“It runs fine,” Devereaux said, “but it’s too goddamn noisy.” He glared at the motor, which was indeed buzzing like an angry hive.
“Hmm.” Goldfarb eyed the motor, too. “Maybe you could just leave it the way it is and soundproof the case.” He knew that was a technician’s solution, not an engineer’s, but he threw it out to see what Devereaux would make of it.
And Devereaux beamed. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he said reverently. “Let’s do it. Let’s see if we can do it, anyhow.”
“What measurements will we need for the case?” David asked, and answered his own question by measuring the motor. “Let me cut some sheet metal. We ought to have some sort of insulation around here, too. That’ll give us an idea of whether this’ll be practical.”
He’d got used to flanging up this, that, or the other thing in the RAF. Cutting sheet metal to size was as routine as sharpening a pencil. But when he was carrying the metal back to the motor, his hand slipped. He let out a yelp.
“What did you do?” Devereaux asked.
“Tried to cut my bloody finger off,” Goldfarb said. It was indeed bloody; he added, “I’m bleeding on the carpet,” and grabbed for his handkerchief.
Hal Walsh hurried over. “Let’s have a look at that, David,” he said in commanding tones. Goldfarb didn’t want to take off the handkerchief. The blood soaking through told its own story, though. Walsh clicked his tongue between his teeth. “You’re going to need stitches with that. There’s a new doctor’s office that’s opened up in the building next door, and a good thing right now. Come along with me.”
David didn’t argue. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so clumsy. He didn’t want to look at his hand. Whenever he did, he felt woozy and wobbly. Blood was supposed to stay on the inside, not go leaking out all over the place.
JANE ARCHIBALD M.D., read the sign on the door. “A lady doctor?” Goldfarb said.
“I hear she studied under the Lizards,” Walsh answered. “She ought to be able to patch you up, wouldn’t you say?”
“What happened here?” the receptionist asked when Walsh brought David into the office. Then she said, “Never mind. Come into the examining room with me, sir. The doctor will be with you right away.”
“Thanks,” David said vaguely. Hardly noticing he’d done so, he sat down on the chair there. He was cursing softly to himself in Yiddish when the doctor hurried into the room. He stopped in embarrassment all the worse because he hadn’t expected the female physician to be so decorative. More slowly than he should have, he realized this tall, blond, obviously Anglo-Saxon woman was unlikely to have understood his pungent remarks.
But her laughter said she did, which embarrassed him all the more. A moment later, she was all business. “Let’s have a look at it,” she said, her accent lower-class British or perhaps Australian. David undid the makeshift bandage. Dr. Archibald examined the wound and nodded briskly. “Yes, that’ll take a few stitches. Hold the edges together while I give you a bit of novocaine so you won’t feel the other needle so much.”
“All right,” he said, and did. As she injected him, he asked, “Do you really know Yiddish? How did that happen?”
“Just bits and pieces, Mister-?”Dr. Archibald said, threading catgut on whatever they used for sutures these days onto a needle.
“Goldfarb.” David looked away. He didn’t care to see what would happen next. “David Goldfarb.”
She stared at him, blue eyes going wide. “Not the David Goldfarb who’s related to Moishe and Reuven Russie?” She was so astonished, she almost-but not quite-forgot to start stitching him up.
And he was so astonished, he almost-but not quite-forgot to notice it stung despite the novocaine. “My cousins,” he answered automatically. “How do you know them?”
“I was at the Russie Medical College with Reuven,” she answered. “Hold still there, please. I want to put in a couple of more stitches.” That was spoken in physician’s tones. Then she went back to talking as if to a person: “I might have married Reuven, but he wanted to stay in Palestine and I couldn’t stomach living under the Race any more, not after what they did to Australia.” Her tone changed again: “There. That’s done. Let me bandage you.”
As she wrapped the finger with gauze and adhesive tape, Goldfarb said, “I didn’t meet you when I was in Jerusalem. I would have remembered.” That was probably more than he should have said. He realized it too late. Well, Naomi didn’t need to know about it.
Dr. Archibald didn’t get angry. She’d probably heard such things from the age of fourteen up. “It’s very good to meet you now,” she said. “I heard about your troubles in France, and getting out of England. That you’d wound up here in Edmonton had slipped my mind. You’ll need to come back in about ten days to have the sutures removed. See Myrtle out front for an appointment.” She stuck her head out the door and called to the receptionist:
“No charge for this one, Myrtle. Old family friend.”
As David went back to the Widget Works, Hal Walsh turned to him and said, “I saw the doctor. Old family friend? You lucky dog.” David smiled, doing his best to look like the ladykiller he didn’t come close to being.
Felless hadn’t had a holiday in much too long. She hadn’t done much work after fleeing Marseille for the new town in the Arabian Peninsula, but life as a refugee was vastly different from life as a vacationer. Here in Australia, too, the Race had claimed the land for its own, even more emphatically than it had in Arabia. And, unlike in Arabia, here no fanatical Big Uglies willing, even eager, to die for their superstitions prowled the landscape and had to be warded against.
The landscape in the central part of the continent reminded Felless eerily of Home. The rocks and sand and soil were all but identical. The plants were similar in type though different in detail. Many of the crawling creatures reminded members of the Race of those of Home, though a rather distressing number of them were venomous.
Only the furry animals that dominated land life on Tosev 3 really told Felless she remained on an alien world. Even those were different from the large beasts on the rest of the planet; Australia, by all indications, had long been ecologically isolated. The bipedal hopping animals filling the large-herbivore ecological niche hereabouts were so preposterous, Felless’ mouth fell open in astonished laughter the first time she turned an eye turret toward one. But the creatures were very well adapted to their environment.
She saw less of that environment than she might have otherwise. Business Administrator Keffesh had been even more generous than she’d hoped after she arranged the release of the imprisoned Big Ugly, Monique Dutourd. She’d brought a lot of ginger to Australia, and she was enjoying it.
That required care. Felless would spend one day in an orgy of tasting, the next in her hostel room waiting for her pheromones to subside so she could go out in public without exciting all the males who smelled them into a mating frenzy. Getting meals sent to the room rather than eating in the refectory cost extra. Felless authorized the change without the slightest hesitation.
All the individuals who brought meals to her were females. Once she noticed the pattern, she found that very interesting. Were the males and females who ran the hostels quietly adapting to the unavoidable presence of ginger on Tosev 3? She couldn’t have proved it. She didn’t dare ask about it. But the assumption certainly looked reasonable.
On the days when she was out and about, she noticed that ginger did indeed make its presence known in these new towns. She couldn’t smell the pheromones she emitted in her season; they were for males. But she saw a couple of matings on the sidewalks, and she saw more than a few males hurrying along in unusually erect posture and with the scales of their crests upraised. That meant they smelled female pheromones and were looking for a chance to mate.