The Damn Disciples (5 page)

TREATMENT? Stone keyed in.

GANGRENOUS PORTIONS MUST BE REMOVED SURGICALLY, VEINS CAUTERIZED IN AREA. BONE MUST BE RESET USING HYPERBURLIC METAL STRAPPING
SYSTEM. SEE STORAGE BIN 87AA. He studied the chart closely as the computer continued to make the 3-D image of the leg move
before him as if an invisible hand was twisting it around. A scalpel appeared and showed the exact angle to slice. Then the
image of the metal tightening band that was to be put around the leg and tightened by hand was demonstrated. After memorizing
all the information, he keyed in another question.

SURGICAL SUPPLIES AVAILABLE?

The screen immediately displayed the location of all the items needed for the operation around the communications room, His
father had equipped the place as well with an entire mini medical/operating facility. The more he investigated the room the
more it seemed to reveal, like a high-tech onion pulling back layers of function. Stone found the drugs first and, following
the computer’s advice, gave himself a megavitamin shot, then a superpotent antibiotics mixture. He unlatched a stainless-steel
operating table that was hinged to one wall. Most of the supplies were arranged on shelves on the walls on each side of the
long stainless-steel table. Within about ten minutes, Stone had everything set up.

It was going to be the craziest piece of surgery mankind had ever performed on itself. And if there was such a thing as the
AMA (American Medical Association) anymore, which there wasn’t, they would doubtless have sued the living shit out of him.
On the other hand, since he was going to do it to himself, if he fucked up there would be no one to sue. Or something like
that. His head was getting dizzier.

“Come on, Dr. Kildare,” Stone mocked himself, trying to get his courage up. He set the video camera in place so that he could
see everything clearly on a TV monitor on a table to the right side about a yard away. He proceeded to cut the whole side
of his pants leg to the thigh so the bleeding mess was exposed. It was worse than he had thought. Jesus, it was hard to look
at. His own flesh—all purple and fucked up like it was ready for the grave. He wished suddenly he’d taken more time to treat
it days before. But he’d been on the run—there had been no time. And now he was running out of said quantity; the last few
grains were suspended tremblingly on the edge of the hourglass of Martin Stone’s life.

The pain was too much as Stone, sitting up, tried to slice away at the poisoned flesh, just above the knee on the inside of
the thigh. The skin was clearly dead, some of it with a brown, even blackish, appearance. He tried to cut into it, but the
combined pain of the broken bone plus the slicing was too much. Stone fell backward onto the table, where at least the broken
bone seemed to be relieved from the pressure. He reached over for the mechanical hands he had set up. His father had known
a man might have to operate on himself. For in the new world, there was not a hospital still operating, not a single soul
that one could depend on for anything.

Stone fitted his hands inside the input section of the de-vice, gloves that his fingers could manipulate easily. The futuristic-looking
aluminum gloves had wires and gears that fed into a pair of mechanical steel hands attached to long robotic arms that could
swivel and turn in any direction. They had been originally developed for radioactive-material handling, but over the years
had been used for numerous kinds of technologies. It had been simple enough for his father to obtain an advanced model of
the species. Stone tried the gloves, manipulating them a few times as he turned his head to the side and watched on the TV
monitor—all in living gory color. He could see the leg just sitting there waiting for more of its blood to flow. He made one
of the mechanical hands reach down and take a large cotton cloth from the table and dip it in a bowl of alcohol. Then he moved
it up and down the gangrenous area, scraping away all the surface rot. He winced as he moved his hand within the glove. The
pain was amazing, even though he thought he was prepared for it.

With the top layers of rot gone, he pushed the close-up button on the wireless video transmitter that sat next to him on the
operating table. The camera zoomed in, and he could see now that maybe it wasn’t. as bad as he had thought. The actual dead
tissue was about as big as a silver dollar the rest was bruised badly, but still seemed to be on the side of the living. Stone
made the mechanical hand lift a scalpel and, letting out a long breath, he dug in. He screamed. And screamed again. But never
took his eyes from the video monitor—or allowed himself to pass out. Painkilling drugs were out of the question, as they would
dull his manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination, which were vital if there was any chance of success.

