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Authors: James White

Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations (16 page)

BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations
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At a dead run they reached the intersection and turned into the corridor taken by the fleeing SRTT, Prilicla scuttling along the ceiling again to keep out of the way of Conway’s pounding feet. But the sight in front of them caused Conway to forget all about being gentle and reassuring, and he yelled, “Stop, you fool! Don’t go in there … !”
The runaway was at the entrance to the FROB ward.
They reached the entry lock just too late and watched helplessly through the port as the SRTT opened the inner seal and, gripped by the four times normal gravity pull of the ward, was flung down out of sight. The inner door closed automatically then, allowing Prilicla and Conway to enter the lock and prepare for the environment within the ward.
Conway struggled frantically into the heavy duty suit which he kept in the lock chamber and quickly set the repulsion of its anti-gravity belt to compensate for the conditions inside. Prilicla, meanwhile, was doing similar things to its own equipment. While checking the seals and fastenings of the suit, and swearing at this very necessary waste of time, Conway could see through the inner inspection window a sight which made him shudder.
The pseudo-Illensan shape of the SRTT lay plastered against the floor. It was twitching slightly, and already one of the larger FROB infants was coming pounding up to investigate this odd-looking object. One of the great, spatulate feet must have trod on the recumbent SRTT, because it jerked away and began rapidly and incredibly to
change
. The weak, membranous appendages of the PVSJ seemed to dissolve into the main body which became the bony, lizard-like form with the wicked, horn-tipped tentacles which they had seen first at Lock Six. This was obviously the SRTT’s most frightening manifestation.
But the infant FROB possessed nearly five times the other’s mass and so could hardly be expected to be frightened. It put down its massive head and butted, sending the SRTT crashing against the wall plating
twenty feet across the ward. The FROB wanted to play.
Both doctors were out of the lock and onto the ceiling catwalk now, where the view was much clearer. The SRTT was changing again, fast. The tentacled lizard shape had not worked at all well for it in four-G conditions against these infant behemoths and it was trying something else.
The FROB had closed in on it again and was watching fascinated.
Conway said urgently, “Doctor, can you handle the grab apparatus? Good! Then go to it …” As Prilicla scurried along the catwalk to the control cupola Conway set his anti-gravity controls to zero and called, “I’ll direct you from below.” Weightless now, he kicked himself toward the floor.
But Conway was no stranger to the FROB infant—very probably it disliked or was bored by this diminutive figure whose only game was that of sticking big needles in it while something big and strong held it still, and despite all of Conway’s frantic shouting and arm-waving he found himself being ignored. But the other occupants of the ward were taking an interest, and their attention was being drawn to the still-changing SRTT …
“No!”
Conway shouted, aghast at what the visitor was changing into. “No! Stop!
Change back … !”
But it was too late. The whole ward seemed to be stampeding toward the SRTT, giving vent to a thunderous bedlam of excited growls and yelps which, from the older infants, were Translated into shouts of “Dolly! Dolly! Nice dolly … !”
Springing upward to avoid being trampled, Conway looked down on the milling mass of FROBs and felt the strong and sickening conviction that the luckless SRTT had departed this life. But no. The being had somehow managed to run—or squeeze—the gauntlet of stamping feet and eager, bludgeoning heads by keeping low and tightly pressed against the wall. It emerged battered but still in the shape which it had, chameleon-like, adopted in the mistaken idea that a tiny version of an FROB would be safe.
Conway called, “Quickly! Grab!”
But Prilicla was not sleeping on its job. The massive jaws of the grab were already hanging open above the dazed and slow-moving SRTT, and as Conway shouted they dropped and crashed shut. Conway sprang for
one of the lifting cables and as they rose from the floor together he said hurriedly, “You’re safe now. Relax. I’m here to help you …”
His reply was a sharp convulsion of the SRTT which nearly shook him loose, and suddenly the being had become a thing of lithe, oily convolutions which slipped between the fingers of the grab and slapped onto the floor. The FROBs hooted excitedly and charged again.
It could not possibly survive this time, Conway thought with a mixture of horror, pity and impatience; this being who had had one fright on arrival and who had not stopped running since, and who was still too utterly terrified even to be helped. The grab was useless but there was one other possibility. O’Mara would probably skin him alive for it, but he would at least be saving SRTT’s life for the time being if he allowed it to escape.
On the wall opposite the entry lock which Prilicla and himself had used was the door through which the FROB patients were brought to the ward. It was a simple door because the corridor outside it, which led to the FROB operating theater, was maintained at the same level of gravity and pressure as was the ward. Conway dived across the intervening space to the controls and slid it open, watching the SRTT—who was not so insensible with fear that it missed seeing this way of escape—as it slithered through. He closed it again just in time to prevent some of the patients from getting out as well, then made for the control cupola to report the whole ghastly mess to O’Mara.
For the situation was now much worse than they all had thought. While he had been at the other end of the ward he had seen something which increased the difficulties of catching and pacifying the runaway many, many times, and which explained the visitor’s lack of response to him while in the grab. It had been the shattered, trampled ruin of the SRTT’s Translator pack.
Conway’s hand was on the intercom switch when Prilicla said, “Excuse me, sir, but does my ability to detect your emotions cause you mental distress? Or does mentioning aloud what I may have found trouble you?”
“Eh? What?” said Conway. He thought that he must be radiating impatience at a furious rate at the moment, because his assistant had picked a great time to start asking questions like
that
! His first impulse was to cut the other off, but then he decided that delaying his report to O’Mara by a few seconds would not make any difference, and possibly Prilicla considered the matter important. Aliens were funny.
“No to both questions,” Conway replied shortly. “Though in the second
instance I might be embarrassed if you made known your findings to a third party in certain circumstances. Why do you ask?”
“Because I have been aware of your deep anxiety regarding the possible depredations of this SRTT among your patients,” Prilicla said, “and I am loath to further increase that anxiety by telling you of the type and intensity of the emotions which I detected just now in the being’s mind.”
Conway sighed. “Spit it out, things couldn’t be much worse than they are now …”
But they could and were.
 
