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Authors: James White

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BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations
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“ … It has been apparent since you first arrived here,” the Major had told him, “that you mix more readily with e-ts than with members of your own species. Saddling you with Dr. Arretapec was a test, which you passed with honors, and the assistant I’ll be giving you in a few days might be another.”
O’Mara had paused then, shook his head wonderingly and went on, “Not only do you get on exceptionally well with e-ts, but I don’t hear a
single whisper on the grapevine of you chasing the females of our species …”
“I don’t have the time,” said Conway seriously. “I doubt if I ever will.”
“Oh, well, misogyny is an allowable neurosis,” O’Mara had replied, then had gone onto discuss the new assistant. Subsequently Conway had returned to his wards and worked much harder than if there had been a Senior Physician breathing down his neck. He was too busy to hear the rumors which began to go around regarding the odd patient who had been admitted to Observation Ward Three.
VISITOR AT LARGE
D
espite the vast resources of medical and surgical skill available, resources which were acknowledged second to none anywhere in the civilized Galaxy, there had to be times when a case arrived in Sector General for which nothing whatever could be done. This particular patient was of classification SRTT, which was a physiological type never before encountered in the hospital. It was amoebic, possessed the ability to extrude any limbs, sensory organs or protective tegument necessary to the environment in which it found itself, and was so fantastically adaptable that it was difficult to imagine how one of these beings could ever fall sick in the first place.
The lack of symptoms was the most baffling aspect of the case. There was in evidence none of the visually alarming growths of malfunctionings to which so many of the extraterrestrial species were prone, nor were there any bacteria present in what could be considered harmful quantities. Instead the patient was simply
melting
—quietly, cleanly and without fuss or bother, like a piece of ice left in a warm room, its body was literally turning to water. Nothing that was tried had any effect in halting the process and, while they continued their attempts at finding a cure with even greater intensity, the Diagnosticians and lesser doctors in attendance had begun to realize a little sadly that the run of medical miracles produced with such monotonous regularity by Sector Twelve General Hospital was due to be broken.
And it was for that reason alone that one of the strictest rules of the hospital was temporarily relaxed.
 
 
“I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning,” said Dr. Conway, trying hard not to stare at the iridescent and not quite atrophied wings of his new assistant. “At Reception, where the problems of admittance are dealt with.”
Conway waited to see if the other had any comments, and continuing to walk in the direction of the stated objective while doing so. Rather than walk beside his companion he maintained a two-yard lead—not out of any wish to give offense but for the simple reason that he was afraid of inflicting severe physical damage on his assistant if he strayed any closer than that.
The new assistant was a GLNO—six-legged, exoskeletal and insect-like, with the empathic faculty—from the planet Cinruss. The gravity-pull of its home world was less than one-twelfth Earth-normal, which was the reason for an insect species growing to such size and becoming dominant, so that it wore two anti-G belts to neutralize the attraction which would otherwise have mashed it into ruin against the corridor floor. One neutralizer belt would have been adequate for this purpose, but Conway did not blame the being one bit for wanting to play safe. It was a spindly, awkward-looking and incredibly fragile life-form, and its name was Dr. Prilicla.
Prilicla had previous experience both in planetary and in the smaller multi-environment hospitals and so was not completely green, Conway had been told, but it would naturally feel at a loss before the size and complexity of Sector General. Conway was to be its guide and mentor for a while and then, when his present period of duty in charge of the nursery was complete, he would hand over Prilicla. Apparently the hospital’s Director had decided that light-gravity life-forms with their extreme sensitivity and delicacy of touch would be particularly suited to the care and handling of the more fragile e-t embryos.
It was a good idea, Conway thought as he hastily interposed himself between Prilicla and a Tralthan intern who lumbered past on six elephantine feet, if the low-gravity life-form in question could survive the association with its more massive and clumsy colleagues.
“You understand,” said Conway as he guided the GLNO toward Reception’s control room, “that getting some of the patients into the place is a problem in itself. It isn’t so bad with the small ones, but Tralthans, or a forty-foot-long AUGL from Chalderescol …” Conway broke off suddenly and said, “Here we are.”
Through a wide, transparent wall section could be seen a room containing
three massive control desks, only one of which was currently occupied. The being before it was a Nidian, and a group of indicator lights showed that it had just made contact with a ship approaching the hospital.
Conway said, “Listen …”
“Identify yourself, please,” said the red teddy bear in its staccato, barking speech, which was filtered through Conway’s Translator as flat and toneless English and which came to Prilicla as equally unemotionless Cinrusskin. “Patient, visitor or Staff, and species?”
“Visitor,” came the reply, “and Human.”
There was a second’s pause, then: “Give your physiological classification please,” said the red-furred receptionist with a wink toward the two watchers. “All intelligent races refer to their own species as human and think of all others as being nonhuman, so that what you call yourself has no meaning …”
 