After about ten seconds of cutting here and there, he could see that he had excised all of the black muck. He cut around the
edges once more. And again let out a long howl like a stuck dog. And for a second he thought he heard Excaliber answering
far off from the kitchen. When he finished cutting and once again examined the area, he took a large cotton swab, had the
mechanical hand dip it in hydrogen peroxide, and painted the whole area. It stung like a motherfucker. Then he smeared antibiotic
salves over the whole thing and placed a thick piece of gauze down on it covered over with tape.

That was the
easy
part. Now was the hard. Gripping the HyperBurlic steel leg band with both mechanical hands, he opened it up and put it beneath
the broken part of the thigh. Pulling the two pieces of steel band around, he attached them in groves so they locked together.
Looking in the monitor, he moved the mechanical hand to the top of the band, where a handle turned a screw gear. He turned
it. And the pain was a tidal wave that swept over his entire soul. But he turned and kept on turning, looking through teary
eyes at the screen, making sure he was putting the pressure in the right place so the broken bone would set into proper alignment.
Still, he had to do a bunch of yelling to get the thing tightened the full three turns that the computer had dictated.

When it was all done and he lay there breathing hard, Stone allowed himself to rest. The operation was complete. The rest
was up to God. And as he started to try to rise up to head to the bedroom, it was as if all his energy suddenly drained down
into the operating table he was lying on. And he fell into a pit that was red and had jagged cutting edges.

When he awoke he was still lying on the operating table—in a pool of his own blood. He snapped open his stuck eyes in horror,
thinking perhaps he was new bleeding to death. But as he sat up, Stone saw that it was all from the operation. He looked down
at the leg. The part he had sliced out throbbed like a war drum, but the bandage around it, although stained with an initial
flout’ of blood, was not wet now. He had succeeded—momentarily. Whether or not he had terminated the gangrene threat he’d
find out soon enough. The band of steel that was tightened around the break had pretty much numbed out the whole area with
the pressure it was putting on. The computer had said the band should stay on for forty-eight hours so the bones could begin
knitting properly —then be followed by a cast. Right! He’d just check into the local emergency room.

Stone swung his legs over the side of the table and stepped down gingerly onto the floor. Not too bad. He could even put a
little weight on the broken leg, though it didn’t feel great. He grabbed a crutch from the wall and walked around testing
it as the banks of computers beeped out pulsing streams of information around him. He cleaned up the operating area a little,
at least getting rid of the bloody rags, and then headed out down toward the living quarters.

He gasped as he rounded the bend and looked into the kitchen. The pit bull’s food had long since vanished, but it looked as
though the dog had helped itself to more. A lot more. The mutt had somehow learned to open the cabinets above the sinks where
the cans and what all were stored. And had pulled down a large number of them, which lay bitten up around the floor. The dog
was nowhere in sight.

“Son of a bitch,” Stone muttered, walking along on the crutch as little waves of pain shot up the leg. At least he didn’t
feel as feverish. That was a good sign. He hit the living quarters and glanced around, still not seeing a sign of the animal,
though the place looked as if a tornado had gone through it. Whether the animal had had a bad stomach after all the feasting,
or had just been exuberant and wanted a night on the town, Stone didn’t know. And it didn’t really matter what its motivation,
just the results. The couches were on their sides, pillows all over the place. The two large rugs—one Persian, the other plush
white fur—had been chewed and rolled around so that dog hair coated their surfaces like a sprinkling of volcanic ash.

Stone saw a motion from beneath an upturned armchair and angrily hobbled over. He kicked the chair aside and there, bloated
as a bloodworm, with bloodshot eyes and hangdog expression of the highest order, Excaliber stared back at him. Its stomach
hung way out on the front side of it as if the damn thing had swallowed a boulder.

