Sector General sg-5

by James White

  “An empath!” O’Mara said. “Like Prilicla.”

  “Not like Prilicla,” Conway said firmly. “Although it is possible that the empathic faculty possessed by the preintelligent ancestors of both species was similar.”

  But their prehistoric world was an infinitely more dangerous place than Cinruss had been, Conway continued, and in any case the EGCLs lacked the ability of the Cinrusskins quite literally to fly from danger. And in such a savage environment there was little advantage in having an empathic faculty other than as a highly unpleasant early warning system, and so the ability to receive emotions had been lost. It was probable that they no longer received even the emotional radiationof their own kind.

  They had become organic transmitters, reflectors and fo-cusers and magnifiers of their own feelings and those of the beings around them. The indications were that the faculty had evolved to the stage where they had no conscious control over the process.

  “Think of the defensive weapon that makes,” Conway explained. The EGCL’s life support and sensors had been transferred to the litter and it was ready to leave. “If a predator tries to attack it, the anger and hunger it feels for its victim together with the fear and pain, if the victim was hurt or wounded, would be magnified, bounced back, and figuratively hit the attacker in the teeth. I can only guess at the order of emotional amplification used. But the effect on the predator, especially if there were others in the vicinity whose feelings were also being amplified, would be discouraging to say the least, also very confusing. It might have the effect of having them attack each other.

  “We already know the effect of a deeply unconscious EGCL on the patients and staff three levels above and below this one,” Conway went on grimly. “Now consciousness is returning and I don’t know what will happen, or how far-reaching the effect will be. We have to get it away from here before the hospital’s patients have their own as well as the EGCL’s pain magnified to an unknown but major degree, and their medical attendants thrown into a steadily accelerating state of disorder and panic because they, too, will receive the reflected pain and—”

  He broke off and tried to control his own growing panic, then he said harshly, “We have to get it away from the hospital now, without further delays or arguments.”

  O’Mara’s face had lost its angry red coloration while Con-way had been talking, until now it looked gray and bloodless. He said, “Don’t waste time talking, Doctor. I shall accompany you. There will be no further delays or arguments.”

  When- they reached Rhabwar’s Casualty Deck the EGCL was still not fully conscious and Prilicla was again being seriously affected by the ambient emotional radiation which was being amplified and bounced off their patient. The discomfort diminished sharply with increasing distance from the hospital, the empath told them, and the awakening EGCL was radiating only a relatively low intensity of discomfort from the sites of the recent surgery — but Prilicla did not have to tell them that because they could all feel it for themselves.

  “I have been thinking about the problem of communicating with these people,” O’Mara said thoughtfully. “If they are all high-powered transmitters and reflectors of emotional radia-they may not be aware of what they are doing, only that ave an automatic, nonmaterial defense against everything and everyone wishing them harm. The job of establishing com-munications with them may not be easy and is likely to be a

  long-range affair, unless our basic premise is wrong and we—”

  “My first idea,” Conway broke in, “was to put it in the lander with remote-controlled medical servomechs. Then I

  thought there should be one medic, a volunteer, in attendance—”

  “I won’t ask who,” O’Mara said dryly, and smiled as Con-way’s embarrassment bounced off the EGCL and hit them.

  “—because if ever there was case demanding isolation,” Conway ended, “this is it.”

  The Chief Psychologist nodded. “What I had been about to say was that we may have miscalculated. Certainly we could never treat EGCLs in hospital where the patients surrounding them were in pain, even slight pain. But the situation here in the ship isn’t too bad. I can feel pains in the equivalent sites to where the EGCL is hurting, but nothing I can’t handle. And the rest of you are emoting concern; for the patient, and this is not unpleasant even when magnified. It seems that if you don’t think badly toward the patient, it can’t bounce anything too unpleasant back at you. It’s surprising. 1 feel just the way I always do, except more so.”

