No Charge for Alterations

Wanta know what's wrong with women these days? Spoiled! The whole kit and kaboodle of 'em. They want to sing in nightclubs and hook up with some millionaire and wear beautiful clothes. Housework is something for gadgets to take care of, with maids to run the gadgets. Afraid to get a few calluses on their dainty hands!
We got a way to handle that on Deneb. A girl gets highfalutin up there, the Doc puts her in the Ego Alter room. Thicken up her ankles a little, take some of the sparkle out of her eyes and hair, and you get a woman fit to pull a plow!
Hold it, Madam! H. L. Gold said that; not us. Personally, we like girls—not Percherons!
If there was one thing Dr. Kalmar hated, and there were many, it was having a new assistant fresh from a medical school on Earth. They always wanted to change things. They never realized that a planet develops its own techniques to meet its own requirements, which are seldom similar to those of any other world. Dr. Kalmar never got along with his assistants and he didn't expect to get along with this young Dr. Hoyt who was coming in on the transfer ship from Vega.
Dr. Kalmar had been trained on Earth himself, of course, but he wistfully remembered how he had revered Dr. Lowell when he had been Lowell's assistant. He'd known that his own green learning was no match for Dr. Lowell's wisdom and experience after 30 years on Deneb, and he had avidly accepted his lessons.
Why, he grumbled to himself on his way to the spaceport to meet the unknown whippersnapper, why didn't Earth turn out young doctors the way it used to? They ought to have the arrogance knocked out of them before they left medical school. That's what must have happened to him, because his attitude had certainly been humble when he landed.
The spaceport was jammed, naturally. Ship arrivals were infrequent enough to bring everybody from all over the planet who was not on duty at the farms, mines, factories, freight and passenger jets and all the rest of the busy activities of this comparatively new colony. They brought their lunches and families and stood around to watch. Dr. Kalmar went to the platform.

H. L. Gold
О книге

Язык

Английский

Год издания

2010-04-14

Темы

Science fiction; Physicians -- Fiction; Space colonies -- Fiction

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