Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (65 page)

He cringed inwardly as he thought of how they all must have suffered, and died, every time one of their group did so. And they would have done so many times if the predator’s attacks were a regular occurrence. What was worse, prior to an attack they all knew what was ahead of them through the minds of previous survivors—all the fear and pain and multiple dying by proxy.

At last he understood the severity of the racial psychosis which gripped the whole Gogleskan species. As individuals they feared and hated a joining, or any close physical or mental contact or cooperation which might lead to the possibility of a linkup. Subconsciously to join was to suffer remembered pain, pain which could
only be assuaged by a blind, berserker rage which in turn blotted out the capacity to think or to control their actions. Their fear of that particular species of predator must have been extreme, and even though their old enemy was extinct or was still a sea-dweller, they had not been able to forget it or develop a less self-defeating method of self-defense.

The main trouble was that the defense mechanism was so hypersensitive, even after the elapsed millennia since it was needed, that it could be triggered by an imagined or potential threat as well as an actual one.

Khone had finally completed withdrawing the blood sample. The back of Conway’s hand felt like a pincushion, but he said highly complimentary things about the FOKT healer’s first off-planet surgical procedure, and meant every word of them. While the other was carefully transferring the contents of the syringe into a sterile phial, he returned his attention to the screen.

The creature was completely unfolded now, and the Lieutenant had reduced the image again so that it would fit within the limits of the screen. Wainright had also added all the available data and theory on coloration, probable method of locomotion, and the wing-synchronized mouth and teeth movements. It moved slowly in the center of the big screen, a vast, dark gray, dreadful shape more than eighty meters across, undulating and flapping ponderously like an enormous, Earthly stingray, sucking in, tearing apart, and eating everything in its path.

This
was the Gogleskan nightmare from their prehistoric past, and the figures of the reconstructed FOKT fossils were tiny blobs of color near the lower edge of the screen.

“Wainright!” Conway said urgently. “
Kill that picture!…
”

But he was too late. Khone, its work completed, had turned to look at the screen—and was confronted with the three-dimensional picture of a moving and seemingly living creature which up until then had inhabited only its subconscious. In the confined space of the compartment its distress call was deafening.

Conway cursed his own stupidity as the panic-stricken Gogleskan stumbled about the floor within a few feet of his litter. Khone had shown little interest in the display when it had been a collection of fine lines, since it lacked the experience to appreciate the three
dimensional reality which they represented. But the Lieutenant’s final picture was much too realistic for any Gogleskan to view and remain wholly sane.

He saw the FOKTs dumpy body come toward him, then lurch past. Its multicolor hair was standing on end and twitching, its four stings were fully extended, dropletes of venom oozing from the tips, but the sound coming from its membranes seemed fractionally less deafening. Conway lay rigid, not even swiveling his eyes as the being moved away and then came back again.

The reduction in the volume of its distress call made it obvious that Khone was fighting its conditioning and Conway had to help it in the only way possible, by remaining absolutely motionless. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Gogleskan stop, one of its stings only inches away from the side of his face and the stiff, bristling hair touching his coveralls. He could feel its breath puffing gently across his forehead and smell the faint, peppermint smell which seemed to be its body odor. Khone was trembling, whether with fear at the Lieutenant’s display or in indecision over whether or not to attack, Conway did not know.

If he stayed absolutely still, he told himself desperately, he should not represent a threat. If he moved, however, he knew with a dreadful certainty that the Gogleskan would sting him, instinctively, without thinking. But there was another aspect of the FOKT behavior pattern which he had forgotten.

They blindly attacked enemies, but any being who was not a threat and had managed to remain in such close physical proximity as Conway had done had to be a friend.

At times like this, friends linked up.

Conway was suddenly aware of the stiff bristles scratching against his clothing and trying to weave themselves into the fabric of his coveralls in the area of his neck and shoulder. The sting was still too close to the side of his face for comfort, but somehow it seemed to be less threatening. He held absolutely still, anyway. Then he saw, clearly because it was moving just two inches above his eyes, one of the long, fine tendrils. He felt it fall, feather-light, across his forehead.

A Gogleskan joining was mental as well as physical, Conway
knew, but he did not foresee any more success for the telepathic linkup than for the physical one.

He was wrong.

