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Authors: James White

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BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

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“No!”
said Conway violently, and he knew from the way Mannon looked at him that he had gone pale. If his theory concerning the patient was correct, then any sort of operation at this stage would prove fatal. And if not, and the patient was the type of entity which it appeared to be—vicious, warped, and implacably hostile—and its friends came looking for it …

In a quieter voice Conway said, “Suppose a friend of yours with a bad skin condition was picked up by an e-t doctor, and the only thing it could think of doing was to skin him alive and lop his arms and legs off. If or when you found him you would be annoyed. Even taking into account the fact that you are civilized, tolerant and prepared to make allowances—qualities which we cannot safely ascribe to the patient as yet—I would venture to suggest that there would be merry hell to play.”

“That’s not a true analogy and you know it!” Mannon said heatedly. “Sometimes you have to take chances. This is one of those times.”

“No,” said Conway again.

“Maybe you have a better suggestion?”

Conway was silent for a moment, then he said carefully, “I do have an idea which I’m trying out, but I don’t want to discuss it just yet. If it works out you’ll be the first to know, and if it doesn’t you’ll know anyhow. Everybody will.”

Mannon shrugged and turned away. At the door he paused to say awkwardly, “Whatever you’re doing it must be pretty hair-brained for you to be so secretive about it. But remember that if you call me in and the thing goes sour on us, the blame gets halved …”

And there speaks a true friend,
thought Conway. He was tempted to unburden himself completely to Mannon then. But Dr. Mannon was a nosy, kindly and very able Senior Physician who always had, and always would, take his profession as a healer very seriously, despite the cracks he often made about it. He might not be able to do what Conway would ask, or keep his mouth shut while Conway was doing it.

Regretfully, Conway shook his head.

When Mannon had gone, Conway returned to his patient. Visually it still resembled a doughnut, he thought, but a doughnut which had become wrinkled and fossilized with the passage of eons. He had to remind himself that only a week had passed since the patient had been admitted. The five pairs of limbs, all beginning to show signs of being affected by the growth, projected stiffly and at odd angles from the body, like petrified twigs on a rotten tree. Realizing that the growth would cover the breathing openings, Conway had inserted tubes to keep the respiratory passages clear. The tubes were having the desired effect, but despite this the respiration had slowed and become shallow. The stethoscope indicated that the heartbeats were fainter but had increased in frequency.

Sheer indecision made Conway sweat.

If only it was an ordinary patient, Conway thought angrily; one that could be treated openly and its treatment discussed freely. But this one was complicated by the fact that it was a member of a highly advanced and possibly inimical race, and he could not confide in anyone lest he be pulled off the case before his theory was proven. And the trouble was that the theory might be all wrong. It was quite possible that he was engaged in slowly killing his patient.

Noting the heart and respiration rates on the chart, Conway decided that it was time he increased the periodicity of his visits, and also arranged the times so that Prilicla, who was busy these days in the Nursery, could accompany him.

Kursedd was watching him intently as he left the ward, and its fur was doing peculiar things. Conway did not waste his breath telling the nurse to keep quiet about what he was doing to his patient because that would have made the being gossip even more. It was he who was being talked about already by the nursing staff, and he had begun to detect a certain coldness toward him from some of the senior nurses in this section. But with any luck, word of what he was doing would not filter up to his seniors for several days.

Three hours later he was back in 310B with Dr. Prilicla. He checked heart and respiration again while the GLNO probed for emotional radiation.

“It is very weak,” Prilicla reported slowly. “Life is present, but so faintly that it is not even conscious of itself. Considering the almost nonexistent respiration and weak, rapid pulse-rate …” The thought of death was particularly distressing to an empath, and the sensitive little being could not bring itself to finish the sentence.

“All these scares we gave it, trying to reassure it, didn’t help,” Conway said, half to himself. “It hadn’t been able to eat and we caused it to use up reserves of energy which it badly needed to keep. But it had to protect itself …”

“But why? We were helping the patient.”

“Of course we were,” Conway said in a bitingly sarcastic tone which he knew would not carry through the other’s Translator. He was about to continue with the examination when there was a sudden interruption.

