This medic lacked something in bedside manner. No doubt he figured me for a charity patient he could talk down to. No sense in reacting too strongly to his attitude, however. I picked up my sentence where he had interrupted it. “If I hadn’t learned the trick of drawing them up into the body cavity for emergencies. It’s an almost involuntary reaction to danger, now. The last thing I did as I saw that kick coming—”

  He looked at me with a certain grudging appreciation. “You did that deliberately? I assumed the kick had luckily driven them there.”

  I nodded. “I would have done better with more warning. It certainly hurt!”

  “Because you were only half successful,” he said. “Some parts of the body don’t heal, Striker. I can’t promise—”

  Even through the euphoria of the medication, that hurt. How far had I been unmanned?

  “Time will tell,” he concluded with his damned mock cheer. “The saddle-block will be wearing off soon, and you’ll feel pain.

  The more the better, frankly; it’ll mean the nerves are sound. If there’s no pain, you’ll really be hurting! Ha ha.”

  “Ha ha,” I echoed sourly.

  “The nurse will give you a shot when you ask for it.”

  “I don’t drink, Doc,” I said. “Ha ha.”

  He frowned. He really wasn’t much for his own medicine. He got up and headed off to his next case, no doubt to gladden other hearts as delicately as he had mine.

  The pain did get bad, fortunately, and in due course I gave up and drew on my ki to suppress it. Ki is a wonderful inner power, but not to be abused, and for me it was erratic. But this time it worked.

  The nurse came with her needle, and was amazed when I waved it away. Nurses don’t understand ki, unfortunately.

  I must have slept another hour or two, for I felt better when I awoke. I swung my legs off the bed and stood unsteadily, glad the numbness was gone.

  Ouch! I had had surgery, all right. That woman had really scored, and it had all been unnecessary. If I hadn’t stood bemused by the sight of her—

  I could walk. It required strenuous discipline to contain the agony of every step, but that was all. My muscles had not been damaged, after all. Obviously I had suffered crushed veins or nerve damage, and a substantial bruise, as well as the surgery. All that would take time to heal.

  So I walked spreadeagled, trying unsuccessfully to summon the ki again. I hoped no one would see me and inquire whether I had been gang-raped. You get some sick humor in hospitals.

  I was sure I was not supposed to be out of bed, but there were things I had to know. I got into my robe and marched out the door as though on routine business. Naturally the nurses ignored me. I walked down the length of the hall, stopping at the double doors to the lobby. I could read the sign backwards from my side: No admission. Cut out the Adm and it would read the same forward or back. noission. Not that it mattered.

  I turned about, trying not to grimace from the sensation that shot through my groin with this twisting motion and ambled back. I had glanced surreptitiously into each room as I came down, and verified another suspicion: several of my students and at least one demon were also here. From the look of it, they were all considerably worse off than I, and only one seemed to be conscious. I couldn’t tell who, because his face was bandaged, but I saw his brown belt and part of his judogi hanging over the foot of the bed. He must have insisted they be close, to give him moral support, so the hospital personnel had obliged him just that much. I liked that fighting spirit.

  I walked boldly in. “Hello, karateka!” I said in a professional tone, a parody of the doctor’s. “I did surgery on your brain. I saved one hemisphere. You’re lucky you’re not senile!”

  He recognized me immediately despite the masking of his eyes by the bandages. “Mr. Striker! How’d you get past the guards?”

  “Didn’t have to,” I admitted. “I’m in two, two rooms down. Walking wounded, though I’d rather not walk! Who are you?”

  He smiled beneath the bandages, knowing I knew his voice. I know all my students; they are not mere meal-tickets to me. “Andy Jones. I feel like hell.”

  “You look like hell!” I told him, putting the right amount of cheer into it so that he would know I was joking. The irony was that he did look bad.

  There was another patient in the room, an old man with a cast on one scrawny arm. I thought he was asleep, but now he laughed. “‘Bout time somebody told the truth around here! He looks like to die, and I don’t want his ghost haunting me.”

