"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Forty-One -

"Speculation"

Midnight.

Neither of them had been able to sleep. So they sat in Earl's little apartment with the big square coffee table cleared off and pulled over between them. All the nickels and pennies were on Kip's side of the table, and Earl Keirkgaard had a look of "martyred-soul" mental cruelty pulled down over his face like a torn window blind. The chip'n'dip dish was empty, the plate of bologna and cheese looked as though mice had been at it, the sandwich plate was dotted with crumbs, and they were out of beer.

"If your intentions had anything to do with cheering me up tonight, Bernoski," Earl groused, "ya sure went about it the wrong way. You ate all my snacks, drank all my damn beer … an' ya didn't even let me win one freakin' poker hand! As friends go, you'd make a good plumber. An' now it's after midnight and Gregg House's surgery is set for six in the morning. Whaddaya got to say about that, huh?"

Kip studied his friend with a bemused expression for a few moments before he spoke. "I just thought we needed a distraction for awhile, or we'd be like everybody else around here tonight … getting ready to tear our hair out. If we don't get this problem under control right away and dig around to find out what the hell caused it, we'll be risking the lives of four people … you and me included. That's not what I had in mind when we started on this program, Earl, and it's ripping me apart."

The stocky man in the wheelchair nodded his head solemnly and searched the other man's face for outward signs of distress. Kip was worried. They all were. The death of Bobby was the least of it. They were all wondering whether their pilot program had been anywhere near adequate, and whether they had sent out feelers asking for volunteers a few months … or a few years … too soon.

The fact that Gregory House had come forward so quickly after their first public inquiry, asking nothing in return except perhaps an end to his life of pain, had made every one of them eager to snap up his offer before he changed his mind.

Now there was a very real possibility that they had put the man's life in peril, along with their own. The three men who had initially been spared further chronic pain by the successful experimental surgery on the big dog, now owed their first volunteer more than could ever be repaid in coin of the realm. They could not afford to take further chances, and they had agreed: Gregg's welfare came first … way before their own!

House himself, had been more than willing to hang in and wait to see how things played out. That was all well and good, but no one wanted to see this man hurt. His arrival the week before had given them all a tough lesson in the meaning of courage. That alone, combined with the fact that he had a friend who cared enough about him to shadow him all along his 600-mile route, had doubled the lesson and clinched the deal. The welfare of Gregory House meant more to the staff of Paramar Clinic than they had the power to explain.

House and Wilson had chosen to stick around and offer their assistance, and not cut and run for home to file a lawsuit, and that challenged Paramar's ethical standards, even in their own eyes. There was just something about the lanky doctor from New Jersey that had grabbed them where they lived, and they were at a loss to understand it. It was uncanny. He was not overly friendly. Sometimes he had a tendency to whine like a spoiled little kid, and he had the general attitude of a pit bull. And yet, he held them all in thrall like Merlin the Magician had held the denizens of Camelot.

Earl Keirkgaard understood how Kip felt about the failure of the nanotechnology to fulfill its potential in the O.R. This kind of disappointment, and the fear and dread it produced, was enough to demoralize anyone who had worked as hard as Kip Bernoski to make a revolutionary idea work.

"After we remove Gregg's nanocites and he recovers enough to withstand the trip home okay, then we go back to the labs and continue the research," Earl declared. "When we get it straightened out and determine the flaws and correct them, Jim and Gregg can come back and …"

Kip snorted, half in despair, half in disgust. "Earl. Listen to yourself! It could be years. Decades! We don't dare try it again until we're absolutely sure no one else can be hurt. Sometime very soon, you and I and Bill have to have all our probes removed. Very soon!

Then our pain will come back! By then, Gregg House probably won't want to have anything to do with this place.