The being whose vast bulk scraped both sides and the top of the ward door on its way in was a Tralthan, physiological classification FGLI. To Conway the natives of Traltha were as hard to tell apart as sheep, but he knew this one. This was no less than Thornnastor, Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology.

The Diagnostician curled two of its eyes in Prilicla’s direction and boomed, “Get out of here, please. You too, Nurse.” Then it turned all four of them on Conway.

“I am speaking to you alone,” Thornnastor said when they had gone,
“because some of my remarks have bearing on your professional conduct during this case, and I have no wish to increase your discomfort by public censure. However, I will begin by giving you the good news that we have produced a specific against this growth. Not only does it inhibit the condition spreading but it softens up the areas already affected and regenerates the tissues and blood-supply network involved.”

Oh,
blast!
thought Conway. Aloud he said, “A splendid accomplishment.” Because it really was.

“It would not have been possible had we not sent out a doctor to the wreck with instructions to send us anything which might throw light on the patient’s metabolism,” the Diagnostician continued. “Apparently you overlooked this source of data completely, Doctor, because the only specimens you furnished were those taken from the wreck during the time you were there, a very small fraction indeed of the quantity which was available. This was sheer negligence, Doctor, and only your previous good record has kept you from being demoted and taken off this case …

“But our success was due mainly to the finding of what appears to be a very well-equipped medical chest,” Thornnastor continued. “Study of the contents together with other information regarding the fittings in the wreck led to the conclusion that it must have been some kind of ambulance ship. The Monitor Corps officers were very excited when we told them—”

“When?” said Conway sharply. The bottom had dropped out of everything and he felt so cold that he might have been in shock. But there might be a chance to make Skempton delay making contact. “When did you tell them about it being an ambulance ship?”

“That information can be only of secondary interest to you,” said Thornnastor, removing a large, padded flask from its satchel. “Your primary concern is, or should be, the patient. You will need a lot of this stuff, and we are synthesizing it as quickly as we can, but there is enough here to free the head and mouth area. Inject according to instructions. It takes about an hour to show effect.”

Conway lifted the flask carefully. Stalling for time, he said, “What about long-term effects? I wouldn’t like to risk—”

“Doctor,” Thornnastor interrupted, “it seems to me that you are taking caution to foolish, even criminal lengths.” The Diagnostician’s voice in Conway’s Translator was emotionless, but he did not have to be an
empath to know that the other was extremely angry. The way Thornnastor charged out the door made that more than plain.

Conway swore luridly. The Monitors were about to contact the alien colony, if they had not done so already, and very soon the aliens would be swarming all over the hospital demanding to know what he was doing for the patient. If it wasn’t doing well by that time there would be trouble, no matter what sort of people they were. And much sooner than that would come trouble from inside the hospital, because he had not impressed Thornnastor with his professional ability at all.

In his hand was the flask whose contents would certainly do all that the Head Pathologist claimed—in short, cure what seemed to ail the patient. Conway dithered for a moment, then stuck grimly to the decision which he had made several days back. He managed to hide the flask before Prilicla returned.

“Listen to me carefully,” Conway said savagely, “before you say anything at all. I don’t want any arguments regarding the conduct of this case, Doctor. I think I know what I’m doing, but if I should be wrong and you were in on it, your professional reputation would suffer. Understand?”

Prilicla’s six, pipe-stem legs had been quivering as he talked, but it was not the words which were affecting the little creature, it was the feelings behind them. Conway knew that his emotional radiation just then was not a pleasant thing.

“I understand,” said Prilicla.

“Very well,” Conway said. “Now we’ll get back to work. I want you to check me with the pulse and respiration, as well as the emotional radiation. There should be a variation soon and I don’t want to miss it.”

For two hours they listened and observed closely with no detectable change in the patient. At one point Conway left the being with Prilicla and Kursedd while he tried to contact Colonel Skempton. But he was told that the Colonel had left the hospital hurriedly three days ago, that he had given the spatial coordinates of his destination, but that it was impossible to contact a ship over interstellar distances while it was in motion. They were sorry but the Doctor’s message would have to wait until the Colonel got where he was going.

So it was too late to stop the Corps making contact with the aliens. The only course now was for him to “cure” the patient.

