"And when we have enough to supply the colony on Aldebaran II?"
"Then it will be time enough to remove the transfer switch."
Zolto laughed. It was a laugh that would have been curiously out of
place in a human being, and if the taxi driver hadn't been so busy
steering his way through traffic, he would have turned around to look.
Pojim sensed the danger, and held up a warning finger.
Zolto subsided. "You have remarkable ideas, my wife. Still, I see no
reason why this should not work. Let us try it."
* * * * *
Ollie awoke to a new life. He was feeling better than he had ever
felt in his entire miserable existence. The two interns who had come
along with him had been transformed magically into a kindly lady and
gentleman, who wished to hire him to do easy work at an excellent
salary. Ollie let himself be hired.
He had his choice of things to eat now, but, strangely enough, he no
longer had his old hunger. It was as if he were being fed from some
hidden source, and he ate, one might almost have said, for the looks of
it. The little he did consume, however, seemed to go a long way.
He gained weight, his muscles hardened, his old teeth fell out and new
ones appeared. He himself was astonished at this latter phenomenon, but
after his previous experience at the hospital, he kept his astonishment
to himself. The spots on his lungs disappeared, his spine straightened.
After a time he reached a weight of a hundred and ninety pounds, and
his eyes were bright and clear. At night he slept the sleep of the
just--or the drugged.
At first he was happy. But after several months, there came a feeling
of boredom. He sought out Mr. and Mrs. Zolto, and said, "I'm sorry, I
can't stay here any longer."
"Why?" asked the lady.
"There's no room here, ma'am, for advancement," he said, almost
apologetically. "I've been studyin' and I got ideas about things I can
do. All sorts of ideas."
Pojim and Zolto, who had planted the ideas, nodded solemnly.
Pojim said, "We're glad to hear that, Ollie. The fact is that we
ourselves had decided to move to--to a warmer climate, some distance
away from here. We were wondering how you'd get along without us."
"Don't you worry about me. I'll do fine."
"Well, that's splendid. But it would be convenient to us if you could
wait till tomorrow. We'd like to give you something to remember us by."
"I'll be glad to wait, ma'am."
That night Ollie had a strange nightmare. He dreamed that he was on
the operating table again, and that the doctors and nurses were once
more closing in on him. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound
came out. And then the two interns were there, once more wearing their
uniforms.
The female said, "It's all right. It's perfectly all right. We're just
removing the transfer switch. In the morning you won't even remember
what happened."
And, in fact, in the morning he didn't. He had only a vague feeling
that something _had_ happened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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