MERCY FLIGHT
by MACK REYNOLDS
It was a lesson you learned in the Space-Forces,
and you learned it good: Out in the lonely void, when
you get in a jam, you're on your own ... it's you
against everything and everybody. Anything goes....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The phone rang and Ed Kerry wasn't doing anything so he picked it up and said, "Yeah?"
He said yeah a few more times, his eyes widening infinitesimally each time, and finally wound up with, "Okay, Bunny."
He hung up and said, "That was Bunny, up in Oneonta. She says a guy is coming in from Luna with a kid for emergency hospitalization, radiation burns or something."
Jake was sitting back in his swivel chair, his feet on the desk and his hands clasped behind his head. He growled, "That's the trouble with women in this game; they've got no story sense. She phones all the way from Oneonta on a story that's been run a hundred times. Every time somebody gets good and sick up on Luna they bring 'em to Earth for treatment." He shrugged. "Okay, so it's a kid this time. Do up about a stick of it, Kerry, and we'll put it on page three if you can work it into a tear-jerker."
Ed Kerry said, "You didn't let me finish, Jake. Something's wrong with this guy's radio."