"Me handle them?" I said. "What about the rest of the Apparatus here? Isn't that your job?"

"It's your hospital. You didn't clear it with the Officer's Council."

"I have to do everything!" I wailed.

"And be careful how you handle the picket line," he said.

"What picket line?"

"The local doctors and their assistants."

When we arrived at the hospital, there was a huge mob. They were mostly mothers and children. They were standing there docilely the way Turkish people do. They are a very docile people, particularly just before they explode. They are obedient to the will of Allah. But Allah apparently wants holy wars at the first chance.

I pushed my way through them. There was a lot of coughing. Tuberculosis is endemic in Turkey. Eyes turned my way. Diseased eyes. Trachoma is also endemic in Turkey. There was the occasional twisted limb and the inevitable sores.

The hospital was surrounded by mounds of raw earth—it had not been landscaped. But the building itself was imposing—spreading and low. It was approached by some broad steps and a wide walk and a big front door.

A huge white board was nearby. It had a red crescent moon on it. On most of Earth they use a red cross on ambulances and such, but in Turkey it's a crescent, the symbol of rebirth.

There was another big sign. It said:

WORLD UNITED CHARITIES MERCY AND

BENEVOLENT HOSPITAL

Mudlick Construction Company

I could see nothing wrong with this. What riot? Faht Bey always exaggerates so.

I went up the broad steps, pushing through the crowd standing on them. I collided with the picket line!

"Stop!" said an overbearing man carrying a placard.

"Anyone crossing this picket line is an enemy of the Turkish national pride." He pointed at the placards they were carrying.

The crude placards said:

UNFAIR TO ORGANIZED MEDICINE!

NO SCABS! DOWN WITH CHARITY!

The doctors and assistants carrying them looked very tough.

There was a pedestal on the flat place at the top of the steps. Probably it was for a statue not yet arrived. Faht Bey was pushing at me from behind to get up on the pedestal. I had no choice. I mounted up.

What a sea of faces!

What a lot of coughs and sick eyes.

What a lot of limbs and other ailments being held up!

I knew the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Turkey was very active against disease. Also the Ministry of Labor. Also a lot of philanthropic organizations. But handling Turkey was a big job. I hadn't realized there were so many sick people about. Riffraff.

I opened my mouth. I was going to tell them all to go home. I didn't get a chance.

The big doctor on the picket line shouted, "I was trained in the United States. I know how doctoring must be run. THERE MUST BE NO FREE CLINIC!"

Instantly, the picket line closed against the bottom of the pedestal and began to hit me with their placards and sticks!

I dodged, I ducked, I tried to defend myself.

The others in the picket line began to chant, hitting at me to keep time, "NO FREE CLINIC! NO FREE CLINIC!"

I screamed, "Of course there will be no free clinic!"

The crowd went into instant action. They had mud clods! The air was suddenly dark with them! They were throwing the mud at ME!

The doctors let up first. The huge one turned to the crowd. "You see! There will be no free clinic!"

Instantly, the crowd began to throw at both me and the doctors! The jeers rose to a savage roar.

"Where are the security troops?" I screamed at Faht Bey.

He was cowering at the far end of the steps. "It's your hospital!" he shouted above the din.

A mud clod hit me in the face!

It knocked me off the pedestal!

The blood started to pour out of my nose!

Suddenly, a tall, gawky figure in a white coat leaped up on the pedestal, holding up his arms. It was Prahd Bittlestiffender!

The crowd stopped throwing to see what he would say.

In purist, scholarly Turkish, Prahd bellowed, "Fellow citizens! Fellow Turks! I come before you today to issue the clarion call to freedom! It is time, due time, that we, the children of Allah, rose as one and cast from off our necks the iron heel of the foreign oppressor!"

My nose was bleeding so much, I thought I would bleed to death. There must be cold water in that hospital. I scrabbled backwards to the door. I got into a hall.

Prahd's voice carried. "A United Turkey facing outward against her rapacious enemies..." I was too far away to hear more.

I got into a bathroom, closed the door and found cold water. I sat on a toilet seat and held wet toilet paper against the back of my neck.

I half expected the mob, at any moment, to tear down the door and rip me limb from limb. But my nose and precious blood came first.

At long last, the bleeding stopped.

It was awfully quiet outside. Had the security guards arrived and shot them all?

I risked a peek. I was looking into a big waiting room. There were lines of mothers there, all quiet, all orderly.

Tables had been set up.

The local doctors were working around the tables, doing the various things doctors do. They seemed very cheerful as they handled people one by one. I didn't see any money being passed over by the mothers. I couldn't understand it.

Afraid that I would be seen and pelted again, I crept down a hall.

A hand on my shoulder. I jumped.

"I was just coming to find you." It was young Doctor Prahd Bittlestiffender. He led me into a small operating room. He began to examine my nose.

"What did you do?" I said. "What was that speech?"

"That was a speech made by Kemal Ataturk at the beginning of the revolution," said Prahd.

Ah, Kemal Ataturk. The Turks worshipped him. They'd recognized the speech and so they'd stopped to listen.

"Ouch," I said. He was probing up into my nose.

"Hold still, please."

"What about the free clinic?" I said, shuddering at the idea of the expense.

"Oh," said Prahd, putting a probe in deeper, "I told them it was all free."

"Ouch," I said.

"I told them it was, after all, their hospital, so they ought to volunteer and fix up the grounds and act as nurses and things. They thought that was wonderful."

"Ouch," I said. "But those doctors?"

"I appointed them all part-time staff to serve a couple hours a day at high salary."

"Ouch," I said. And not because he'd stabbed me. This hospital was suddenly a liability, not a profit! "Where do you think you got authority to do that?"

"Last night, you told me I was in charge of the hospital," said Prahd. "So I did exactly what I knew you would want me to do, Officer Gris. Cure the sick. Help the poor and needy. Better relations with the tribes of this primitive outpost. I admire you for your broad grasp of interstellar relations. Does my salary start now?"

"Oh, my Gods!" I said.

"I can speak Italian, too," he said persuasively.

"How do I know you can cure anybody?" I snarled. "Your test has just begun! It is just barely possible you will get paid when this hospital starts to make money. Real money!" He was jabbing harder at my nose. "Ouch!"

Because my sweater was all clogged up with mud, Prahd took a white coat he'd brought and put it on me. "I want to show you the place because it has problems," he said.

I bristled. How could it have problems? I had designed it myself. Spent a long time at it, too.

I followed him out. The lines were moving in the main room and it seemed peaceful.

We went down a hall. An operating room, equipment not fully set up. Interview rooms not wholly set up. Then a lot of doors. Wards. A vast number of them. I started to go in one.

"No," said Prahd. "It's full."

"That many patients already?"

"No, no. All these ward rooms and all these private rooms are full of equipment and stores. The base crew and I worked all night. We didn't get further than changing the labels and moving it over here. There's enough equipment and supplies here to operate several hospitals and operate them for years. That's what I wanted to show you. We've got no room for patients. It's all in use for storage space. I need another building just to store things! And a big refrigerated room when I start to build up cultures and cell banks."