Free Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse, Karl Swanson Page A

He tries and tries but he can't hold no fluids down. Can't hold nothin' down."
    "What about the rest of you?"
    "Oh, we're okay," the man said. "I've got a little headache, and the younger boy's had a fever tonight, but he feels okay, don't you, Jerry?"
    "Well, never mind," Doc said. "Just to be safe we'll take a look at all of you." Step by step he began checking the others, taking temperatures and running blood counts. He found that the father already had a stiff neck as well as a headache, and the boy's temperature was 103°. Only the mother seemed unaffected.
    Shaking his head, Doc took the parents aside. "All right, now, listen closely," he said. "You've got a terrible problem on your hands and you're going to have to make some hard decisions. This older boy is mortally ill. He almost surely has some kind of meningitis—I can't tell what kind without doing a spinal tap, and I don't have the equipment on hand for that. He also needs lab work, at the very least a culture to identify the organism causing the infection and a test to determine which antibiotic will be the most help in stopping this thing. But above all, he's got to have fast, diligent treatment, including intravenous fluids, in a hospital without delay, because he's not going to survive this dehydration very much longer."
    "But, Doc," WiU Hardy said, "I told you—"
    "That's not all," Doc interrupted. "Both you and the younger boy are also ill, and probably with the same thing. There's been a lot of this turning up recently, and people have been dying from it because they haven't gotten the right kind of medical help soon enough. The truth is that all three of you need hospital care and treatment starting right now."
    "Doc, we can't go to a hospital," Will Hardy said.
    "You mean you don't want to," Doc retorted. "Even unqualified patients can be admitted for emergency treatment, as long as they agree to sterilization as soon as their condition permits."
    "Doc, it isn't just that, it's the whole rotten hospital scene. Look, I may not be a very good Naturist when it comes to a showdown, but I can't take my kids into a place like that. 1 hate those places, I couldn't let my kids near them."
    Doc shook his head sadly. "You're the one that has to decide," he said. "All I can do is tell you what's needed. I can start treatment here and hope for the best, but I warn you that it may be too little and too late. If the boy dies, I can't be responsible."
    The man hesitated, breathing heavily. Then finally he shook his head. "If you can start treatment, at least do that. Do whatever you can do here."
    "All right." Doc opened his bag and withdrew syringes, needles, medications and other paraphernalia. Then, turning to the boy in bed, he injected an ampul of colorless fluid into a vein, sealing the needle hole with tape. "That's an anti-emetic," he told the older Hardy. "It should help prevent upchucking so that he can hold something on his stomach. Now we need fluids—sugar water, orange juice, anything palatable that you have. Let's get it started." He went out in the kitchen with the mother; showed her what to prepare and how. A few moments later he gave the boy an ounce of sugar water by mouth, waited a minute or two and gave another ounce. There was no vomiting. "All right," Doc told the mother, "you keep this up for the rest of the night. An ounce or so every fifteen minutes. I'm also giving him antibiotic and viricidal medicines that may help with the infection, but the dehydration is the biggest threat right now."
    Turning to the father and the younger boy, he administered antibiotic by injection, then counted out capsules for them to take later. Next he gave the woman a brief lesson in fever control, showing her how to bring the older boy's temperature down and keep it there. Presently he went out into the living room, sank down in a chair and dozed for a few moments. An hour passed, then another, as Doc intermittently checked the sick one. The boy was keeping