The Far Call by Gordon R. Dickson

Author:Gordon R. Dickson [Dickson, Gordon R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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“How long has this been going on?” asked Fedya.

“What’re you doing here?” demanded Tad.

Fedya ignored him. He took one long step forward to level with Tad’s chair and looked down at the log imaged on the screen.

“Hold on there—” Tad tried to spin around to face the console; but Fedya pushed him back again and Bap caught him, holding on. “What the hell—”

His voice was thick; and his legs, when he tried to get to his feet against Bap’s holding arms, were without strength. Fedya stood looking past him at the log records for a long moment; then he stepped back and Bap let go of Tad.

“I’m senior—” Tad began. Fedya broke in on him.

“You’re a sick man,” he said. “A seriously worn out and sick man. Bap, take a look at the figures on him in the log.”

Bap stepped past Fedya in his turn. This time, Tad made no attempt to stop the log from being seen. He sat in his chair, glaring at Fedya.

Bap said something softly but emphatically, in a language Tad did not understand. He stepped back from the console and turned to Tad, reaching out to close the fingers of his left hand upon the pulse in Tad’s left wrist and gently lifting one of Tad’s eyelids with the fingers of his right hand. Then he let go of the eyelid; and a moment later took his hand from the pulse.

“Tad,” he said, looking down at Tad and shaking his head. “Tad!” Tad glared up at them like a cornered wild dog.

“Cut it out!” he said, harshly. “You’re not going to do anything. You tell Mission Control about me, and you’ll blow everything wide open.”

Bap looked at Fedya.

“That’s true enough,” Bap said. “But he can’t go on like this.” “No,” said Fedya. His dark eyes were boring into Tad. “So this was the way you thought you could get around the overload of activities? How could you try something so impossible?”

“Go to hell!” said Tad, savagely. “If the gravity had been enough, I’d have been all right. It’s just the lack of exercise that’s got to me.”

Fedya glanced questioningly at Bap, who shrugged with his eyebrows.

“Probably,” said Bap. He looked back at Tad. “Anyway, as the closest thing to a physician on this mission, I’m personally ordering you to bed until further notice.”

“There’re things to be done,” said Tad. “Nobody but me can do them.”

“They can wait ten hours,” said Bap. “Even falsifying that record can wait ten hours.”

“What’ll you tell Mission, when they ask to have it relayed to them tomorrow morning?”

“That they’ll have to wait,” said Fedya. “And meanwhile—” he turned and walked over to seat himself at the command console, “we’ll put them on notice that our activities schedule has to be cut, immediately.”

He flipped the communication switch and pushed the lasercom control buttons.

“This is Phoenix One,” he said into the mike grid of the console before him. “Phoenix One. This is Fedya, calling Mission Control from Phoenix One. Come in, Kennedy.”

The

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