  “But it is regaining consciousness,” Conway protested. “There should be an intensification of—”

  “There isn’t,” O’Mara cut in. “That is very obvious, Con-way. Could the reason be because the patient is regaining consciousness? Think about it. Yes, Doctor, we can all feel you feeling 'Eureka!'”

  “Of courser Conway said, and paused because his pleasure and excitement at seeing the answer, magnified by the EGCL, was causing Prilicla’s wings to go into the series of slow, rippling undulations which indicated intense pleasure in a Cin-russkin. It also counteracted the aches which he and everyone else were feeling from the pateint. He thought, What a weird experience the cultural contact specialists were going to have with this species.

  Aloud he said, “The process of reflecting and magnifying the feelings, hostile or otherwise, of the people around them is a defense mechanism which would, naturally, be at its most effective when the being is helpless, vulnerable, or unconscious. With a return to consciousness the effect seems to diminish but the empathic reflections are still strong. The result is that everyone around them will have an empathic faculty not unlike Prilicla’s, and yet the EGCLs are deaf to each other’s emotional radiation because they are transmitters only.

  “Being like Prilicla,” he went on, looking across at the empath, “is something of a mixed blessing. But the EGCL would be a nice perspn to have around if we were having a good time—”

  “Control here,” the voice of the Captain broke in. “I have some information on your patient’s species. Federation Archives have signaled the hospital to the effect that this race — their name for themselves is the Duwetz — was contacted briefly by an exploring Hudlar ship before the formation of the Galactic Federation. Enough information was obtained for the basic Duwetz language to be programmed into the present-day translation computers, but contact was severed because of serious psychological problems among the crew. We are advised to proceed with caution.”

  “The patient,” Prilicla said suddenly, “is awake.”

  Conway moved closer to the EGCL and tried to think positive, reassuring thoughts toward it. He noted with relief that the biosensors and associated monitors were indicating a weak but stable condition; that the damaged lung was again working satisfactorily and the bandages immobilizing the two rejoined appendages were firmly in position. The extensive suturing on the muscular apron and ambulatory pad at the base were well up to Thornnastor and Edanelt’s high standards, as were the deftly inserted staples which gleamed in neat rows where the carapace fractures had been. Obviously the being was in considerable discomfort in spite of the painkilling medication Thonnastor had synthesized for its particular metabolism. But Pain was not the predominant feeling it was transmitting, and rear and hostility were entirely absent.

  Two of its three remaining eyes swiveled to regard them while the other one was directed toward the viewport where Rector Twelve General Hospital, now almost eight kilometers Aslant, blazed like some vast, surrealistic piece of jewelry against the interstellar darkness. The feelings which washed — Tough them, so intensely that they trembled or caught their breathss or rippled their fur, were of curiosity and wonder.

  “I’m not an organ mechanic like you people,” O’Mara said stiffly, “but I would say that with this case the prognosis is favorable.”

  The ambulance ship Rhabwar had mad the trip from Sector General to the scene of the supposed disaster in record time and with a precision of astrogation, Conway thought, which would caus
e Lieutenant Dodds to exhibit symptoms of cranial swelling for many days to come. But as the information was displayed on the Casualty Deck’s repeater screens, it became clear to the watching medical team that this was not going to be a fast rescue — that this might not, in fact, be a rescue mission at all.

  The fully extended sensor net revealed no sign of a distressed ship, nor any wreckage or components of such a ship. Even the finely divided, expanding cloud of debris which would have indicated a catastrophic malfunction in the veseel’s reactor was missing. All there was to be seen was the characteristic shape of a dead and partially fused distress beacon at a distance of a few hundred meters and, about three million kilometers beyond it, the bright crescent shape which was one of this systems P!anets.