 
When Prilicla finished speaking Conway pulled his hand away from the intercom switch as though it had grown teeth and bit him. “I can’t tell him
that
over the intercom!” he burst out. “It would be sure to leak to the patients and if they, or even some of the Staff knew about it, there would be a panic.” He dithered for a moment, then cried, “Come on, we’ve got to see O’Mara!”
But the Chief Psychologist was not in his office or in the nearby Educator room. However, information supplied by one of his assistants sent them hurrying to the forty-seventh level and Observation Ward Three.
This was a vast, high-ceilinged room maintained at a pressure and temperature suited to warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. DBDG, DBLF and FGLI doctors carried out preliminary examinations here on the more puzzling or exotic cases—the patients, if these atmospheric conditions did not suit them, being housed in large, transparent cubicles spaced at intervals around the walls and floor. It was known irreverently as the Punch and Ponder department and Conway could see a group of medics of all shapes and species gathered around a glass-walled tank in the middle of the ward. This must be the older and dying SRTT he had heard about, but he had no attention to spare for anything until he had spoken to O’Mara.
He caught sight of the psychologist at a communications desk beside the wall and hurried over.
While he talked O‘Mara listened stolidly, several times opening his mouth as though to interrupt, then each time closing it in a grimmer, tighter line. But when Conway reached the point where he had seen the broken Translator, O’Mara waved him to silence and hit the intercom switch with the same jerky motion of his hand.
“Get me Engineering Division, Colonel Skempton,” he barked. Then: “Colonel, our runaway is in the FROB nursery area. But there is a complication, I’m afraid—it has lost its Translator …” There was a short pause, then: “Neither do I know how I expect you to pacify it when you can’t communicate, but do what you can in the meantime—I’m going to work on the communication angle now.”
He snapped the switch off and then on again, and said, “Colinson, in Communications … hello, Major. I want a relay between here and the Monitor Survey team on the SRTT’s home planet—yes, the one I had you collecting about a few hours ago. Will you arrange that? And have them prepare a sound tape in the SRTT native language—I’ll give you the wording I want in a moment—and have them relay it here. The substance of the speech, which must be obtained from an adult SRTT, will have to be roughly as follows—”
He broke off as Major Colinson’s voice erupted from the speaker. The communications man was reminding a certain desk-bound head-shrinker that the SRTT planet was halfway across the Galaxy, that subspace radio was susceptible to interference just like any other kind and that by the time every sun in the intervening distance had splattered the signal with their share of static it would be virtually unintelligible.
“Have them repeat the signal,” O’Mara said. “There are sure to be usable words and phrases which we can piece together to reconstruct the original message. We need this thing badly, and I’ll tell you why …”
 