  I smiled, though I wasn’t sure I appreciated his remark. “What happened to you, Andy?” He was a good student, a sincere worker, and I hated to see him in this condition.

  “I think I’m blind.” His chin was firm, but there was a quiver to his lip.

  That was my fear for him also. “They wouldn’t have you in here like this if they didn’t figure they could cure you,” I said.

  “Now you’re lying, just like the rest of ‘em,” the old man said.

  I decided to let the old bastard have it. People with the foulest tongues are apt to be the most sensitive to incoming foulness. And I wanted to verify certain impressions of the past few hours. “How about your memories of the fracas?” I suggested to Andy. “Details, I mean.”

  For an instant he smiled. There was an understanding between us, though I felt a tinge of guilt too. The old man probably wasn’t responsible for his lack of tact; he might be in pain, or even senile. People in their declining years often do not realize how loud they talk or how badly they come across. But Andy and I were in pain too, more than physical. We needed catharsis.

  “It was pretty bad,” he said. “You know how those demons came after us with weapons, and all of us barehanded. We tried to fight, but—”

  “I know,” I said grimly. I knew the oldster was listening closely. “How’d the others make out?”

  “I didn’t see all of it. Things were pretty wild and crowded. Just one I watched, with an ice pick; he lunged at Joe. Joe blocked it the way you taught us, the same as the knife defense. And then Joe tried the uki goshi floating hip throw, and threw him, but Joe didn’t hang on to the armed hand.”

  “Oh-oh,” I said.

  “And on the way down the demon stabbed him in the kidney. God, those bastards are fast! I don’t think Joe made it.”

  I hadn’t seen Joe in the hospital. Either he was dead, or in intensive care. “I’m afraid not many did,” I said.

  “Hey, what kind of a party was this?” the old man asked querulously.

  Andy ignored him. “Someone else caught at one of those chains, and punched the demon in the nose with an inverted fist blow, the uraken. Smashed it flat! But then a demon with a knife got him in the side. The blood spurted out all over the two of them and on the floor—”

  The oldster had had enough. He clutched for the basin beside his bed. We had torpedoed him, but I found no pride in it. Sick men teasing other sick men, and the sickness was multi-leveled. “You,” I said. “You, Andy—how did you catch it?”

  “Two of us came after the demon with the sickle,” he said.

  “Matt and I. Matt went in first, trying for a shuto blow to the head.”

  “I saw that,” I said. “That sickle took off his hand! Then the point went right through his body.”

  “Yes. I jumped in—I was almost crazy with rage, and fear too, I guess. Never felt that way before. Always thought I’d run from trouble.”

  “Smartest possible move,” I said.

  “I put a naked strangle on him and twisted his head. I had the pleasure—this sounds horrible, but I swear it was a pleasure—I pulled back and heard his neck crack, and then—” He paused.

  I remembered my first glimpse of the black woman. The karate mistress. I had then thought it a trick of my imagination. “What then?”

  “Someone caught me from behind. A woman, by the feel.”

  “A woman?” I challenged him because I wanted to get it exactly straight.

  “I didn’t see her, but her long nails raked across my face. I— my eyes—”

  “How did you know it was a woman, if you didn’t see her?” I demanded, morbidly fascinated. No doubt about it now: this was the female who had scored on me. It hadn’t been imagination.

  “My head collided with her body as I fell back.” The blank bandaged face turned toward me, and I could almost feel the buried eyes searching my face. “I—I felt her breasts on the back of my neck. If I wasn’t dreaming it—”

  “You weren’t dreaming. I saw her. I fought her.”

  He licked his lips, relieved. “That’s about all I remember. I woke up here.”

  “That’s about all there was to remember,” I said. “I mixed in with my nunchakus—but that same black bitch kicked me in the crotch.”

  “Ouch!” he said. “But you always told us how to guard—”

  “I guess I didn’t follow my own advice!” I said. “I was amazed by the sight of her, there among those demons. Never saw a female demon before. And she had a swift motion. Fastest kick I ever experienced.”