  Major Fletcher’s voice came from the speaker. The Captain did not sound pleased. “Doctor,” he said. “We cannot assume that this was a simple false alarm. Hyperspace radio distress beacons are highly expensive hunks of machinery for one thing, and I have yet to hear of an intelligent species who does not have an aversion to crying their equivalent of wolf. 1 think the crew must have panicked, then discovered that the condition of the ship was not as distressed as they at first thought. They may have resumed their journey or. tried for a planetary landing to effect repairs. We’ll have to eliminate the latter possibility before we leave. Dodds?”

  “The system has been surveyed,” the Astrogator’s voice replied. “G-type sun, seven planets with one, the one we can see, habitable in the short term by warm-blooded oxygen breathers. No indigenous intelligent life. Course for a close approach and search, sir?”

  “Yes,” Fletcher said. “Haslam, pull in your long-range sensors and set up for a planetary surface scan. Lieutenant Chen, I’ll need impulse power, four Gs, on my signal. And Haslam, just in case the ship is down and trying to signal its presence, monitor the normal and hyperradio frequencies.”

  A few minutes later they felt the deck press momentarily against their feet as the artifical gravity system compensated for the four-G thrust. Conway, Pathologist Murchison, and Charge Nurse Naydrad moved closer to the repeater where Dodds had displayed the details of the target planet’s gravity pull, atmospheric composition and pressure, and the environmental data which made it just barely habitable. The empathic Doctor Prilicla clung;o the safety of the ceiling and observed the screen at slightly longer range.

  It was the Charge Nurse, its silvery fur rippling in agitation, who spoke first. “This ship isn’t supposed to land on unprepared surfaces,” Naydrad said. “That ground is — is rough.”

  “Why couldn’t they have stayed in space like good little distressed aliens,” Murchison said to nobody in particular, “and waited to be rescued?”

  Conway looked at her and said thoughtfully, “It is possible that their condition of distress was nonmechanical. Injury, sickness, or psychological disturbances among the crew, perhaps, problems which have since been resolved. If it was a physical problem then they should have stayed out here, since it is easier to effect repairs in weightless conditions.”

  “Not always, Doctor,” Fletcher’s voice cut in sharply from the Control Deck. “If the physical problem was a badly holed hull, a breathable atmosphere around them might seem more desirable than weightless and airless space. No doubt you have medical preparations to make.”

  Conway felt a surge of anger at the other’s thinly veiled suggestion that he tend to his medical knitting and stop trying to tell the Captain his business. Beside him Murchison was breathing heavily and Naydrad’s fur was tufting and rippling as if blown by a strong wind, while above them the emotion-sensitive Prilicla’s six insectile legs and iridescent wings quivered in the emotional gale they were generating. Out of consideration for the empath, Conway tried to control his feelings, as did the others.

  It was understandable that Fletcher, the ship’s commander, liked to have the last word, but he knew and accepted the fact that on Sector General’s special ambulance ship he had to relinquish command to the senior medic, Conway, during the course of a rescue. Fletcher was a good officer, able, resourceful, and one of the Federation’s top men in the field of comparative extraterrestrial technology. But there were times during the short period while responsibility was being passed to Senior Physician Conway when his manner became a trifle cool, formal — even downright nasty.

  Prilicla’s trembling diminished and the little empath tried to say something which would further improve the quality of the emotional radiation around it. “If the lately distressed vessel has landed on this planet,” it said timidly, “then we know that the crew belongs to one of the oxygen-breathing species and the preparations to receive casualties, if any, will be relatively simple.”

  “That’s true,” Conway said, laughing.

  “Only thirty-eight different species fall into that category,” Murchison said, and added dryly, “that we know of.”

  Rhabwar’s sensors detected a small concentration of metal and associated low-level radiation, which on an uninhabited Pianet could only mean the presence of a grounded ship, while they were still two diameters out. As a result they were able to decelerate and enter atmosphere for a closer look after only two orbits.

  The ambulance ship was a modified Monitor Corps cruiser and, as such, the largest of the Federation vessels capable of aerodynamic maneuvering in atmosphere. It sliced through the brown, sand-laden air like a great white dart, trailing a sonic Shockwave loud enough to wake the dead or, at the very least, to signal its presence to any survivors capable of receiving audio stimulus.

