-mouthed.

There were dribs and drabs of information, unsatisfying and self-contradictory. A charwoman asserted that she had been in to clean up and there had been no one in the ward. Absolutely no one. Just two dozen beds and nothing else. Had the beds been slept in? Yes. They were rumpled, some of them. Were there signs of the ward being in use? Oh yes. Personal things on the tables and so on. But dusty, kind of. Like they hadn’t been used in a long time.

Public opinion decided it was a ghost ward. For spooks only.

But a night orderly reported passing the locked ward and hearing singing from within. What kind of singing? Foreign language, like. What language? The orderly couldn’t say. Some of the words sounded like ... well, like: Cow dee on us eager tour.

Public opinion started to run a fever and decided it was an alien ward. For spies only.

St. Albans enlisted the help of the kitchen staff and checked the food trays. Twenty-four trays went in to Ward T three times a day. Twenty-four came out. Sometimes the returning trays were emptied. Most times they were untouched.

Public opinion built up pressure and decided that Ward T was a racket. It was an informal club for goldbricks and staff grafters who caroused within. Cow de on us eager tour indeed!

For gossip, a hospital can put a small town sewing circle to shame with ease, but sick people are easily goaded into passion by trivia. It took just three months for idle speculation to turn into downright fury. In January, 2112, St. Albans was a sound, well-run hospital. By March, 2112, St. Albans was in a ferment, and the psychological unrest found its way into the official records. The percentage of recoveries fell off. Malingering set in. Petty infractions increased. Mutinies flared. There was a staff shake-up. It did no good. Ward T was inciting the patients to riot. There was another shake-up, and another, and still the unrest fumed.

The news finally reached General Carpenter’s desk through official channels.

“In our fight for the American Dream,” he said, “we must not ignore those who have already given of themselves. Send me a Hospital Administration expert.” The expert was delivered. He could do nothing to heal St. Albans. General Carpenter read the reports and broke him.

“Pity,” said General Carpenter, “is the first ingredient of civilization. Send me a Surgeon General.”

A Surgeon General was delivered. He could not break the fury of St. Albans and General Carpenter broke him. But by this time Ward T was being mentioned in the dispatches.

“Send me,” General Carpenter said, “the expert in charge of Ward T.”

St. Albans sent a doctor, Captain Edsel Dimmock. He was a stout young man, already bald, only three years out of medical school but with a fine record as an expert in psychotherapy. General Carpenter liked experts. He liked Dimmock. Dimmock adored the general as the spokesman for a culture which he had been too specially trained to seek up to now, but which he hoped to enjoy after the war was won.

“Now look here, Dimmock,” General Carpenter began. “We’re all of us tools, today—sharpened and hardened to do a specific job. You know our motto: A job for everyone and everyone on the job. Somebody’s not on the job at Ward T and we’ve got to kick him Out. Now, in the first place, what the hell is Ward T?”

Dimmock stuttered and fumbled. Finally he explained that it was a special ward set up for special combat cases. Shock cases.

“Then you do have patients in the ward?”

“Yes, sir. Ten women and fourteen men.”

Carpenter brandished a sheaf of reports. “Says here the St. Albans patients claim nobody’s in Ward T.”

Dimmock was shocked. That was untrue, he assured the general.

“All right, Dimmock. So you’ve got your twenty-four crocks in there. Their job’s to get well. Your job’s to cure them. What the hell’s upsetting the hospital about that?”

“W-Well, sir. Perhaps it’s because we keep them locked up.”

“You keep Ward T locked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“To keep the patients in, General Carpenter.”

“Keep ‘em in? What d’you mean? Are they trying to get out? They violent, or something?”

“No, sir. Not violent.”

“Diinmock, I don’t like your attitude. You’re acting damned sneaky and evasive. And I’ll tell you something else I don’t like. That T classification. I checked with a Filing Expert from the Medical Corps and there is no T classification. What the hell are you up to at St. Albans?”

“W-Well, sir. . . We invented the T classification. It … They ... They’re rather special cases, sir. We don’t know what to do about them or how to handle them. W-We’ve been trying to keep it quiet until we’ve worked out a modus operandi, but it’s brand new, General Carpenter. Brand new!” Here the expert in Dinimock triumphed over discipline. “It’s sensational. It’ll make medical history, by God! It’s the biggest damned thing ever.”

“What is it, Dimmock? Be specific.”

“Well, sir, they’re shock cases. Blanked out. Almost catatonic. Very little respiration. Slow pulse. No response.”

“I’ve seen thousands of shock cases like that,” Carpenter grunted. “What’s so unusual?”

“Yes, sir. So far it sounds like the standard Q or R classification. But here’s something unusual. They don’t eat and they don’t sleep.”

“Never?”

“Some of them never.”

“Then why don’t they die?”

“We don’t know. The metabolism cycle’s broken, but only on the anabolism side. Catabolism continues. In other words, sir, they’re eliminating waste products but they’re not taking anything in. They’re eliminating fatigue poisons and rebuilding worn tissue, but without sleep. God knows how. It’s fantastic.”

“That why you’ve got them locked up? Mean to say... D’you suspect them of stealing food and cat naps somewhere else?”

“N-No, sir.” Dimmock looked shamefaced. “I don’t know how to tell you this, General Carpenter. I. . . We lock them up because of the real mystery. They. . . Well, they disappear.”

“They what?”

“They disappear, sir. Vanish. Right before your eyes.”

“The hell you say.”

“I do say, sir. They’ll be sitting on a bed or standing around. One minute you see them, the next minute you don’t. Sometimes there’s two dozen in Ward T. Other times none. They disappear and reappear without rhyme or reason. That’s why we’ve got the ward locked, General Carpenter. In the entire history of combat and combat injury there’s never been a case like this before. We don’t know how to handle it.”

“Bring me three of those cases,” General Carpenter said.

Nathan Riley ate French toast, eggs benedict; consumed two quarts of brown ale, smoked a John Drew, belched delicately and arose from the breakfast table. He nodded quietly to Gentleman Jim Corbett, who broke off his conversation with Diamond Jim Brady to intercept him on the way to the cashier’s desk.

“Who do you like for the pennant this year, Nat?” Gentleman Jim inquired.

“The Dodgers,” Nathan Riley answered.

“They’ve got no pitching.”

“They’ve got Snider and Furillo and Campanella. They’ll take the pennant this year, Jim. I’ll bet they take it earlier than any team ever did. By September 13th. Make a note. See if I’m right.”

“You’re always right, Nat,” Corbett said.