  “That’s some demon,” he murmured.

  “Some demon,” I agreed ruefully. “I didn’t see long nails on her, though. She must have been using metal claws, artificial nails, and took them off later. Maybe you’re lucky; she scraped your eyes, instead of gouging them. The eyeballs should be in place and intact. The doctors can fix that sort of damage.”

  “You think so?” he asked hopefully.

  “I think so,” I said, believing it.

  By this time the nurses had discovered my absence. They were standing in the door, frowning in a manner calculated to intimidate the most resistant patient. “Okay, wardens, I’ll go quietly,” I said. “Don’t take it out on my friend. He didn’t know I was an escapee.”

  Andy grabbed my arm. “Thanks, Mr. Striker,” he said. Thanks for coming! You’ve given me hope.”

  “You’ve helped me too,” I said. “We’ll talk again soon. Get some sleep.” I almost said “shut-eye,” but that remark would have been a disaster for a man concerned about possible blindness.

  Back in my own bed, my thoughts were not quiet. I lay awake, pondering the problem of drugs in general and Kill-13 in particular. For there was no avoiding the fact that this drug had cost me the lives or health of a number of my students, and perhaps cost me my manhood too. I had figured it enough to stay off drugs myself and to keep my students off them, but the drug problem had suddenly come out to find us anyway.

  Drugs have been around a long time, perhaps as long as man himself. We in the martial arts can usually handle them. In fact, judo has been used in a limited way as a cure for certain addictions. If a person has nothing special to live for, and he falls into the crutch of the alternate reality of drugs, participation in a good martial art can provide the meaning he needs. Yoga can do that too, and religion, and perhaps any other disciplined interest.

  But it couldn’t, it seemed, deal with Kill-13. This drug was to other drugs as a grand prix racer to a go-cart. It seemed to be addicting within the first week of use, and it had a special appeal for athletes and martial artists.

  There has always been a drug problem among athletes, with both individual performers like weight lifters and team performers like football players. Not because they crave hallucination or escape. The opposite: they are aggressively competitive. They want to succeed outstandingly, to win. Every contestant wants the trophy, and his ultimate goal is the world’s record for his class. Some of the worst offenders are the muscle builders, the Mr. America competitors and similar types. These pretty boys really go out for the muscle-tissue drugs, because in this way they can make tremendous physical gains in a much shorter time than would otherwise be possible. In fact, they can put on more muscle than any non-user can, though there is some question whether they can put it to good use. Appearance is everything, not performance. It is said that a good percentage of them are homosexual. This sort of drug use flowers because there are no regulations governing it in professional sports.

  It is a different matter in the Olympics. After the contests, the players have to give urine samples to be instantly analyzed, and there are always a few caught even though they know of the procedure. There are periodic rumors of un-analyzable drugs, developed by the Communists, that enable them to do so well in competition.

  The thing is, the athlete who comes in second after rigorous training and maximum effort could come in first with judicious use of certain drugs. Quite possibly he comes in second only because the competition is drugged. So the users become winners, and the practice inevitably spreads. The athletes themselves may not like it, but they have little choice in a world that loves only winners. A competitor has three choices: he can use drugs; he can be an also-ran; or he can drop out of competition. It is that simple and compelling.

  The main drugs used in athletics are steroids, amphetamines, and barbiturates, often in combination. The steroids are related to the male hormones. They facilitate the growth of muscle, much more and much faster than normal. But this must be accompanied by much exercise, so a stimulant is used to prevent fatigue and sleepiness. This is an amphetamine, “speed,” “bennies,” etc. But then it can be hard to relax, so a depressant drug is taken: barbiturates, “downers,” “red devils,” etc. Thus the training routine amounts to amphetamines in the morning, steroids in the day, and barbiturates at night.

