The Jupiter Plague

Dr. Sam Bertolli sat stolidly, swaying with the swift motion, his square-jawed face relaxed and quiet. This was Killer’s part of the job, getting him to the scene of the emergency, and he considered it foolish to waste his time in speculation as to what he would find there. He would know soon enough. Sam was a big man, with big hands that had black hair curled over the knuckles, intensely dark hair. No matter how often he shaved his cheeks had a blue tone and this, along with the permanent groove that was beginning to form between his eyebrows, gave him more of the look of a policeman or a prizefighter. Yet he was a doctor, and a fine one, in the top five of his graduating class the year before. Within a few weeks, by the end of June, his internship would be finished and he would begin a residency. He had his life under control.

Killer Dominguez appeared to be the direct opposite. A slight man with an oversize head, he was as wiry and nervous as a bantam rooster on an eagle farm. His skinny hands were clamped tightly to the steering wheel, his muscles knotted and tense, while his jaw worked nervously on a wad of gum. A thick pillow propped him up into driving position and his tiny feet seemed to be barely able to reach the pedals — yet he was the best driver on the staff and had started at the hospital only after sixteen years’ experience behind the wheel of a hack. The streets of the city were his world, ha only felt comfortable when he was hurtling a few tons of steel along them, and as an eighth-generation New Yorker he was attuned perfectly to this life, could imagine no other.

The tires squealed as they turned into Seventh Avenue and headed for the crowd of people on one corner: a blue-coated policeman waved them to the curb.

“An accident, Doctor,” he told Sam as he climbed down with the heavy steel box, “He was operating a street elevator, one of those old ones, and somehow got his leg over the edge. Almost tore it off before the elevator stopped. I was just around the corner here, I heard him scream.”

Sam shot a quick glance at the policeman as the crowd parted before them. He was young — and a little nervous — but he was holding up. Then the elevator was before them and Sam gave the scene a slow, thorough look before he snapped open the emergency kit.

The elevator had halted a foot below ground level and on its floor lay a heavy, gray-haired man about sixty years old with his left leg buckled underneath him in a pool of dark blood. His right leg was pinched between the metal edge of the elevator and the bottom of the ground level opening. The man’s eyes were closed and his skin was waxy white.

“Who knows how to work this elevator?” Sam asked the crowd of staring faces. They were moved aside by a teen-age boy who pushed rapidly through from the back.

“Me, Doc, I can work it, nothing to it. Just press I lie red button for down and the black one for up.”

“Do you just know how it works — or have actually worked it?” Sam asked as he pushed his tell-tale against the inside of the patient’s wrist.

“I’ve worked it, lots of times!” the boy said with injured innocence. “Brought boxes down for—”

“That’s fine. Take control and when I tell you to, lower the elevator a foot. When I say up bring it up to ground level.”

The dials of the telltale registered instantly. Body temperature below normal, blood pressure and pulse too low and too slow for a man of this age. Shock and probable loss of a good deal of blood; there was certainly enough of it on the elevator floor. Sam saw that the right pants leg had been cut open and he spread the flaps of cloth wide. The man’s leg had been almost completely severed just above the knee and there was a black leather belt around the stump cutting deep into the white flesh. Sam looked up into the worried eyes of the policeman.

“Did you do this?”

“Yes. I told you I was near when it happened. We’re not supposed to touch a case except in an extreme emergency. I thought this was one — the way the blood was pumping out he was sure to be dead quick enough no matter what else was wrong with him. I pulled off his belt and put it around his leg, then he passed out.”

“You did the correct thing — he can thank you; for saving his life. Now get the crowd back and tell my driver to bring the stretcher.”

Sam’s hands never stopped while he talked, taking the powered tourniquet from the box and pushing the stiffened tongue of metal under the injured leg. As soon as it emerged a touch on the switch restored its flexibility; he wrapped it around the leg and inserted the end into the control box. When the sliding spheres were positioned over the major blood vessels he flicked on the power and it tightened automatically, applying the correct pressure to cut off all flow of blood.