It began as a deep, unlocalized itch inside his skull, and if his hands and arms had not been immobilized he would have been poking desperately at his ears with his fingers. He was aware, too, of a maddening confusion of sounds, pictures, and feelings which were not his own. He had experienced the same sensation many times, after taking extraterrestrial physiology tapes at the hospital, but on those occasions the alien impressions had been coherent and orderly. He felt now as if he were watching a tri-di show with sensory augmentation when the channel selector control was malfunctioning. The bright but chaotic images and impressions became more intense, and he wanted to close his eyes in the hope that they would go away, but he dared not even blink.

Suddenly the picture held steady and the feelings were sharp and clear, and for a few seconds Conway knew what it was like to be the intensely lonely and intellectually frustrated entity that was an adult Gogleskan. The breadth of intelligence and sensitivity of Khone’s mind awed him, and he was aware of the many ways in which the Gogleskan healer had used that mind, long before the Monitor Corps or Conway had arrived on Goglesk, to fight and circumvent the mind-destroying conditioning which their evolution had imposed on them.

He was sure, because he was in Khone’s mind and the healer was sure, that its mind was nothing extraordinary so far as FOKT mental capacity was concerned. But their high intelligence could not be shared except by the slow, impersonal, and imprecise spoken language, and a true meeting of minds was possible only during the brief period between the initial linkup and the coarsening and confusion of intellect which immediately followed it. His admiration for this individual member of a race of intensely reluctant individualists was great indeed.

There is no coarsening or loss of definition in the thoughts we are exchanging
.

The words which appeared in Conway’s mind were overlaid by feelings of pleasure, gratitude, curiosity…and hope.

The process of establishing the mental linkup between your people must trigger an area of your endocrine system which desensitizes the entire cerebral process, probably to reduce the pain which was suffered in prehistoric times following a linkup and during the predator attack. But I am not a Gogleskan, so the desensitizing mechanism is absent. However, a precise study of the endocrinology involved should be undertaken without delay and the gland isolated, and if surgical intervention is indicated…

Too late he realized where that line of thought was taking him and the wide—and to Khone frightening—surgical associations it opened up. With a tremendous mental effort the Gogleskan had adapted to the close presence and physical contact with an off-worlder, and Conway
knew
precisely how much of an effort that had been. But now the healer was sharing Conway’s mind, sharing his thoughts and feelings and experience of entities who staffed or were being cured at Sector General and who made the seagoing nightmare from Goglesk’s past seem like a domestic pet by comparison.

Khone could not take it, and its distress signal, which had grown quieter over the past few minutes, roared out again at full, frantic intensity. But the little being was maintaining contact in spite of the alien nightmare its thought tendril was receiving, and Conway was suffering with it.

He tried to think reassuring thoughts, tried to make the Gogleskan’s mind as well as his own change the mental subject. He had blinked several times but had otherwise remained still, and he thought, or rather he hoped, that Khone would continue to treat him as an immobile and helpless nonthreat. But was it his imagination or had Khone’s appearance changed suddenly?

The stiff, multicolor hair was more clearly defined and the nearest sting had developed new highlights. For a moment his fear became even greater than Khone’s as he realized what was happening.

“No, don’t!…” he began, as loudly as he could without moving his lips. But the Gogleskan membrane was vibrating too loudly for Wainright to hear him.

“I’ve opened the outer door, Doctor,” the Lieutenant shouted, the communicator volume turned high so that he would be heard
over the noise Khone was making. “I’m cutting your restraints,
now
. Get out of there!”

“I’m not in danger,” Conway called, but his voice was drowned out by that earsplitting distress signal and the overamplified Wainright. And he was lying anyway, because when the straps dropped away he was in terrible danger.

He was potentially mobile again, no longer helpless, and had therefore become a threat.

In the instant before the tendril was withdrawn Conway knew that Khone did not want to sting him, but that made no difference at all to what was a purely reflex action. As he rolled desperately onto the floor, he felt the jab of the blunt point of the sting thudding into his shoulder. One of his ankles was entangled in the foot restraints as he tried to crawl away, and another jab tore his coveralls and scratched his thigh. Again he tried to crawl toward the outer entrance, but first his arm and then his leg doubled up in muscular spasm, and he toppled onto his side, unable to move and facing the transparent partition. The two affected limbs seemed to be on fire.

