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He had one advantage. She was a nurse, and all nurses, by the time they were graduated, loathed doctors. She would be ready to believe the worst about them.
"Every medical doctor takes the oath of Hippocrates. But, before he swears in public, he takes a private, a most arcane, oath. And that oath is much more ancient than that of Hippocrates, who, after all, died in 377 B.C., comparatively recently.
"The first witch doctor of the Old Stone Age may have given that oath to the second witch doctor. Who knows? But it is recorded, in a place where you will never see it, that the first doctor of the civilized world, the first doctor of the most ancient city-state, that of Sumer, predecessor even of old Egypt, swore in the second doctor.
"The Sumerian oath -- scratch my nose, will you, my dear? -- required that a medical doctor must never, under any circumstances, reveal anything at all about the true nature of doctors or of the true origin of diseases."
Mrs. Fell listened with only a few interruptions. Then she said, "Doctor Goodbody! Are you seriously trying to tell me that diseases would not exist if it were not for doctors? That doctors manufacture diseases and spread them around? That if it weren't for doctors, we'd all be one hundred percent healthy? That they pick and choose laymen to infect and to cure so they can get good reputations and make money and dampen everybody's suspicions by... by... that's ridiculous!"
The sweat tickled his nose, but he ignored it. "Yes, Mrs. Fell, that's true! And, rarely, but it does happen, a doctor can't take being guilty of mass murder anymore, and he breaks down and tries to tell the truth! And then he's hauled off, declared insane by his colleagues, or dies during an operation, or gets sick and dies, or just disappears!"
"And why weren't you killed?"
"I told you! I saved our glorious leader, the Grand Exalted Iatrogenic Sumerian. They promised me my life, and we don't lie to each other, just to laymen! But they made sure I couldn't escape, and they didn't cut my tongue out because they're sadistic! They get a charge out of me telling my story here, because who's going to believe me, a patient in a puzzle factory? Yes, Mrs. Fell, don't look so shocked! A booby hatch, a nut house! I'm a loony, right? Isn't that what you believe?"
She patted the top of his head. "There, there! I believe you! I'll see what I can do. Only..."
"Yes?"
"My husband is a doctor, and if I thought for one moment that he was in a secret organization...!"
"Don't ask him!" Goodbody said. "Don't say a word to any doctor! Do you want to come down with cancer or infectious hepatitis or have a coronary thrombosis? Or catch a brand-new disease? They invent a new one now and then, just to relieve the boredom, you know!"
It was no use. Mrs. Fell was just going along with him to soothe him.
And that night he was carried into the depths beneath the huge old house, where torches flickered and cold gray stones sweat and little drums beat and shrill goat horns blew and doctors with painted faces and red robes and black feathers and rattling gourds and thrumming bullroarers administered the Sumerian oath to the graduating class, 1970, of Johns Hopkins. And they led each young initiate before him and pointed out what would happen if he betrayed his profession.
Only Who Can Make A Tree?
A Polytropical Paramyth
"You'll have to admit that Serendipitous Laboratories cleared away the smog," Dr. Kerls said.
Bobbing, he danced, the toe of his left shoe striking the floor and seeming to catch and pull him backward. He was a very short, middle-aged, and fat chemist. The top of his head looked like the back of a hog, and his voice was high and thin.
"Smog, shmog!" Dr. van Skant said. He snorted as if he had a noseful of nitrogen oxide. "What kind of pollution problem you think a few trillion moths produce, eh? Godalmighty, they're still bulldozing them off the freeways. And I had to stop twice to clean them out of my exhaust pipe! Twice! God-almighty!"
Kerls gri
"Except for being a failure, the experiment was a success, you'll have to admit that."
The Federal inspector-scientist did not reply. He looked around the huge laboratory. Tubes and retorts were bubbling, booping, and beeping. Colored liquids were racing up and down and around transparent plastic and glass pipes. A control panel was pulsing with lights and squeaking and pinging. Tapes were ru
Two white-coated men were pouring chemicals into tubes, and the tubes were throwing off frosty, evil-smelling, evil-looking clouds.
"Where in hell is the table?" van Skant snarled. He was a very tall and hugepaunched man with glasses and a thick blond moustache, and he spoke from behind, or through, a big green cigar at all times.
"What table?" Dr. Kerls said squeakily. He cringed.
"The table with the sheet under which is the monster waiting for the lightning stroke to bring it to life, you nitwit!"
Kerls laughed nervously. "Oh, you're joking! It is impressive, ain't it?"
"Should be," van Skant growled. "You jerks set it up just to impress me."
Kerls looked around helplessly.
Dr. Lorenzo smiled and waved at van Skant. He was very short and thin and had a bald forehead with a great Einsteinian foliage of hair behind the baldness to compensate.
Dr. Mough, very short, stern-faced, his hair cut in stylish bangs across his forehead, grimaced at Kerls.
"You jest, of course?" Kerls said. He danced backward while he cracked his knuckles to the tune of The Pirates of Penzance overture.
"Does this place hire nothing but psychotics?" van Skant said.
"Serendipitous Laboratories hires nothing but the best," Kerls said.
Van Skant stopped and stared. Dr. Lorenzo had poured the contents of a tall beaker into a rubber boot, and Dr. Mough, holding the top of the boot shut, was shaking it.
"I think they're testing out a new type of vulcanizer," Kerls said.
Mough set the boot upright on the floor, and he and Lorenzo stepped back.
The boot, stiff as a sailor at the end of a three-day leave, rumbled. Then it leaped like a kangaroo down the aisle between tables, hit the wall, bounced, and did not fall but erupted.
The brownish fluid sprayed over half of the huge room. Drs. Kerls and van Skant were caught with their mouths open.
"Coffee!" van Skant howled. "You guys are making coffee! On government time!"
"Gee, is that it?" Kerls said, licking his lips. "Not bad. Better than what they usually make. But they were actually trying to make instant cement. Hyungh! Hyungh!"
Van Skant wiped the brown stuff from his face with a handkerchief.
"I'll shut this place down! Cut off the Federal funds! You're working on a government contract to combat pollution!"
Dr. Mough, the little man with the bangs, said, "Quite true, my dear Dr. van Skant. But we're on our coffee break, and we don't have to account for what we do then." He turned to Dr. Kerls. "Clean this mess up."
Kerls looked indignant. "Me? You and Lorenzo made the mess."
Mough made the peace sign with his two fingers, poked Kerls in the eyes with them, rapped him on the head with the butt of his palm, punched him in the belly, and hammered his forehead again when Kerls doubled up.
"Don't talk back to the assistant project director!"
Kerls staggered off while van Skant, goggle-eyed, watched him.
"Not too much trouble with discipline here," Dr. Mough said. "We run a tight ship."
Van Skant followed Mough. Kerls seemed to be alleviating his pain with liquid from a flask he had taken from his hip pocket.