by James White
“What about the other patients, Charge Nurse?” Cresk-Sar asked. As the Senior Physician present it had overall medical responsibility. “Is anyone hurt?”
Hredlichli swam along the line of monitors and said, “Disturbed and frightened, but they have sustained no injuries, nor has their food and medication delivery system been damaged. They’ve been very lucky.”
“Or the patient is being selective in its violence—” O’Mara began, then broke off.
The long shadow at the other end of the ward had foreshortened and was enlarging rapidly as it rushed toward them. Cha Thrat had a glimpse of fins blurred by rapid motion, ribbon tentacles streaming backward, and the serried ranks of gleaming teeth edging the enormous, gaping mouth before it crashed against the transparent wall of the Nurses’ Station. The wall bulged inward alarmingly but did not collapse.
It was too large for the doorless entrance, she saw, but it changed position and moved three of its tentacles inside. They were not long enough or strong enough to pull anyone outside to the mouth, although one of the Kelgian nurses had a few anxious moments. Disappointed, the Chalder turned and swam away, with detached vegetation eddying its wake.
O’Mara made a sound that did not translate, then said, “Who is the patient, and why was trainee Cha Thrat called?”
“It is the long-stay patient, AUGL-One Sixteen,” the Melfan nurse replied. “Just before it became violent it was calling for the new nurse, Cha Thrat. When I told the patient that the Sommaradvan would be absent for a few days, it stopped communicating and has not spoken to us since, even though its translator is still in position and working. That is why the trainee’s name was included when I called in the Code Blue.”
“Interesting,” the Earth-human said, turning its attention to Cha Thrat. “Why did it want you especially, and why should it start taking the ward apart when you weren’t available? Have you established a special relationship with AUGL-One Sixteen?”
Before she could reply, the Nidian said urgently, “Can the psychological ramifications wait, Major? My immediate concern is for the safety of the ward patients and staff. Pathology will give us a fast-acting anesthetic and a dart gun to pacify the patient, and then you can—”
“A dart gun!” one of the Kelgians said, its fur rippling in scorn. “Senior Physician, you are forgetting that your dart has to travel through water, which will slow it down, and then penetrate that organic suit of armor One Sixteen wears! The only sure way of placing the dart effectively would be to shoot it into the soft tissues of the inner mouth. To place it accurately, the person using the gun would have to be very close and might find itself following the dart into the open mouth, with immediately fatal results. I am not volunteering!”
Before Cresk-Sar could reply, Cha Thrat turned to the Senior Physician and said, “If you will explain what exactly it is that I must do, I shall volunteer for this duty.”
“You lack the training and experience to—” began the Nidian, and broke off as O’Mara held up its hand for silence.
“Of course you will volunteer,” O’Mara said quietly. “But why, Cha Thrat? Are you exceptionally brave? Are you naturally stupid? Do you have an urge to commit suicide? Or are you, perhaps, feeling a measure of responsibility and guilt?”
“Major O’Mara,” Hredlichli said firmly, “this is not the time for apportioning responsibility or undertaking deep analysis. What is to be done about Patient One Sixteen? And my other patients?”
“You’re right, Charge Nurse,” O’Mara said. “I shall do it my way, by attempting to pacify and reason with One Sixteen. I’ve spoken to it many times, enough for it to tell me apart from other Earth-humans if I wear this lightweight suit. While I’m working with it I may also need to talk to Cha Thrat, so stay by the communicator, trainee.”
“No need, I’ll go with you,” Cha Thrat said firmly. Silently she began the mental and moral exercises that were supposed to help reconcile her to an untimely ending of her life.
“And I,” O’Mara said, making another sound that did not translate, “will be too busy with our demented friend to stop you. Come along, then.”
“But it is only a trainee, O’Mara!” Cresk-Sar protested. “And in a lightweight suit it might recognize you, all right, as a convenient piece of plastic-wrapped meat. This life-form is omnivorous and until recently they—”
“Cresk-Sar,” the Earth-human said, as it swam toward the entrance. “Are you trying to worry me?”
“Oh, very well,” the Nidian said. “But I, too, shall do things my way, in case you can’t talk yourselves through this problem. Charge Nurse, signal immediately for a four-unit patient transfer team with heavy-duty suits, dart guns, and physical restraints suitable for a fully conscious and uncooperative AUGL …”
The tutor was still talking as Cha Thrat swam into the ward behind O’Mara.
For what seemed a very long time they hung silent and motionless in the middle of the ward, watched by an equally still and silent patient from the cover of a patch of torn artificial greenery. O’Mara had told her that they should not do anything that One Sixteen might construe as a threat, that they must therefore appear defenseless before it, and that the first move was up to the patient. Cha Thrat thought that the Earth-Human was probably right, but her whole body was slippery with perspiration, and much warmer than could be explained by the temperature of the green, lukewarm water outside her protective suit. Plainly she was not yet completely reconciled to the ending of her existence.
The voice of the Senior Physician in her suit ’phones made her twitch in every limb.
“The transfer team is here,” Cresk-Sar said quietly. “Nothing much is happening at your end. Can I send them in to move the other patients into OR? It will be a tight squeeze in there, but they will be able to receive treatment and be comfortable for a few hours, and you will have One Sixteen all to yourselves.”
“Is the treatment urgent?” O’Mara asked softly.
“No,” Cha Thrat said, answering the question before Cresk-Sar could relay it to the Charge Nurse. “Just routine observation and recording of vital signs, wound dressing changes, and administration of supportive medication. Nothing really urgent.”