The muscles in his neck and in the area of the scapula were knotting in cramp, and the fire was spreading from the hip puncture to the abdominal muscles. He wondered if the venom would affect the involuntary muscle systems as well, specifically those operating his heart and lungs. If it did then he had not long to live. The pain was so intense that the thought did not frighten him as badly as it should have. Desperately he tried to think of something he should do before he passed out.

“Wainright…” he began weakly.

Khone’s distress call had reduced in volume, and the healer had not tried to sting him again—obviously he was no longer a threat. The Gogleskan stood a few feet from him, its hair agitated by its stings lying flat against its head, looking like a harmless multicolored haystack. He tried again.

“Wainright,” he said slowly and painfully. “The yellow and black phial. Inject all of it…”

But the Lieutenant was not at the other side of the partition, and the connecting door was still closed. Maybe Wainright intended coming around to the external door to drag Conway out, but he
could not move himself around to see. It was becoming difficult to see anything.

Before he passed out, Conway was aware of regular fluctuations in the lighting which reminded him of something. A heavy power drain, he thought weakly, of the kind required to punch a signal through hyperspace…

He seemed to be attached to every sensor and monitoring device in the unit, Conway thought as he looked up at the displays from the unfamiliar viewpoint of a patient, and luxuriated in the feeling of his limbs stretched to full extension and free of the excruciating cramp. He moved his eyes to see Prilicla regarding him from its position on the ceiling and the figures of Murchison and Naydrad at one side of his bed, also looking down at him. Between them was a large eye supported by a long tubular appendage which had been extruded by Danalta with the same purpose in mind. Conway moistened his lips.

“What happened?” he said.

“That,” Murchison said, “is supposed to be the second question. The first is ‘Where am I?’”

“I know where I am, dammit. On the casualty deck of
Rhabwar
. And why am I still wired up to that thing? Surely you can see that the biosensors are indicating optimum levels on all vital functions. What I want to know is how I got here.”

The pathologist breathed gently through her nose. “Mentation and memory seem unimpaired, and you are your usual short-tempered self. But you must rest. The Gogleskan venom has been neutralized, and in spite of what the displays are showing, there is marked physical debility and the likelihood of delayed shock as a result of severe mental trauma. Massive rest is indicated, at least until we return to the hospital and you are given a thorough checkout.

“And don’t think you can pull your Senior Physician’s rank on me to get up,” she said sweetly as Conway opened his mouth to do just that. “In this instance you are the patient and not the doctor, Doctor.”

“This is a good time,” Prilicla broke in at that moment, “for us to withdraw and so enable you to get the rest you require, friend Conway. We are all feeling pleased and relieved that you are recovering, and I think it would be less exhausting for you if we left and allowed friend Murchison to answer your questions.”

Prilicla scuttled across the ceiling toward the entrance, Naydrad growled something which did not translate and followed the empath, and Danalta withdrew its eye support limb, stabilized as a dark green, lumpy ball, and rolled after them. Murchison began removing the unnecessary biosensors and switching off the monitors, silently and with more concentration than the work warranted.

“What
did
happen?” he asked quietly. When there was no response he went on. “That venom, I was trying to tie myself into knots. I wanted Wainright to inject the muscle relaxant, but he wasn’t there. Then I seem to remember the lights dimming, and I knew he was using the hyperspace radio. But I didn’t expect to wake up on
Rhabwar…
”

Or wake up ever again
, he finished silently.

Still without looking at him she explained that the ambulance ship had been testing new equipment just beyond the Jump distance from Sector General, and with the full medical team on board. Because they knew the exact coordinates of Goglesk when the Lieutenant’s hypersignal came in, they were able to emerge close to the planet, with their lander ready to launch, and they had been able to reach him in just under four hours.

They had found him still trying to tie himself in knots, but the muscular spasm had been reduced significantly by a massive dose of the relaxant DM82, so the knots were loose enough for him not to have broken any bones or torn any muscles or tendons. He had been very lucky.

Conway nodded and said seriously, “So the Lieutenant was able to get to me with the muscle relaxant in time. I’d say with seconds to spare.”

Murchison shook her head. “It was the native Gogleskan,
Khone, who administered the DM82. After damn well nearly killing you, it saves your life! It kept asking if you would be all right when we were taking you away, shouting at us until the entry port was sealed. You make some peculiar friends, Doctor.”

