Read Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner for Free Online

with you, you said you'd arrange it. Molly remembers, don't you, Moll? You said you'd get somebody to fix it for me."
    "Okay, fine, so I promised. And I will, too, when I can find the right man and the circumstances are right. Right now I'm so loaded with work I can't think straight, with all these underground patients, and fixing your foot would throw you out of it for weeks."
    "But, Doc, it's my foot , not just some underground patient's. And the longer I wait the tougher the surgery will be, that's what all the books say."
    "Well, maybe so and maybe not" Doc sighed. "I just don't know enough about it, you need an expert bone surgeon to tell you." He was silent for a moment. "Look, I'll try to get it arranged, okay? The first chance I get"
    "That's what you said last time," Billy persisted.
    "Well, we'll talk about it later. Maybe we can get something rolling. Right now we're about to land, it looks like."
    The heli-cab had begun to lose altitude as they passed over the less built-up interurban areas of the city between Newark Sector and Trenton Sector. The city lights spread out below them in all directions like a vast iridescent blanket. From time to time the auto-pilot let out clicks and chatters as electronic relays closed and opened and the cab homed in on the designated address code, all the while maintaining a 360-degree surveillance of the surrounding sky. Occasionally another cab moved past, rising or settling down, but none approached or followed. Heli-cabs ordinarily were used only for long-distance inter-Sector passage, distances that would be impractical to travel by ground-cab or rapid-transit ground services. But where they were used, the little copters were swift, efficient, and exceedingly safe. Now, less than thirty minutes from their departure, the heli-cab dropped down, entering a low-level approach pattern and finally settling down on the lighted rooftop pad of one of the large modular apartment buildings so characteristic of the Trenton Sector. Moments later the three had disembarked, and a figure moved out of the shadow of a ventilator system to greet them as the heli-cab lifted away on its auto-pilot and vanished into the sky to the north again.
    "That you, Doctor?" the man's voice said.
    "Who wants to know?"
    "Merriman. I'm John Merriman. You only met my wife, Eisa."
    "Fine," Doc said. "Let's go on in, we're a little late. Billy, bring those packs along."
    Going down on the elevator there was no talking. The car stopped at the forty-third floor, and they stepped directly from the elevator into the entry hall of a large apartment module. A woman and two small children were waiting to greet them. The children, apprehensive, clung to their mother. "Come in, Doctor," the woman said. "We were afraid something had happened."
    "Nothing serious," Doc said. "Miss Barret was late getting away from the Hospital." He indicated Molly and Billy. "This is my nurse, and my anesthetist; they'll be helping me. Now, how are these children? No new colds or fevers starting up?"
    "Nothing," the woman said.
    "You've actually checked their temperatures?" Doc said. "Okay, then, let's have a look at them."
    From his bag Doc produced stethescope, otoscope, and tongue blades. The older child, a boy of seven, was first. Doc had him strip to the waist and then examined him carefully, checking his ears and throat and listening to his chest. The little girl began to cry when her turn came, but Doc gently shushed her, sitting down and talking to her a bit, showing her how the stethoscope worked and letting her blow the otoscope light on, and presently she allowed him to check her. When he had finished he looked up and nodded to Molly. "Why don't you take them into the other room for a while and tell them what to expect so they won't be scared," he said. "Billy, you get things set up in the kitchen. I want to talk to the parents for a minute." As the others left, he turned his attention to the adult Merrimans. "I've already talked