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Updated: May 1, 2025
They caught Feldman's eyes, and he bent closer. There should be no black dots on the skin of a man who died of space-stomach. And there should have been cyanosis.... He swore and bent down to find the wrecks of his shoes. He couldn't worry about anything now but getting away from here before the attendant made trouble.
Probably he had been another idealist who had wound up defeated, content to leave things up to the established procedures of the Medical Lobby. He looked it as he bent over the dying man. The doctor turned back at last to the attendant. "Too late. The best I can do is ease his pain. The call should have been made half an hour earlier." He had obviously never handled space-stomach before.
No further comment was made on it, except that they'd have to work harder from now on, since they were shorthanded. That rest period Feldman came down with a mild attack of space-stomach which meant no more drinking for him and was off work for a day. Then the pace picked up. The tubes were cleared and they began laying the new lining for the landing blasts.
Then he shrugged and threaded his way through the narrow aisles toward the attendant. "Better get a doctor," he said bitterly, when the young punk looked up at him. "You've got a man dying of space-stomach on 214." The sneer on the kid's face deepened. "Yeah? We don't pay for doctors every time some wino wants to throw up. Forget it and get back where you belong, bo."
His eyes swung about the cots until they came to rest on Feldman. He frowned, and a twisted smile curved his lips. "Feldman, isn't it? You still look something like your pictures. Do you know the deceased?" Feldman shook his head bitterly. "No. I don't know his name. I don't even know why he wasn't cyanotic at the end, if it was space-stomach. Do you, doctor?"
"A doctor took it for his fee when Billings died of space-stomach. Damn you, I couldn't help him!" Ben looked at the others. "Med Lobby fee, eh? All the market will take. Umm. It could be, maybe." He shrugged. "Okay, reasonable doubt. We won't kill you, bo. Not quite, we won't." The shuttle landed and Ben handed out the little helmets and aspirators that made life possible in Mars' thin air.
Feldman swung to the cot on his left as the moan hacked off. The man there was well fed and clean-shaven, but his face was gray with sickness. He was writhing and clutching his stomach, arching his back against the misery inside him. "Space-stomach?" Feldman diagnosed. He had no need of the weak answering nod. He'd treated such cases several times in the past.
"You'll have a corpse on your hands in an hour," Feldman insisted. "I know space-stomach, damn it." The kid turned back to his lottery sheet. "Go treat yourself if you wanta play doctor. Go on, scram before I toss you out in the snow!" One of Feldman's white-knuckled hands reached for the attendant. Then he caught himself. He started to turn back, hesitated, and finally faced the kid again.
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.
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