  Visibility was nil as they approached the grounded ship. The whole area was in the grip of one of the sandstorms which regularly swept this harsh, near-desert world, and the picture of the barren, mountainous surface was a sensor simulation rather than direct vision. It accurately reproduced the succession of wind-eroded hills and rocky outcroppings and the patches of thorny vegetation which clung to them. Then suddenly they were above and past the grounded ship.

  Fletcher pulled Rhabwar into a steep climb which became a ponderous loop as they curved back for a slower pass over the landing site. This time, as they flew low over the other ship at close to stalling speed, there was a brief cessation in the storm and they were able to record the scene in near-perfect detail.

  Rhabwar was climbing into space again when the Captain said, “I can’t put this ship down anywhere near that area, Doctor. I’m afraid we’ll have to check for survivors, if there are any, with the planetary lander. There aren’t any obvious signs of life from the wreck.”

  Conway studied the still picture of the crash site on his screen for a moment before replying. It was arguable whether the ship had made a heavy landing or a barely controlled crash. Much less massive than Rhabwar, it had been designed to land on its tail, but one of the three stabilizer fins had collapsed on impact, tipping the vessel onto its side. In spite of this the hull was relatively undamaged except for a small section amidships which had been pierced by a low ridge of rock. There was no visible evidence of damage other than that caused by the crash.

  All around the wreck at distances varying from twenty to forty meters there were an number of objects — Conway counted twenty-seven of them in all — which the sensor identified as organic material. The objects had not changed position between the first and second of Rhabwar’s thunderous fly-bys, so the probability was that they were either dead or deeply unconscious. Conway stepped up the magnification until the outlines became indistinct in the heat shimmer, and shook his head in bafflement.

  The objects had been, or were, living creatures, and even though they had been partly covered by windblown sand, he could see a collection of protuberances, fissures, and angular projections which had to be sensory organs and limbs. There was a general similarity in shape but a marked difference in size of the beings, but he thought they were more likely to be representatives of different subspecies rather than adults and their young at different stages of development.

  “Those lif
e-forms are new to me,” the pathologist said, standing back from the screen. She looked at Conway and the others in turn. There was no dissent.

  Conway thumbed the communicator button. “Captain,"he said briskly, “Murchison and Naydrad will go down with me. Prilicla will remain on board to receive casualties.” Normally that would have been the Kelgian Charge Nurse’s job, but nobody there had to be told that the fragile little empath would last for only a few minutes on the surface before being blown away and smashed against the rocky terrain. He went on, “I realize that four people on the lander will be a tight squeeze, but initially I’d like to take a couple of pressure litters and the usual portable equipment—”

  “One large pressure litter, Doctor,” Fletcher broke in. 'There will be five people on board. I am going down as well in case there are technical problems getting into the wreck. You’re forgetting that if the life-forms are new to the Federation, then their spaceship technology could be strange as well. Dodds will fetch anything else you need on the next trip down. Can you be ready at the lander bay in fifteen minutes?”

  “We’ll be there,” Conway said, smiling at the eagerness in the other’s voice. Fletcher wanted to look at the inside of that wrecked ship just as badly as Conway wanted to investigate the internal workings of its crew. And if there were survivors, Rhabwar would shortly be engaged in conducting another medial first contact with all the hidden problems, both clinical and cultural, which that implied.

  Fletcher’s eagerness was underlined by the fact that he rather than Dodds took the vehicle down and landed it in a ridiculously small area of flat sand within one hundred meters of the wreck. From the surface the wind-eroded rock outcroppings looked higher, sharper, and much more dangerous, but the sandstorm had died down to a stiff breeze which lifted the grains no more than a few feet above the ground. From the orbiting Rhabwar, Haslam reported occasional wind flurries passing through their area which might briefly inconvenience them.