Free The Ghost of a Model T and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak Page A

head back and forth on the thin, hard pillow in a gesture of despair.
    If he only had more strength. Just a little while ago he had had a lot of strength. Old and wiry and with a lot of strength left in him. Strong enough for almost anything at all.
    But shiftless, they had said back in Willow Bend.
    And there he had the name. He was glad to have it back. He hugged it close against him.
    â€œWillow Bend,” he said, speaking to the darkness.
    â€œYou all right, old timer?”
    He could not see the speaker, but he was not frightened. There was nothing to be frightened of. He had his name and he had Willow Bend and he had Limbo and in just a little while he’d have all the rest of it and then he’d be whole again and strong.
    â€œI’m all right,” he said.
    â€œKitty gave you soup. You want some more of it?”
    â€œNo. All I want is to get out of here.”
    â€œYou been pretty sick. Temperature a hundred and one point seven.”
    â€œNot now. I have no fever now.”
    â€œNo. But when you got here.”
    â€œHow come you know about my temperature? You aren’t any medic. I can tell by the voice of you that you aren’t any medic. In Limbo, there would be no medic.”
    â€œNo medic,” said the unseen speaker. “But I am a doctor.”
    â€œYou’re lying,” Alden told him. “There are no human doctors. There isn’t any such a thing as doctors any more. All we have is medics.”
    â€œThere are some of us in research.”
    â€œBut Limbo isn’t research.”
    â€œAt times,” the voice said, “you get rather tired of research. It’s too impersonal and sterile.”
    Alden did not reply. He ran his hand, in a cautious rubbing movement, up and down the blanket that had been used to cover him. It was stiff and hard to the touch, but seemed fairly heavy.
    He tried to sort out in his mind what the man had told him.
    â€œThere is no one here,” he said, “but violators. What did you violate? Forget to trim your toe-nails? Short yourself on sleep?”
    â€œI’m not a violator.”
    â€œA volunteer, perhaps.”
    â€œNor a volunteer. It would do no good to volunteer. They would not let you in. That’s the point to Limbo—that’s the dirty rotten joke. You ignore the medics, so now the medics ignore you. You go to a place where there aren’t any medics and see how well you like it.”
    â€œYou mean that you broke in?”
    â€œYou might call it that.”
    â€œYou’re crazy,” Alden Street declared.
    For you didn’t break into Limbo. If you were smart at all, you did your level best to stay away from it. you brushed your teeth and bathed and used one of the several kinds of approved mouth washes and you took care that you had your regular check-ups and you saw to it that you had some sort of daily exercise and you watched your diet and you ran as fast as you could leg it to the nearest clinic the first moment you felt ill. Not that you were often ill. The way they kept you checked, the way they made you live, you were very seldom ill.
    He heard that flat, metallic voice clanging in his brain again, the disgusted, shocked, accusatory voice of the medic disciplinary corps.
    Alden Street, it said, you’re nothing but a dirty slob.
    And that, of course, was the worst thing that he could be called. There was no other label that could possibly be worse. It was synonymous with traitor to the cause of the body beautiful and healthy.
    â€œThis place?” he asked. “It’s a hospital?”
    â€œNo,” the doctor said. “There’s no hospital here. There is nothing here. Just me and the little that I know and the herbs and other woods specifics that I’m able to command.”
    â€œAnd this Limbo. What kind of Limbo is it?”
    â€œA swamp,” the doctor said. “An ungodly place, believe me.”
    â€œDeath