“It had to make a tremendous mental effort to give me that shot,” Conway said, “a bigger effort, perhaps, than I could have made in similar circumstances. How close did it come while you were transferring me to the lander?”

Murchison thought for a moment, then said, “When Lieutenant Haslam, who was piloting, and I met Wainright at the lock, it came to within twenty meters. When Naydrad, Prilicla, and Danalta came out with the litter, it became nervous and moved back to about twice that distance. Wainright told us what had happened between it and you, but we did not act or say anything which could be construed as hostile even though, personally, I would have liked to give it a quick kick in whatever it uses as a
gluteus maximus
for what it did to you. Maybe it simply feared retribution.”

“Knowing its feelings as I do,” Conway said seriously, “I think it would have welcomed retribution.”

Murchison breathed through her nose once again and sat down on the edge of the litter, twisting around so as to face him and placing her hands on the pillow beside his shoulders. Her face lost its cool, clinical expression and she said shakily, “Damn you, Doctor, you nearly got yourself killed.”

Suddenly her arms were around him and her face was close to his. Conway moved his head away quickly, without thinking. She straightened up, looking surprised.

“I’m… I’m not feeling like myself today,” he said. Again without thinking he had used the stock phrase which, at Sector General, was the acceptable excuse for strange or uncharacteristic behavior.

“You mean,” she said furiously, “that you’ve an Educator tape riding you, and O’Mara sent you to Goglesk without erasing it? What are you carrying, a Tralthan, a Melfan? I know both of those species consider the Earth-human female body to be something less than desirable. Or did you
volunteer
to take an Educator tape on vacation? Some vacation!”

Conway shook his head. “It isn’t a physiology tape, and O’Mara had nothing to do with it. There was a very close, and quite intense,
telepathic contact with Khone. It was unexpected, an accident, but the Gogleskan FOKT classification has some remarkable behavior characteristics which include…”

Before Conway could stop himself he was describing the whole Gogleskan situation and his experience with the town-wrecking group entity and with Khone as an individual. As one of the hospital’s leading pathologists, second only to the great Thornnastor itself, her professional interest should have been aroused, and it would be, in time. But right then it was obvious that she was not thinking about anything except the state in which she had found Conway a few hours earlier.

“The important thing,” she said, trying to smile, “is that you don’t want anyone to come close to you, unless it looks like a multicolor haystack. As an excuse it certainly beats having a headache.”

Conway smiled back. “Not at all. Bodily contact can be made without initiating a Joining, at any time, provided the intention is associated with reproduction.” He reached up with one hand, and with the palm pressed gently against the back of her neck he pulled her face down toward his. “Would you like to rerun that last bit again?”

“You are severely debilitated,” she said, looking relieved and trying to duck from under his hand—but not working very hard at it. Conway spread his fingers through her hair and did not let go even when their faces were only a few inches apart. She went on softly. “You’re making an awful mess of my hair.”

Conway slipped his other hand around her waist and said, “Don’t worry. It makes you look much more like a desirable haystack…”

He had no discomfort and he did not feel particularly debilitated, but suddenly he began to shake as the delayed shock from the Khone incident hit him, and with it the memory of those excruciating muscle spasms and the knowledge of just how close to death he had been. She held him tightly until the shaking had stopped, and for a long time afterward.

They both knew that the gentle and understanding Prilicla, from its quarters two decks above them, was aware of the emotional radiation of every being in the ship. The telepath would ensure that nobody interrupted them until curative therapy was concluded.

It was ten hours later
—Rhabwar
had not needed to break any records on the return trip—that they locked on to the Casualty Admission Port on Level 103. Charge Nurse Naydrad, who could be fanatical at times about the regulations, insisted on bringing him into the observation ward on the litter. Conway was equally insistent about sliding back the canopy and sitting up during the transfer, to reassure the Earth-human and extraterrestrial colleagues who were waiting inside the entry port to inquire worriedly about his condition. Murchison had left him to make her report to Thornnastor, and Prilicla had gone on ahead to escape the somewhat turbulent emotional radiation being generated in the vicinity of Conway’s litter.

But it took less than an hour in the observation ward for the Physician-in-Charge and its staff to complete their examination and agree with Conway’s self-diagnosis that he was in all respects physically fit.

An hour later he was in the office of Major O’Mara, who was not overly concerned with things physical.

