Badge of Infamy | Page 6

why she singled him out for her attentions, but he
gloried in both those attentions and the results. He became
automatically a rising young man, the favorite of the daughter of the
Lobby president. He went through internship without a sign of trouble.
Chris humored him in his desire to spend three years of practice in a
poor section loaded with disease, and her father approved; such selfless
dedication was the perfect image projection for a future son-in-law. In
return, he agreed to follow that period by becoming an administrator. A
doctor's doctor, as they put it.
They were married in April and his office was ready in May, complete

with a staff of eighty. The publicity releases had gone out, and the
Public Relations Lobby that handled news and education was paid to
begin the greatest build-up any young genius ever had.
They celebrated that, with a little party of some four hundred people
and reporters at Ryan's lodge in Canada. It was to be a gala weekend.
It was then that Baxter shot himself.
Baxter had been Feldman's closest friend in the Lobby. He'd come
along to handle press relations and had gotten romantic about the
countryside, never having been out of a city before. He hired a guide
and went hunting, eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization.
Somehow, he got his hand on a gun, though only guides were supposed
to touch them, managed to overcome its safety devices, and then pulled
the trigger with the gun pointed the wrong way.
Chris, Feldman and Harnett from Public Relations had accompanied
him on the trip. They were sitting in a nearby car while Feldman
enjoyed the scenery, Chris made further plans, and Harnett gathered
material. There was also a photographer and writer, but they hadn't
been introduced by name.
Feldman reached Baxter first. The man was moaning and scared, and
he was bleeding profusely. Only a miracle had saved him from instant
death. The bullet had struck a rib, been deflected and robbed of some of
its energy, and had barely reached the heart. But it had pierced the
pericardium, as best Feldman could guess, and it could be fatal at any
moment.
He'd reached for a probe without thinking. Chris knocked his hand
aside.
She was right, of course. He couldn't operate outside a hospital. But
they had no phone in the lodge where the guide lived and no way to
summon an ambulance. They'd have to drive Baxter back in the car,
which would almost certainly result in his death.

When Feldman seemed uncertain, Harnett had given his warning in a
low but vehement voice. "You touch him, Dan, and I'll spread it in
every one of our media. I'll have to. It's the only way to retain public
confidence. There'd be a leak, with all the guides and others here, and
we can't afford that. I like you--you have color. But touch that wound
and I'll crucify you."
Chris added her own threats. She'd spent years making him the outlet
for all her ambitions, denied because women were still only second-rate
members of Medical Lobby. She couldn't let it go now. And she was
probably genuinely shocked.
Baxter groaned again and started to bleed more profusely.
There wasn't much equipment. Feldman operated with a pocketknife
sterilized in a bottle of expensive Scotch and only anodyne tablets in
place of anesthesia. He got the bullet out and sewed up the wound with
a bit of surgical thread he'd been using to tie up a torn good-luck
emblem. The photographer and writer recorded the whole thing. Chris
swore harshly and beat her fists against the bole of a tree. But Baxter
lived. He recovered completely, and was shocked at the heinous thing
that had been done to him.
They crucified Feldman.

III
Spaceman
Most crewmen lived rough, ugly lives--and usually, short ones.
Passengers and officers on the big tubs were given the equivalent of
gravity in spinning compartments, but the crews rode "free". The lucky
crewmen lived through their accidents, got space-stomach now and
then, and recovered. Nobody cared about the others.
Feldman's ticket was work-stamped for the Navaho, and nobody
questioned his identity. He suffered through the agony of acceleration

on the shuttle up to the orbital station, then was sick as acceleration
stopped. But he was able to control himself enough to follow other
crewmen down a hall of the station toward the Navaho. The big ships
never touched a planet, always docking at the stations.
A checker met the crew and reached for their badges. He barely
glanced at them, punched a mark for each on his checkoff sheet, and
handed them back. "Deckmen forward, tubemen to the rear," he
ordered. "Navaho blasts in fifteen minutes. Hey, you! You're tubes."
Feldman grunted. He should