Chapter one

AMAN NAMED TIBOR KÁROLY ZSEBOK, who had escaped from the People’s Hungarian Protectorate to the North American Continent’s sanctuary late in the year 2087, invented it. While working as a bonded technician for the Orrin Tool and Tree Conglomerate — on a design to create a robot capable of fine watch repairs — he discovered the factor of multiple choice. He was able to apply this concept to the cellulose-plasteel brain of his watch repair robot’s pilot model, and came up with the startling “physician mechanical.” Infinitely more intricate than a mere robot-mechanical, yet far simpler than a human brain, it was capable — after proper conditioning — of the most delicate of operations. Further, the “phymech,” as it was tagged soon after, was capable of infallible diagnosis, involving anything organic.

The mind was still locked to the powers of the metal physician, but for the ills of the body there was no more capable administrator.

Zsebok died several weeks after his pilot model had been demonstrated at a special closed session of the House of Congress; from a coronary thrombosis. But his death was more of a propelling factor to widespread recognition of the phymech than his life could ever have been.

The House of Congress appointed a committee of fact-finders, from the firm of Data, Unlimited — who had successfully completed the Orinoco Basin Probe — and compared their three-month findings with the current Histophysiology appropriations allocated to the Secretary of Medicine.

They found phymechs could be operated in all the socialized hospitals of the Continent, for far less than was being spent on doctors’ salaries.

After all, a doctor continued to need.

A phymech absorbed one half pint of liquified radiol every three years, and an occasional lubrication, to insure proper functioning.

So the government passed a law. The Hippocratic Law of 2088, which said in essence:

“All ministrations shall henceforth be confined to government-sponsored hospitals; emergency cases necessitating attendance outside said institutions shall be handled only , repeat only , by registered Physician Mechanicals issuing from registered hospital pools. Any irregularities or deviations from this procedure shall be handled as cases outside the law, and illegal attendance by non-Mechanical Physicians shall be severely punishable by cancellation of practicing license and/or fine and imprisonment …”

Johns Hopkins was the first to be defranchised. Then the Columbia School of Medicine, and the other colleges followed shortly thereafter.

A few specialist schools were maintained for a time; but it became increasingly apparent after the first three years of phymech operation that even the specialists were slow compared to the robot doctors. So even they passed away. Doctors who had been licensed before the innovations the phymechs brought, were maintained at slashed salaries and were reduced to assistants, interns.

They were, however, given a few annuities, which boiled down eventually to 1) a franking privilege so postage was unnecessary on their letters; 2) a small annual dole; 3) subscriptions to current medical journals (now filled more with electronic data pertinent to phymechs than surgical techniques); and 4) honorary titles. Doctors in title only.

There was dissatisfaction.

In 2091 Kohlbenschlagg, the greatest brain surgeon of them all, died. He passed away on a quiet October morning, with the climate dome purring ever so faintly above the city, and the distant scream of the transport sphincter opening to allow the Earth-Mars 8:00 liner through. A quiet, drawn-faced man with a great talent in slim fingers. He died in his sleep, and the papers clacked out of the homeslots, with heavy black headlines across yellow plastic sheets. But not about Kohlbenschlagg. He was yesterday’s news. The headline was about the total automation changeover in the Ford-Chrysler plants.

On page one hundred and eighteen there was a five-line obituary that labeled him “a prephymech surgeon of some skill.” It also reported he had died of acute alcoholism.

It was not specifically true.

His death was caused by a composite. Acute alcoholism.

And a broken heart.

He died alone, but he was remembered. By the men and women who, like Kohlbenschlagg, had spent their early lives in dedication to the staff and the lion’s head, the hand and eagle’s eye. By men and women who could not adjust. The small legion of men and women who still walked the antiseptic corridors of the hospitals.

Men like Stuart Bergman, M.D.

This is his story.

Chapter two

The main operation theater of Memorial was constructed along standard lines. The observation bubble was set high on one wall, curving large and down, with a separating section allowing two viewing stands. The operating stage, on a telescoping base that raised or lowered it for easier observation from the bubble, squatted in the center of the room. There were no operating lamps in the ceiling, as in old-style hospitals, for the phymechs had their powerful eternalight mounted atop their heads, serving their needs more accurately than any outside light source could have.

Beyond the stage, there were anaesthetic spheres clipped to the walls — in five-container groups — where they could be easily reached should the phymech’s personal supply run dry, and a rapidroll belt running from a digital supply machine beside the operating table to the see-through selector cabinets that stood by the exits.

That was all; everything that was needed.

Even the spheres and extra cabinets might have been dispensed with; but somehow they had been maintained, just slightly limiting the phymech’s abilities. As though to reassure some unnamed person that they needed help. Even if it was mechanical help to help the mechanicals.

The three phymechs were performing the operation directly beneath the bubble when Bergman came in. The bubble was dark, but he could see Murray Thomas’s craggy features set against the light of the operating stage. The illumination had been a concession to the human observers, for with their own eternalights, the phymechs could work in a total blackout during a power failure.

Bergman held the crumpled news sheet in his hand, page one hundred and eighteen showing, and stared at the scene below him.

Naturally, it would be a brain operation today! The one day it should be a mere goiter job, or a plantar stripping, if just to keep him steady; but no, it had to be a brain job, with the phymech’s thirty telescoping, snakelike appendages extruded and snicking into the patient.

Bergman swallowed hard, and made his way down the slope of aisle to the empty seat beside Thomas. He was a dark man, with an almost unnaturally spadelike face. High, prominent cheekbones, giving him a gaunt look, and veins that stood out along the temples. His nose was thin and humped where it had been broken years before.

His eyes were deep and darkest blue, so they appeared black. His hair was thin, roughly combed; back from the forehead without affectation or wave, just combed, because he had to keep the hair from his eyes.

He slumped into the seat, keeping his eyes off the operation below, keeping the face of Murray Thomas in his sight, with the light from below playing up across the round, unflustered features. He held out the news sheet, touching Thomas’s arm with it; for the first time, as the young doctor started, Thomas realized Bergman was there. He turned slowly, and his placid stare met the wild look of Bergman; a question began to form, but Thomas cast a glance behind him, toward the top of the seat tier, at the silent dark bulk of the head resident. He put a hand on Bergman’s arm, and then he saw the news sheet.