“This is not the usual Educator tape impression,” the Chief Psychologist said when Conway had described his experiences with Khone. “Normally a tape contains the complete mind record of the being who donated it, and in spite of the psychological tricks which the recipient plays on himself or itself, the taped-in personality of that of the being receiving the tape is completely distinct. The recording is not subject to alteration. For this reason an erasure can be performed without any ill-effects on the recipient’s personality or mental state. But you, Doctor, had a full, two-way exchange with this Khone character, which means that you have assimilated a fairly large body of memories, feelings, and thought processes into the Conway mind matrix and, God help its future sanity, Khone has been impressed with quite a lot of your material, and the minds of both parties were aware of and were modified by the process. For this reason I cannot see any way that we can selectively remove the Gogleskan material without the risk of personality damage. In psychological terms there has been feedback from both minds.

“There is a possibility, a small one,” O’Mara went on gruffly, “that if Khone could be persuaded to come here and donate its own Educator tape for study, something could be tried which—”

“It wouldn’t come,” Conway said.

“Judging by what you’ve told me, I’m inclined to agree,” the Chief Psychologist said, a tinge of sympathy creeping into his tone. “This means that you are stuck with your Gogleskan alter ego, Conway. Is it…bad?”

Conway shook his head. “It is no more alien than a Melfan tape, except that there are times when I’m not sure whether it is Khone or myself reacting to a given situation. I think I can handle it without psychiatric assistance.”

“Good,” O’Mara said dryly, and added, “You’re afraid the treatment might be worse than the condition, and you’re probably right.”

“It isn’t good,” Conway said firmly. “The Gogleskan business, I mean. Their whole species is being held back by what amounts to a racial conditioned reflex! We will have to do something about that berserker group-entity problem.”

“
You
will have to do something about it,” O’Mara said, “between a few other jobs we have lined up for you. After all, you are the Senior Physician with the most knowledge of the Gogleskan situation, so why should I assign anyone else? But first, I assume you found a little time between wrecking Gogleskan towns and being stung nearly to death by your FOKT colleague to decide whether or not you want to try for Diagnostician? And that you discussed some of the, er, ramifications with your personal pathologist?”

Conway nodded. “We’ve discussed it, and I’ll give it a try. But these other jobs you mentioned, I’m not sure that I’m able to—”

The Chief Psychologist held up a hand. “Of course you are able. Both Senior Physician Prilicla and Pathologist Murchison have pronounced you in all respects psychologically and physically fit.” He looked steadily at Conway’s reddening face for a moment, then added, “She did not go into detail, just said that she was satisfied. You have another question?”

Warily, Conway asked, “How many other jobs?”

“Several,” O’Mara replied. “They are detailed in the tape which you can pick up from the outer office. Oh, yes, Doctor, I expected you to decide as you have done. But now you will have to accept a greater measure of responsibility for your diagnoses, decisions, and treatment directives than you have been accustomed to as a Senior
Physician, and for patients which only your subordinates will see unless something goes badly amiss. Naturally, you will be allowed to seek the help and advice of colleagues at Diagnostician or any other level, but only if you can satisfy me, and yourself, that you can no longer proceed without such assistance.

“Knowing you, Doctor,” he added sourly, “it would be difficult to say which of us would be harder to satisfy on that point.”

Conway nodded. It was not the first time that O’Mara had criticized him for being too professionally proud, or pigheaded. But he had been able to avoid serious trouble by also being right on most of the occasions. He cleared his throat.

“I understand,” he said quietly. “But it still seems to me that the Gogleskan situation requires early attention.”

“So does the problem in the FROB geriatric unit,” O’Mara said. “Not to mention the urgent need to design accommodation for a pregnant Protector and its offspring, as well as sundry teaching duties, lectures in theater, and any odd jobs which may come up and for which your peculiar qualities suit you. Some of these problems have been with us for a long time, although not, of course, for as many thousands of years as those of your Gogleskan friends. As a would-be Diagnostician you also have the responsibility for deciding which case or cases should be given priority. After due consideration, of course.”

Conway nodded. His vocal chords seemed to have severed communications with his brain while it tried to absorb all the implications of a multiple assignment the individual sections of which were just this side of impossible. He knew of some of those problems and the Diagnosticians who had worked on them, and the hospital grapevine had carried some bloodcurdling accounts of some of the failures. And now, for the period of assessment as acting Diagnostician, the problems were his.