"When was this?"
"Last year. June it was, or July."
"Why did you go to the hospital?"
"Why does anybody go to the hospital? I was sick, dammit."
"What was your problem?"
"This damn stomach of mine, same as always."
"Bleeding?"
"Hell, bleeding. Every time I hiccoughed I came up with blood. Never knew a body had so much blood in it."
"Bleeding in your stomach?"
"Yeah. Like I said, I had it before. All these needles stuck in you--" he nodded to the intravenous lines-- "and all the blood going into you. Phoenix last year, and then Tucson the year before that. Now, Tucson was a right nice place. Right nice. Had me a pretty little nurse and all." Abruptly, he closed his mouth. "How old are you, son, anyhow? You don't seem old enough to be a doctor.
"I'm a surgeon," Hall said.
"Surgeon! Oh no you don't. They kept trying to get me to do it, and I kept saying, Not on your sweet life. No indeedy. Not taking it out of me."
"You've had an ulcer for two years?"
"A bit more. The pains started out of the clear blue. Thought I had a touch of indigestion, you know, until the bleeding started up."
A two-year history, Hall thought. Definitely ulcer, not cancer.
"And you went to the hospital?"
"Yep. Fixed me up fine. Warned me off spicy foods and hard stuff and cigarettes. And I tried, sonny, I sure did. But it wasn't no good. A man gets used to his pleasures.
"So in a year, you were back in the hospital."
"Yeah. Big old place in Phoenix, with that stupid ninny George and my sister visiting me every day. He's a book-learning fool, you know. Lawyer. Talks real big, but he hasn't got the sense God gave a grasshopper's behind."
"And they wanted to operate in Phoenix?"
"Sure they did. No offense, sonny, but any doctor'll operate on you, give him half a chance. It's the way they think. I just told them I'd gone this far with my old stomach, and I reckoned Id finish the stretch with it."
"When did you leave the hospital?"
"Must have been early August sometime. First week, or thereabouts."
"And when did you start smoking and drinking and eating the wrong foods?"
"Now don't lecture me, sonny," Jackson said. "I'v6 been living for sixty-nine years, eating all the wrong foods and doing all the wrong things. I like it that way, and if I can't keep it up, well then the hell with it."
"But you must have had pain," Hall said, frowning.
"Oh, sure, it kicked up some. Specially if I didn't eat. But I found a way to fix that.
"Yes?"
"Sure. They gave me this milk stuff at the hospital, and wanted me to keep on with it. Hundred times a day, in little sips. Milk stuff. Tasted like chalk. But I found a better thing."
"What was that?"
"Aspirin," Jackson said.
"Aspirin?"
"Sure. Works real nice."
"How much aspirin did you take?"
"Fair bit, toward the end. I was doing a bottle a day. You know them bottles it comes in?"
Hall nodded. No wonder the man was acid. Aspirin was acetylsalicylic acid, and if it was taken in sufficient quantities, it would acidify you. Aspirin was a gastric irritant, and it could exacerbate bleeding.
"Didn't anybody tell you aspirin would make the bleeding worse?" he asked.
"Sure," Jackson said. "They told me. But I didn't mind none. Because it stopped the pains, see. That, plus a little squeeze."
"Squeeze?"
"Red-eye. You know."
Hall shook his head. He didn't know.
"Sterno. Pink lady. You take it, see, and put it in cloth, and squeeze it out..."
Hall sighed. "You were drinking Sterno," he said.
"Well, only when I couldn't get nothing else. Aspirin and squeeze, see, really kills that pain."
"Sterno isn't only alcohol. It's methanol, too."
"Doesn't hurt you, does it?" Jackson asked, in a voice suddenly concerned.
"As a matter of fact, it does. It can make you go blind, and it can even kill you."
"Well, hell, it made me feel better, so I took it," Jackson said.
"Did this aspirin and squeeze have any effect on you? On your breathing?"
"Well, now you mention it, I was a tad short of breath. But what the hell, I don't need much breath at my age."
Jackson yawned and closed his eyes.
"You're awful full of questions, boy. I want to sleep now."
Hall looked at him, and decided the man was right. It would be best to proceed slowly, at least for a time. He crawled back down the tunnel and out to the main room. He turned to his assistant:
"Our friend Mr. Jackson has a two-year history of ulcer. We'd better keep the blood going in for another couple of units, then we can stop and see what's happening. Drop an NG tube and start icewater lavage."
A gong rang, echoing softly through the room.
"What's that?"
"The twelve-hour mark. It means we have to change our clothing. And it means you have a conference."
"I do? Where?"
"The CR off the dining room."
Hall nodded, and left.
***
In delta sector, the computers hummed and clicked softly, as Captain Arthur Morris punched through a new program on the console. Captain Morris was a programmer; he had been sent to delta sector by the command on Level I because no MCN messages had been received for nine hours. It was possible, of course, that there had been no priority transmissions; but it was also unlikely.