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I'm saying. He needs all sorts of protective inoculation first. It's bad
enough that he's been exposed to as many people as he was last night; but I'm
not going to let a whole mob of reporters in here, not today and not tomorrow,
either. If they like, they can photograph him from upstairs, for the time
being, outside the Stasis zone entirely, just as though we had a newborn
infant in here, and I want them to be quiet about it, too. We can work out a
video schedule later in the day. -Oh, and speaking of upstairs. I'm still not
happy about the degree of exposure here. I want my quarters roofed over -
a tarpaulin of some sort will do for the moment; I don't want workmen
clattering around here with construction equipment just yet-and I think the
rest of the dolihouse could safely be given a ceiling, too."
Hoskins smiled. "You mince no words. You're a very forceful woman, Miss
Fellowes." His tone seemed to have as much admiration as annoyance in it.
"Forceful?" she said. "I suppose I am. At least where my children are
concerned."
[18]
Jacobs was a burly, blunt-faced man of about sixty, with thick white hair
cropped close to his skuD, military-fashion. He had an efficient, no-
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Miss Fellowes wondered what kind of doctors had ministered to the needs of the
little boy's tribe back there in 40,000 B.C. Witch-doctors, no doubt.
Terrifying figures with bones through their noses and painted red circles
around their eyes, who performed their diagnoses by leaping and cavorting
around campfires that burned blue and green and scarlet. How would Dr. Jacobs
look with a bone through his nose? she wondered. With a bear-skin around his
shoulders instead of that prosaic white coat?
He offered her a quick, uncondescending handshake. "I've heard good things
about you, Fellowes."
"So I would hope."
"You worked under Gallagher at Valley General, didn't you? Or so
Hoskins said. Fine man, Gallagher. Dogmatic son of a bitch, but at least he
swore by the right dogmas. How long were you in his department?"
"Three and a half years."
"You like him?"
Miss Fellowes shrugged. "Not particularly. I heard him say some things once to
a young nurse that I thought were out of line. But he and I worked well
together. I learned a great deal from him."
"A shrewd man, yes." Jacobs shook his head. "Pity about the way he handled his
nurses. In more than one sense of the word. -You didn't happen to have any
sort of run-in with him yourself, did you?"
of heads of nursing and boards of directors. Plainly he had been around. All
she knew of Dr. Jacobs, on the other hand, was that he was something big at
the state medical institute and had a considerable private practice on the
side. Their paths had never crossed professionally. If Hoskins had seen fit to
let him see her resume, he might have thought of letting her see his. But
Miss Fellowes let that point pass, too.
"And I suppose that now it's about time that we had a look at this little
Neanderthal of yours," Jacobs said. "Where's he hiding?"
She gestured toward the other room. The boy was lurking uneasily in there, now
and again peeping out, with a lock of his matted hair showing behind the
barrier of the door and, occasionally, the corner of an eye.
"Shy, is he? That's not what I heard from the orderlies. They said he's as
wild as a little ape."
"Not any more. His initial terror has worn off, and now he simply feels lost
and frightened."
"As well he should, poor little critter. But we've got to get down to this.
Call him out here, please. Or will you have to go in there and get him?"
"Maybe I can call him," Miss Fellowes said.
She turned to face the boy. "You can come out, Tim-mie. This is Dr.
Jacobs. He won't hurt you."
Timmie?
Neanderthal," "the ugly little boy." He was Timmie. He was a person. He had a
name.
And as she approached the other room Timmie slipped back behind the door, out
of sight.
"All right," Jacobs said, with some impatience. "We can't spend all day at
this. Go in there and bring him out, will you, Fellowes?"
He slipped a surgical mask over his face-as much for his protection, Miss
Fellowes guessed, as for Timmie's.
But the mask was a mistake. Timmie peeked out and saw it and let out a shrill
piercing howl as though he had seen some demon out of his Stone
Age nightmares. As Miss Fellowes reached the door, he flung himself violently
against the wall on the far side of the room, like a caged creature fleeing
its keeper, and pressed up against it, shivering fearfully.
"Timmie- Timmie-"
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No use. He wouldn't let her near him, not with Jacobs anywhere about.
The boy had tolerated Hoskins' presence well enough, but Jacobs seemed to
scare the daylights out of him. So much for her theory that children wanted
their doctors to be brusque no-nonsense military types. Not this child, at any
rate.
She rang the bell and summoned Mortenson and Elliot.
"We're going to need a little help, I think," Miss Fellowes told them.
the room with truly anthropoid agility, and they were hard put to get a grip
on him. Finally Mortenson, with a lunge, caught him by the midsection and spun
him up off the ground. Elliott cautiously took hold of him by the ankles and
tried to prevent him from kicking.
Miss Fellowes went over to him. Softly she said, "It's all right, Timmie-no
one will hurt you-"
She might just as well have said, "Trust me." The boy struggled furiously,
with nearly as much enterprise as he had shown the day before when they were
trying to give him a bath.
Feeling preposterous. Miss Fellowes tried crooning the litde tune of the night
before at him in an attempt to lull him into cooperating. That was useless,
too.
Dr. Jacobs leaned close. "We'll have to sedate him, I guess. -God, he's an
ugly little thing!"
Miss Fellowes felt a sharp stab of fury, almost as though Timmie were her own [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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