“What the hell do you have to say for yourself, dog?” Stone hissed with barely repressed rage. The dog just whined a little
sound, as though it could hardly get up the strength to even do that. Its hanging eyes seemed to be begging for Ala-Seltzer
or some damn thing that would ease it out of its culinary hangover. Twenty pounds of food crammed into a ninety-pound frame
was not exactly the way to feel good the next morning. Stone walked around, turning things upright, kicking the coffee table
back in place. His mother’s ghost hovered over the place commanding him to tidy up. She would be having a shit fit, Stone
thought darkly, if she were here now. When they had lived together she would scold him for leaving a book out on a couch.
The dog had sent the slowly deteriorating scene in the bunker right over the edge.

But whatever thoughts Stone had about getting the place in at least less chaotic form were suddenly interrupted by a beeping
sound that came blasting over the bunker’s PA.

“EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION, EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION. COME TO COMPUTER ROOM. EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION.” Stone muttered a few choice
curses under his breath, wondering if he was ever going to get even a second’s rest, and dropped the pillow he was lifting
back down, where it settled with a little rush of feathers where the dog had chewed some good-size holes, apparently hallucinating
that the thing was a chicken during the course of its food nightmares.

He headed back down to the communications room and slammed himself down in one of the seats in front of the console that was
screaming out all kinds of emergency signals. Stone pressed the Play button and sat back. His father’s equipment constantly
monitored all frequencies, searching for CB, radio—anything it could find. Which wasn’t a hell of a lot. It was also coded
through the computer, to immediately pick up on key words. Martin Stone was one of them. And Stone could see immediately why
it had sent out the alert.

“Martin Stone, Stone, come in,” a voice was saying over the loudspeaker on the wall. “This is La Junta calling Martin Stone.
We have your sister, Stone. Do you hear? She is our prisoner. We are willing to talk terms. Come to La Junta. Calling Stone,
Martin Stone ” That was it, just repeated over and over as if it was on a tape loop. It didn’t tell him a hell of a lot. But
it told him enough. His sister was once again hanging to this life by her fingernails.

They danced naked in the moonlight. The full moon that at down on them like an illuminating fire of passion and madness. Women,
dozens of them, undulated and writhed like the legions of the possessed. Their bodies were covered with sweat as they danced
around a large cleared field, their firm breasts swinging and rising and falling as they spun and leaped into the air to unheard
music. The moonlight was strong, brilliant as it poured down over their weaving bodies, bathing them in its magic light. For
countless centuries folk tales had spoken of the Moon Madness, the hypnotic trance into which people fell, under its spell—the
strange things they might do.

Though the women danced in the moonlight in rigorous pulsations, their faces were without joy or pleasure of the slightest
kind. Their faces were dead, frozen. More like the features of stone than the living, the desiring. The contrast was strange
between the wild gyrations and the flat expressions. Not that one of them had the consciousness to notice such things. For
they were without thought. Were only what the Guru told them. He was their mentor, their leader, their god. And he played
with them like puppets, his own personal playthings that he could do with as he wished.

Guru Yasgar stood on a crude platform made of branches at one side of the field and exhorted them on. He wore a full black
robe and raised his hands high, as if commanding the moon itself. He was all. He was the great one. To be feared, to be obeyed
at once. To give one’s life for. As many had.

Guru Yasgar waved his hand to the right and some servants came forward holding large gourds of a golden-hot nectar. The women
stopped only long enough to drink huge slugs of the stuff—five, six gulps until it was running down their chins, down their
golden bodies. Then they rejoined the dancing, tossing their heads from side to side as they flew wildly about. They were
like wild animals, and as the night grew deeper the Guru screamed out magic incantations, spinning his arms in the air. The
women grew even more frenzied and clawed at each other and themselves in a rising madness. They bit and punched as they danced,
all trying to leap higher than the others, as if trying to grab the very moon from the sky and make love to it. For their
eyes were filled with an unquenchable desire, their lips parted, begging for release, release. But Yasgar only played with
them. He was the cat—and they were his mice.