 
The SRTT species were an extremely long-lived race, O’Mara explained quickly, who reproduced hermaphroditically at very great intervals and with great pain and effort. There was therefore a bond of great affection and—what was more important in the present circumstances—discipline between the adults and children of the species. There was also the belief, so strong as to be almost a certainty, that no matter what changes a member of this species worked it would always try to retain the vocal and aural organs which allowed it to communicate with its fellows.
Now if one of the adults on the home planet could prepare a few general remarks directed toward youths who misbehaved when they ought to have known better, and these were relayed to Sector General and in turn played over the PA to their runaway visitor, then the young SRTT’s ingrained obedience to its elders would do the rest.
“ … And that,” said O’Mara to Conway as he switched off, “should
take care of that little crisis. With any luck we’ll have our visitor quieted down within a few hours. So your troubles are over, you can relax …”
The psychologist broke off at the expression on Conway’s face, then he said softly, “There’s more?”
Conway nodded. Indicating his assistant he said, “Dr. Prilicla detected it, by empathy. You must understand that the runaway is in a very bad way psychologically—grief for its dying parent, the fright it received at Lock Six when everyone came charging at it, and now the mauling it has undergone in the FROB nursery. It is young, immature, and these experiences have thrown it back to the stage where its responses are purely animal and … well …” Conway licked dry lips, “ … has anyone calculated how long it has been since that SRTT has eaten?”
The implications of the question were not lost on O’Mara either. He paled suddenly and snatched up the mike again. “Get me Skempton again, quickly! … Skempton? … Colonel, I am not trying to sound melodramatic but would you use the scrambler attached to your set, there is another complication …”
 
 
Turning away, Conway debated with himself whether to go over for a brief look at the dying SRTT or hurry back to his section. Back in the FROB nursery Prilicla had detected in the runaway’s mind strong hunger radiation as well as the expected fear and confusion, and it had been the communication of these findings which had caused first Conway, then O’Mara and Skempton to realize just what a deadly menace the visitor had become. The youths of any species are notoriously selfish, cruel and uncivilized, Conway knew, and driven by steadily increasing pangs of hunger this one would certainly turn cannibal. In its present confused mental state the young SRTT would probably not know that it had done so, but that fact would make no difference at all to the patients concerned.
If only the majority of Conway’s charges were not so small, defenseless and … tasty.
On the other hand a look at the elder being might suggest some method of dealing with the younger—his curiosity regarding the SRTT terminal case having nothing to do with it, of course …
He was maneuvering for a closer look at the patient inside the tank and at the same time trying not to jostle the Earth-human doctor who was blocking his view, when the man turned irritably and asked, “Why the blazes don’t you climb up my back? … Oh, hello, Conway. Here to
contribute another uninformed wild guess, I suppose?”
It was Mannon, the doctor who had at one time been Conway’s superior and was now a Senior Physician well on the way to achieving Diagnostician status. He had befriended Conway on his arrival at the hospital, Mannon had several times explained within Conway’s hearing, because he had a soft spot for stray dogs, cats and interns. Currently he was allowed to retain permanently in his brain just three Educator tapes—that of a Tralthan specialist in micro-surgery and two belonging to surgeons of the low-gravity LSVO and MSVK species—so that for long periods of each day his reactions were quite human. At the moment he was eyeing Prilicla, who was skittering about on the fringe of the crowd, with raised eyebrows.
Conway began to give details regarding the character and accomplishments of his new assistant, but was interrupted by Mannon saying loudly, “That’s enough, lad, you’re beginning to sound like an unsolicited testimonial. A light touch and the empathic faculty will be a big help in your current line of work. I grant that. But then you always did pick odd associates; levitating balls of goo, insects, dinosaurs, and such like—all pretty peculiar people, you must admit. Except for that nurse on the twenty-third level, now I admire your taste there—”
“Are they making any headway with this case, sir?” Conway said, determinedly shunting the conversation back onto the main track again. Mannon was the best in the world, but he had the painful habit sometimes of pulling a person’s leg until it threatened to come off at the hip.
“None,” said Mannon. “And what I said about wild guesses is a fact. We’re all making them here, and getting nowhere—ordinary diagnostic techniques are completely useless. Just look at the thing!”
Mannon moved aside for Conway, and a sensation as of a pencil being laid across his shoulder told him that Prilicla was behind him craning to see, too.
BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations
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