Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/70

98 them now and she could see the lines in his skin, carving, their mark around his eyes and mouth.

None of the hospital sounds penetrated to this room. She felt that the rest of the world had dropped away.

"Really, Dr. Smith," she began, still vaguely troubled.

He raised one of his pale, graceful hands. How well she knew their skill

It was that moment, as the thought of his surgical skill crossed her mind, which brought her with a jar to a sudden realization. All at once she needed no evidence. Never could she dispute him as a surgeon, but as a man he was devious.

"I want to leave," she said decisively.

Strangely, she did not stand. Why didn't she simply get up and walk out? The question tormented her as he allowed the silence to go on.

"You may leave, Sara. If you wish," his warm voice said. And still she sat. I've got to find out, she told herself.

"You did something," she said slowly. "You did something to each of those patients who left the hospital on their own."

She had expected denial, gracious, unworried, but denial nevertheless. Instead Dr. Smith looked at her thoughtfully.

"You are everything I thought you were," he said with satisfaction. "Sara, there is not another human being in this hospital who connects me with those departures!"

She went cold. He was speaking something she knew but now there were implications. Should anything happen to her, he would not be suspected. And more than that, continued her frantic mind, he can get away whenever he wants.

"What did you do?" she asked. She knew she ought to leave. Now. She ought not wait for his answer. But she waited, and the instant lengthened. He would not have put out a hand to stop her, but she waited.

"I inserted a capsule in the large intestine," he told her with calm.

"A capsule," she gasped.

"Yes," he nodded, his mouth faintly smiling. "The capsule dissolves slowly so that the patient has four days for the healing of his incision."

Four, she repeated voicelessly. There was a key there. On the fourth night. Dr. Smith paid his patients a visit!

"What," she asked, forcing herself to go on, "is in the capsule?"

"The ingredients for change," he said. "You here in this world might call the process induced amnesia. The patient certainly is washed clean of his past because of its introduction into his bloodstream."

She had to take off her gloves, for her hands were so damp and sticky she could not bear the touch of the leather.