... no word has yet been received, but it is believed that the Eurasian governments may be in session several hours more in an attempt to stem the inflation. On the home front, the stock-market nosedive, which resulted from the new Senate taxation bill yesterday, leveled off when the Secretary of Corporative Business announced this morning that the government would abandon attempts to enforce the new law, at least for the time being. Secretary Barnes stated that further study of the bill would be undertaken when more pressing governmental problems had been cleared—
Jeff snapped off the switch with a snarl. The street passing the Center was crowded. Lines of cars moved into and out of the traffic stream from the huge Center parking tiers. The building rose high, tier upon tier. Its walls gleamed white in the bright morning sunlight, reflecting brilliant facets of golden light from thousands of polished windows.
It was an immense building, sprawling across six perfectly landscaped city blocks, tall trees and cool green terraces setting off the glistening beauty of the architecture. The structure sent tower after tower up from the dingy street below, and at the foot of the towers was a buzz of furious activity. Supply trucks, carrying food and supplies for the twenty-two thousand beds and the people in them, and for the additional thirteen thousand people who worked day and night to keep the huge hospital running, moved toward the unloading platforms.
The Hoffman Medical Center was an age-old dream which had finally come true. Even those who had conceived it had not realized the tremendous need it would fulfill. From its very inception, no expense had been spared. The finest architects had thrown up the shimmering ward-towers, turned toward the sun, to bring light to the sick and injured who rested and healed within. Equipment unequaled anywhere in the world had filled the Center's dressing and surgical rooms. The doctors, nurses, researchers and technicians who staffed the institution had been gathered from the world over. And all the world had conceded the Hoffman Center its place as leader in the realm of medicine, ever since the cornerstone had been laid that rainy morning in the spring of the year 2085. Twenty-four years had passed since that day, and in those years the Hoffman Center had never once faltered in its leadership.
The men in the car sat in stony silence. Finally, Jeff Meyer stirred, extended his hand briefly to Ted Bahr. "You'll cover things out here?"
"Don't worry about it." Bahr shook the hand. "Well wait to hear from you." He watched, almost wistfully, as the huge man cut through the traffic and headed for the large glass doors. Then, with a sigh, he stepped on the starter button and snaked the little jet car into the stream of traffic moving toward the city.
Jeff Meyer stopped in the great, bustling lobby and stared about him almost in awe. He had never been inside the Hoffman Center before, though he had heard of it many times and in many places. Since it had taken over service of the huge metropolis of Boston-New Haven-New York-Philadelphia, the newspapers and TV had been full of stories of the lifesaving and healing that had gone on within its walls. The disease research, conducted by specialists in all phases of medicine who were for the first time gathered together under one agency, had startled the world again and again.
But there had been other stories, too—not from the papers and TV, not these stories. These tales had come by word of mouth: a short sentence or two, a nervous laugh, a sneering joke, a rumor, a whispered story from a wide-eyed alky hanging over a bar. Not the sort of stories one really believed, but the sort that made one wonder.
Several dozen white-garbed women moved across the floor of the huge lobby and talked quietly among themselves. Jeff sniffed uneasily. There was a curiously distasteful odor in the air, an odor of almost unhealthy cleanliness and spotless preservation. The lobby was a mill of activity: the elevators and interbuilding jitneys terminated here; people moved briskly, carrying with them the familiar air of hurry and vast pressure that infected the whole world outside.