If he was allowed …

The wall annunciator clicked, coughed and said, “Dr. Conway, report to Major O’Mara’s office immediately.” He was thinking bitterly that Thornnastor had lost no time in registering a complaint when Prilicla said, “Respiration almost gone. Irregular heartbeat.”

Conway snatched up the ward intercom mike and yelled, “Conway, here. Tell O’Mara I’m busy!” Then to Prilicla he said, “I caught it, too. How about emotion?”

“Stronger during the erratic pulse, but both back to normal now. Registration is still fading.”

“Right. Keep your ears and mind open.”

Conway took a sample of expelled air from one of the breathing orifices and ran it through the analyzer. Even considering the shallowness of the being’s respiration this result, like the others he had taken during the past twelve hours, left no possibility for doubt. Conway began to feel a little more confident.

“Respiration almost gone,” said Prilicla.

Before Conway could reply, O’Mara burst through the door. Stopping about six inches from Conway he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “Just what are you busy at, Doctor?”

Conway was practically dancing with impatience. He asked pleadingly, “Can’t this wait?”

“No.”

He would not be able to get rid of the psychologist without some sort of explanation for his recent conduct, Conway knew, and he desperately wanted to have the next hour free from interference. He moved quickly to the patient and over his shoulder gave O’Mara a hasty
résumé
of his deductions regarding the alien ambulance ship and the colony from which it had come. He ended by urging the psychologist to call Skempton to delay the first contact until something more definite was known about the patient’s condition.

“So you knew all this a week ago and didn’t tell us,” O’Mara said thoughtfully, “and I can understand your reasons for keeping quiet. But the Corps had made a great many first contacts and managed them very well, thank you. We have people specially trained for this sort of thing. You, however, have been reacting like an ostrich—doing nothing and hoping that the problem would go away. This problem, involving a culture advanced enough to have crossed intergalactic space, is too big to be dodged. It has to be solved quickly and positively. Ideally it would
involve us showing proof of good feeling by producing the survivor alive and well …”

O’Mara’s voice hardened suddenly into an angry rasp, and he was so close behind Conway that the doctor could feel his breath on his neck.

“ … Which brings us back to the patient here, the being which you are supposed to be treating.

“Look at me, Conway!”

Conway turned around, but only after ensuring that Prilicla was still keeping a close watch. Angrily he wondered why everything had come to the boil at once instead of happening in a nice, consecutive fashion.

“At the first examination,” O’Mara resumed quietly, “you fled to your room before we could make any headway. This looked like professional cold feet to me, but I was inclined to make allowances. Later, Dr. Mannon suggested a line of treatment which although drastic was not only allowable but definitely indicated in the patient’s condition. You refused to move. Then Pathology developed a specific which could have cured the patient in a matter of hours, and you balked at using even
that
!

“Ordinarily I discount rumors and gossip in this place,” O’Mara continued, his voice rising again, “but when they become both widespread and insistent, especially among the nursing staff who generally know what they’re talking about medically, I have to take notice. It has become plain that despite the constant watch you have kept on the patient, the frequent examinations and the numerous samples you have sent to Pathology, you have done absolutely nothing for the being.

“It has been dying while you
pretended
to treat it. You’ve been so afraid of the consequences of failure that you were incapable of making the simplest decision—”

“No!” Conway protested. That had stung even though O‘Mara’s accusation was based on incomplete information. And much worse than the words was the look on the Major’s face, an expression of anger and scorn and a deep hurt that someone he had trusted both professionally and as a friend could have failed him so horribly. O’Mara was blaming himself almost as much as Conway for his business.

“Caution can be taken to extremes, Doctor,” O’Mara said almost sadly. “You have to be bold, sometimes. If a close decision is necessary you should make it, and stick to it no matter what …”

“And what the blazes,” asked Conway furiously, “do you
think
I’m doing?”

“Nothing!” shouted O’Mara. “Absolutely nothing!”

“That’s right!” Conway yelled back.

“Respiration has ceased,” Prilicla said quietly.

Conway swung around and thumbed the buzzer for Kursedd. He said, “Heart action? Mind?”

“Pulse faster. Emoting a little more strongly.”

BOOK: Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

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