  Of course there are certain side effects. Amphetamines depress hunger but increase thirst. The user drinks much more than normal, and urinates more. He develops a tolerance, so that heavier doses accomplish less. Hallucinations are possible, waking nightmares. Eventually irreversible brain damage is done, as cells die and brain tissue shrinks. Sexual abnormalities may develop in the male, such as priapism: sustained and painful erection without real desire. Weight is lost, and the user gets extremely nervous.

  The steroids deliver the muscle, but also cause the man’s breasts to enlarge, and his testes may shrink. He loses his sexual appetite. His whole life tempo seems to accelerate, so that he matures more rapidly—but by the same token, he seems to age faster. Body hair is lost. He can suffer liver and kidney damage and is prone to cancer, often of the prostate. And so, gradually, he is emasculated.

  That’s why I believe such drug dependence is bad, quite apart from ethical considerations. It is measurably, physically harmful to the body in the long run, and perhaps the short run too.

  But the effects of Kill-13 are worse, in proportion to its potency. It builds muscle so rapidly that the whole body is put under severe strain. Vital nutrients are drawn from the system, impoverishing everything else in favor of the large muscles being developed. Massive infusions of vitamins, minerals, protein and other foods can alleviate this somewhat, but an addict is not the sort to bother with a healthy diet. Not a Kill-13 addict! So this drug can be fatal, leaving behind a muscle-bound body.

  “Live fast, die young, and have a handsome corpse,” I muttered to myself, remembering the saying that once had been humorous.

  “Eh?”

  I looked up, startled. I had been alone in my room, but now I saw that I had acquired a roommate. I recognized him, too: the obnoxious old man who had been with Andy. “What are you doing in here?” I demanded.

  “Got moved in while you was snoozin’,” he said.

  I hadn’t been snoozing; I had been thinking. But the effect was the same: I had failed to protest the addition of a roommate. My fault. “Why didn’t you stay with Andy?”

  “They took him to surgery. Guess they wanted to clean up the room.”

  So they moved a patient out? Could be; the rationale of hospital procedure was not my strong point. I hated to be ailing, ever, and to be confined however briefly to any such institution—well, I knew I was prejudiced. It was just possible that they considered this man to be a bad influence on Andy, so had moved him in with a less critical patient. If I could get up and walk around, I was a prime candidate.

  “Well, let me snooze some more, okay?” I said.

  “Just one thing, youngster. I didn’t puke in there because of what you kids were talking about. I got a stomach condition. Nothing fazes me except hospital food.”

  “That figures.” I closed my eyes, dismissing him.

  He shut up, and I resumed my consideration of Kill-13. Its addictive properties only make its side effects worse. So long as an addict was on the drug, he hardly felt the damage. But when he stopped, those months of neglect hit abruptly, often fatally. This was not generally known yet, as there were no long-term addicts; the drug was too new. But I had researched it as well as I could, and this seemed to be the pattern. Even mild withdrawal symptoms could be loss of the sense of touch or even blindness, because of the destruction of blood vessels in the eyeballs. That orange effect.

  The numbness to pain is actually a slow destruction of certain areas of the brain. Perhaps that accounted for the hallucinogenic effect, too. This was a seeming paradox, since the reflexes of demons were notoriously fast and accurate. I had talked with a doctor about it, and he conjectured that the strength of the nervous signals was multiplied by the drug, so that the reflexes were good despite the deterioration of the controlling brain tissue. Like using a sledgehammer on thumbtacks: not good for the tacks or the wall, but devastatingly effective anyway.

  The demons gradually or not so gradually lost their gentler emotions, becoming like spoiled children: imperious, short-tempered, quick to physical violence, and without remorse for their mischief. They seemed to have no feeling but hatred and anger. Of course I had not known any demons personally; possibly they had better qualities when among their own kind. But I doubted it, and I never expected to see an old demon, unless he started old.

  Kill-13 had appeared on the scene only six months ago, though probably it had been around longer in the underground arenas of the world. Its popular impact had been immediate and, to my mind, catastrophic.