Read Ole Doc Methuselah for Free Online Page B

They give
allegiance to no government, need no passport; so long as they do not engage in
political activity, their persons are inviolate.
    â€œâ€˜An
apprenticeship of one hundred years is required to become a member of this
society and membership is not confirmed even then until the applicant has made
an undeniably great contribution to the health and happiness of mankind.
Members of the Universal Medical Society do not practice as do ordinary
physicians. They accept no fee. The organization is self-supporting.’
    â€œYou
see before you my master, Soldier of Light seventy-seven, known as Methuselah.”
    Before
Ole Doc could stop them, all the members of the circle about the fire had risen
to their feet and the men had uncovered their heads. Not one person there had
failed to hear of the organization and several had heard of Ole Doc Methuselah.
None of them had ever before been privileged to behold a member of this awed
and sacred society.
    Embarrassed
and a bit out of patience with his faithful slave, Ole Doc left hurriedly. He
was angry within himself in the realization that it was he himself who was at
fault, for he had never attempted to educate Hippocrates into intrigue. He
doubted that anyone could possibly impress upon the fellow that Ole Doc could
or would do anything which could not be published on every visioscreen in the galaxy.
True, there had been some peccadillos in the past but this was before the time
of Hippocrates. However, for all his good intentions, he could not bring
himself to address the slave in friendly terms and so walked on harshly ahead
of him.
    Hippocrates,
disconsolate, outcast the second time, dropped far behind and finally sat down
on a stone beside the path to try to exude his misery into the night and so be
rid of it.
    By
himself Ole Doc reached the ship. He was all the way into the dining salon
before he fully recognized the fact that it was empty. Miss Elston was gone.
    At
first he thought she might have gone out to take a turn in the night but then a
piece of paper, icy white on the salon table, told him this was not the case.
It was in Miss Elston’s handwriting.
    Â 
    Please do not try to find me or come for me. I
am doing this of my own accord and I have no wish to get you into trouble
knowing very well that you could be cast out of your society for engaging in
political affairs.
    Alicia Elston
    Ole
Doc read it through twice, trembling. Then throwing it savagely into the corner
he dashed to the cabinet where he had enclosed Dart. That worthy was gone.
Belatedly he bethought himself that the Martian might well have had his pocket
radiophones concealed about him.
    The
cabinet containing Elston, being unknown, was, of course, undisturbed.
    From
a locker Ole Doc grabbed a blaster, fifty rounds and a medical case. Still
buckling it on he ran across the field where the Morgue stood. He headed
straight for the building where he had that day seen Blanchard.

Chapter Five
    Blanchard’s
white hands fluttered in the night gesticulating before the face of the tramp
rocket-ship captain. Now they threatened, now they pleaded, now they rubbed
thumb against fingers in the money sign, but whatever they did the hard-bitten
old master of the spaceship remained adamant.
    Dart
squirmed and wriggled nervously as he regarded the odds in the form of five
armed spacemen which they faced.
    The
captain stood sturdily on the lower step of the air lock and grimly shook his
head. “No, Mr. Blanchard, I cain’t do nothing like that. I gotta yella ticket,
I tell ye. I cain’t clear until it’s turned white by him that wrote it.”
    â€œBut
I tell you again and again,” cried Blanchard, “that I can get a physician here
in Junction City who’ll give you a white ticket that will get you through any
planetary quarantine you face.”
    â€œNaw
sir, you ain’t no regular port and if there’s disease to be carried I ain’t
carryin’ it. Nawthing can