"We took away his pain, Earl! We took it away long enough for him to see what it was like to not hurt twenty-four hours a day! Now we're just gonna give it all back to him and say, 'sorry, Gregg, but we didn't give it enough time to see if we did a good-enough job … because the good part turned out to have the potential to kill you!' He's not a man to suffer fools gladly … and in his eyes, we're probably all a bunch of fools …"

"Hey, Buddy … he's not like that …"

"How the hell do you know? If it were me, I'd be raising all kinds of hell."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Look at it this way: the man is brilliant. His mind works on another level … so far above yours and mine that we just fade to nothing in his shadow. I think he foresaw the huge benefit in our work. He saw the potential and the danger … and he close to volunteer anyway."

"You're telling me Gregory House is some kinda genius?"

"Maybe. And maybe he's a fool too. But I don't think so. Unless I miss my guess, the man's I.Q. is somewhere near the 180-mark. Maybe higher. And he's still willing to wait for us to dig up the solution without any interference from him or Dr. Wilson. Neither one of them wants to give up completely on something that has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine. Its benefits will continue long after our moldy bodies have been worm fodder for centuries!

"What we've started here is an ongoing thing, Kip. If we don't follow through, someone else will, and someone else may have far fewer altruistic motives than you and me. So, I guess what I'm saying is … hell … give Gregg House credit for that foresight, willya?"

"I guess I never looked at it that way …"

"Yeah? Well, you were so busy with the problems we were having that you didn't get much time to talk to Jim and Gregg. I did."

"So … are they … 'together'?"

Earl's eyes widened. "What?"

"You heard me. Are they … you know … lovers? That thought has crossed my mind a lot over the past few days …"

"Jesus, Kip! How the hell would I know? I don't think so. They're friends! But even if they are lovers like you say, it's none of my freakin' business. Or yours."

Bernoski sighed, shrugged. "Just wondered. You can't tell me it never occurred to you either. Anybody dedicated enough to tag along behind an idiot on a motorcycle, who's in that much pain, and let him do what he had to do without interfering … has to either be in love with him … dedicated to the point of eccentricity … or nutty as a fruitcake!"

"Interested in hearing what I think?"

"Sure."

"Jim Wilson is in awe of Gregg House. Probably from the day he first met him. Wilson knew right off about the scope of Gregg's mental acuity. He has a pretty potent intellect himself … and he figured out right away about the dichotomies of that awesome brain. The more powerful the mind, the more juvenile are its favorite distractions. Jim wanted to safeguard the mind, and at the same time, protect the man-child whose body held such a mind. The two of them are symbiotic."

"That's what you think, huh?"

"Yup."

"I agree with you."

"Ya do? Wow! That means the world still abounds with miracles, Kip." Earl grinned, glad to drop the subject. "We'll get through this, you know. All of us!"

They cleaned up the rest of their mess, returned the coffee table to its rightful place, and deposited their dirty plates and glasses in the dishwasher. With a triumphant smile, Kip loaded his pockets with nickels and pennies, the spoils of his poker victory. Earl watched silently.

When Kip left to go over to Lab #2 to commandeer its corner cot for the next couple of hours, Earl prepared himself for a short rest and a short night.

Leaning back on his pillow, he felt his heart pumping a little faster than usual. He attributed it to the stress of the past thirty-six hours and the potency of the spicy foods he had consumed during the evening. His and Kip's heated conversation might have had something to do with it too. His alarm clock told him it was just a little past 1:00 a.m. God, he missed Bobby's comfortable snoring at the side of his bed …

Earl closed his eyes and heaved a huge sigh.

Suddenly, his heart jumped in the middle of his chest as though it were trying to escape from being squeezed to death. He could feel the blood pounding within his ears, and a searing pain screamed down his left arm, all the way to his fingers.

Too late, Earl Keirkgaard realized what was happening. He threw his upper body off the edge of the bed and grasped the arms of the huge wheelchair. He must get help.

But the chair was plugged into its charging port for the night, and fate was quick and decisive. The contours of the room danced before his eyes in shades of red, and his great heart gave up the struggle and shut down.

The bus that had mangled Bobby was coming for him now …

Earl's body landed on the floor between the bed and the wheelchair.

He was going away now, on a journey to find his dog … a long time before he thought he would …

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