 
Conway only half heard the conversation after that because he was so engrossed in trying to visualize what a being with that classification could look like. The double-T meant that both its shape and physical characteristics were variable, R that it had high heat and pressure tolerance, and the S in that combination … ! If there had not actually been one waiting outside, Conway would not have believed such a weird beastie could exist.
And the visitor was an important person, apparently, because the receptionist was now busily engaged in passing on the news of its arrival to various beings within the hospital—most of whom were Diagnosticians, no less. All at once Conway was intensely curious to see this highly unusual being, but thought that he would not be showing a very good example to Prilicla if he dashed off on a rubbernecking expedition when they had work to do elsewhere. Also, his assistant was still very much an unknown quantity where Conway was concerned—Prilicla might be one of those touchy individuals who held that to look at a member of another species for no other reason than to satisfy mere curiosity was a grievous insult …
“If it would not interfere with more urgent duties,” broke in the flat, translated voice of Prilicla, “I would very much like to see this visitor.”
Bless you!
thought Conway, but outwardly pretended to mull over the latter. Finally he said, “Normally I could not allow that, but as the lock where the SRTT is entering is not far from here and there is some
time to spare before we are due at our wards, I expect it will be all right to indulge your curiosity just this once. Please follow me, Doctor.”
As he waved goodbye to the furry receptionist, Conway thought that it was a very good thing that Prilicla’s Translator was incapable of transferring the strongly ironic content of those last words, so that the other was not aware what a rise Conway was taking out of him. And then suddenly he stopped in his mental tracks. Prilicla, he realized uncomfortably, was an empath. The being had not said very much since they had met a short time ago, but everything that it had said had backed up Conway’s feelings in the particular matter under discussion. His new assistant was not a telepath—it could not read thoughts—but it was sensitive to feelings and emotions and would therefore have been aware of Conway’s curiosity.
Conway felt like kicking himself for forgetting that empathic faculty, and wryly wondered just who had been taking the rise out of which.
He had to console himself with the thought that at least he was agreeable, and not like some of the people he had been attached to recently like Dr. Arretapec.
 
 
Lock Six, where the SRTT was to be admitted, could have been reached in a few minutes if Conway had used the shortcut through the water-filled corridor leading to the AUGL operating room and across the surgical ward of the chlorine-breathing PVSJs. But it would have meant donning one of the lightweight diving suits for protection, and while he could climb in and out of such a suit in no time at all, he very much doubted if the ultra-leggy Prilicla could do so. They therefore had to take the long way round, and hurry.
At one point a Tralthan wearing the gold-edged armband of a Diagnostician and an Earth-human maintenance engineer overtook them, the FGLI charging along like a runaway tank and the Earthman having to trot to keep up. Conway and Prilicla stood aside respectfully to allow the Diagnostician to pass—as well as to avoid being flattened—and then continued. A scrap of overheard conversation identified the two beings as part of the arriving SRTT’s reception committee, and from the somewhat caustic tone of the Earth-human’s remarks it was obvious that the visitor had arrived earlier than expected.
When they turned a corner a few seconds later and came within sight of the great entry lock Conway saw a sight which made him smile in
spite of himself. Three corridors converged on the antechamber of Lock Six on this level as well as two others on upper and lower levels which reached it via sloping ramps, and figures were hurrying along each one. As well as the Tralthan and Earthman who had just passed them there was another Tralthan, two of the DBLF caterpillars and a spiny, membranous Illensan in a transparent protective suit-who had just emerged from the adjacent chlorine-filled corridor of the PVSJ section—all heading for the inner seal of the big Lock, already swinging open on the expected visitor. To Conway it seemed to be a wildly ludicrous situation, and he had a sudden mental picture of the whole crazy menagerie of them coming together with a crash in the same spot at the same time …
Then while he was still smiling at the thought, comedy changed swiftly and without warning to tragedy.
As the visitor entered the antechamber and the seal closed behind it Conway saw something that was a little like a crocodile with horn-tipped tentacles and a lot like nothing he had ever seen before. He saw the being shrink away from the figures hurrying to meet it, then suddenly dart toward the PVSJ—who was, Conway was to remember later, both the nearest and the smallest. Everybody seemed to be shouting at once then, so much so that Conway’s and presumably everyone else’s Translators went into an ear-piercing squeal of oscillation through sheer overload.
Faced by the teeth and hard-tipped tentacles of the charging visitor the Illensan PVSJ, no doubt thinking of the flimsiness of the envelope which held its life-saving chlorine around it, fled back into the inter-corridor lock for the safety of its own section. The visitor, its way suddenly blocked by a Tralthan booming unheard reassurances at it, turned suddenly and scuttled for the same airlock …
All such locks were fitted with rapid action controls in case of emergency, controls which caused one door to open and the other to shut simultaneously instead of waiting for the chamber to be evacuated and refilled with the required atmosphere. The PVSJ, with the berserk visitor close behind it and its suit already torn by the SRTT’s teeth so that it was in imminent danger of dying from oxygen poisoning, rightly considered his case to be an emergency and activated the rapid-action controls. It was perhaps too frightened to notice that the visitor was not completely
into the lock, and that when the inner door opened the outer one would neatly cut the visitor in two …
There was so much shouting and confusion around the lock that Conway did not see who the quick-thinking person was who saved the visitor’s life by pressing yet another emergency button, the one which caused both doors to open together. This action kept the SRTT from being cut in two, but there was now a direct opening into the PVSJ section from which billowed thick, yellow clouds of chlorine gas. Before Conway could react, contamination detectors in the corridor walls touched off the alarm siren and simultaneously closed the air-tight doors in the immediate vicinity, and they were all neatly trapped.
 
 
For a wild moment Conway fought the urge to run to the air-tight doors and beat on them with his fists. Then he thought of plunging through that poisonous fog to another intersection lock which was on the other side of it. But he could see a maintenance man and one of the DBLF caterpillars in it already, both so overcome with chlorine that Conway doubted if they could live long enough to put on the suits. Could he, he wondered sickly, get over there? The lock chamber also contained helmets good for ten minutes or so—that was demanded by the safety regulations—but to do it he would have to hold his breath for at least three minutes and keep his eyes jammed shut, because if he got a single whiff of that gas or it got at his eyes he would be helplessly disabled. But how could he pass that heaving, struggling mass of Tralthan legs and tentacles spread across the corridor floor while groping about with his eyes shut … ?
The fear-filled chaos of his thoughts was interrupted by Prilicla, who said, “Chlorine is lethal to my species. Please excuse me.”
Prilicla was doing something peculiar to itself. The long, many-jointed legs were waving and jerking about as though performing some weird ritual dance and two of the four manipulatory appendages—whose possession was the reason for its species’ fame as surgeons—were doing complicated things with what looked like rolls of transparent plastic sheeting. Conway did not see exactly how it happened but suddenly his GLNO assistant was swathed in a loose, transparent cover through which protruded its six legs and two manipulators—its body, wings and other two members, which were busily engaged in spraying sealing solution on the
leg openings, were completely covered by it. The loose covering bellied out and became taut, proving that it was air-tight.
“I didn’t know you had …” Conway began, then with a surge of hope bursting up within him he gabbled, “Listen. Do exactly as I tell you. You’ve got to get me a helmet,
quickly …”
But the hope died just as suddenly before he finished giving the GLNO his instructions. Prilicla could doubtless find a helmet for him, but how could the being ever hope to make it to the lock where they were kept through that struggling mass on the floor between. One blow could tear off a leg or cave in that flimsy exoskeleton like an eggshell. He couldn’t ask the GLNO to do it, it would be murder.
He was about to cancel all previous instructions and tell the GLNO to stay put and save itself when Prilicla dashed across the corridor floor, ran diagonally up the wall and disappeared into the chlorine fog traveling along the ceiling. Conway reminded himself that many insect life-forms possessed sucker-tipped feet and began to feel hopeful again, so much so that other sensations began to register.
 
 
Close beside him the wall annunciator was informing everyone in the hospital that there was contamination in the region of Lock Six, while below it the intercom unit was emitting red light and harsh buzzing sounds as somebody in Maintenance Division tried to find out whether or not the contaminated area was occupied. The drifting gas was almost on him as Conway snatched at the intercom mike.
“Quiet and listen!” he shouted. “Conway here, at Lock Six. Two FGLIs, two DBLFs, one DBDG all with chlorine poisoning not yet fatal. One PVSJ in damaged protective suit with oxy-poisoning and possibly other injuries, and one up there—”
A sudden stinging sensation in the eyes made Conway drop the mike hurriedly. He backed away until stopped by the airtight door and watched the yellow mist creep nearer. He could see practically nothing of what was going on down the corridor now, and an agonizing eternity seemed to go by before the spindly shape of Prilicla came swinging along the ceiling above him.
BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations
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