“Thank you, Trainee,” Hredlichli said in a tone as corrosive as the atmosphere it breathed, then went on. “I have been Charge Nurse here for a short time, Major O’Mara, but I feel that I, too, have the patient’s trust. I would like to join you.”
“No, to both of you,” the Earth-human said firmly. “I don’t want our friend to be frightened or unsettled by too many comings and goings within the ward. And Hredlichli, if your protective suit were to rupture, contact with water is instantly lethal to a chlorine-breather, as you very well know. With us oxygen-breathers, we can drown in the stuff if help doesn’t reach us in time, but it isn’t poisonous or—Uh-oh!”
Patient AUGL-One Sixteen was silent but no longer still. It was rushing at them like a gigantic, organic torpedo, except that torpedoes did not have suddenly opening mouths.
Frantically they swam apart so as to give the attacking Chalder two targets instead of one, the theory being that while it was disposing of one the other might have enough time to make it to the safety of the Nurses’ Station. But this was planning for a remote contingency, the Earth-human had insisted. O’Mara would not believe that AUGL-One Sixteen, who was normally so shy and timid and amenable, was capable of making a lethal attack on anyone.
On this occasion it was right.
The vast jaws snapped shut just before the Chalder swept through the gap that had opened between them. Then the great body curved upward and over them, dove, and began swimming around them in tight circles. Turbulence sent them spinning and twisting like leaves at the center of a whirlpool. Cha Thrat did not know whether it was circling them in the vertical or horizontal plane, only that it was so close that she could feel the compression waves every time the jaws snapped shut, which was frequently. She had never felt so helpless and disoriented and frightene
d in all her life.
“Stop this nonsense, Muromeshomon!” she said loudly. “We are here to help you. Why are you behaving like this?”
The Chalder slowed but continued to circle them closely. It mouth gaped open and it said, “You cannot help me, you have said that you are not qualified. Nobody here can help me. I do not wish to harm you, or anyone else, but I am frightened. I am in great pain. Sometimes I want to hurt everyone. Stay away from me or I will hurt you …”
There was a muffled, underwater clang as its tail flicked out and struck her air tanks a glancing blow, sending her spinning again. An Earth-human hand grasped one of her waist limbs, steadying her, and she saw that the patient had returned to its dark corner and was watching them.
“Are you hurt?” O’Mara asked, releasing its grip. “Is your suit all right?”
“Yes,” Cha Thrat said, and added, “It left very quickly. I’m sure the blow was accidental.”
The Earth-human did not reply for a few moments, then it said, “You called Patient One Sixteen by name. I am aware of its name because the hospital requires this information for possible notification of the next-of-kin, but I would not consider using its name unless there were very exceptional circumstances, and then only with its permission. But somehow you have learned its name and are using it as lightly and thoughtlessly as you would Cresk-Sar’s or Hredlichli’s, or my name. Cha Thrat, you must never—”
“It told me its name,” Cha Thrat broke in. “We exchanged names while we were discussing my observations regarding the inadequacy of its treatment.”
“You discussed …” O’Mara said incredulously. It made an untranslatable noise and went on. “Tell me what exactly you said to it.”
Cha Thrat hesitated. The AUGL had left its dark corner and was moving toward them again, but slowly. It stopped halfway down the ward and hung with its fins and tail still and the ribbon tentacles spread like an undulating, circular fan around it, watching and probably listening to every word they said.
“On second thought, don’t tell me,” O’Mara said angrily. “I’ll tell you what I know about the patient first, then you can try to reduce my level of ignorance. That way we will avoid repetition and save time. I don’t know how much time it will give us to talk without another interruption. Not a lot, I suspect, so I’ll have to speak quickly …”
Patient AUGL-One Sixteen was a long-stay patient whose time in Sector General exceeded that of many of the medical staff. The clinical picture had been and still remained obscure. Several of the hospital’s top Diagnosticians had examined it, finding signs of strain in certain areas of the patient’s body plating that partly explained its discomfort—a being who was largely exoskeletal, lazy, and something of a glutton could only put on weight from the inside. The generally agreed diagnosis was hypochondria and the condition incurable.
The Chalder had become seriously ill only when there was talk of sending it home, and so the hospital had acquired a permanent patient. It did not mind. Visiting as well as hospital medics and psychologists had given it a going over, and continued to do so, as did the interns and nurses of all the life-forms represented on the staff. It had been probed, pried into, and unmercifully pounded by trainees of varying degrees of gentleness, and it loved every minute of it. The hospital’s teaching staff were happy with the arrangement and so was the Chalder.
“Nobody mentions going home to it anymore,” O’Mara ended. “Did you?”
“Yes,” Cha Thrat said.
O’Mara made another untranslatable noise and she went on quickly. “This explains why the nurses ignored it when other patients needed treatment, and supports my own diagnosis of an unspecified ruler’s disease that—”
“Listen, don’t speak!” the Earth-human said sharply. The patient seemed to be drifting closer. “My department has tried to get to the root causes of One Sixteen’s hypochondria, but I was not required to solve its problem so it remained unsolved. This sounds like an excuse, and it is. But you must understand that Sector General is not and can never be a psychiatric hospital. Can you imagine a place like this where a large proportion of the multispecies patients, the mere sight of which gives sane people nightmares, are physically fit and mentally disturbed? Can you imagine the problems of other-species treatment and restraint? It is difficult enough to be responsible for the mental well-being of the staff without adding disturbed patients, even a harmlessly disturbed patient like One Sixteen, to my load. When a medically ill patient displays signs of mental instability it is kept under close observation, restrained if necessary, and returned to its own people for the appropriate treatment as soon as it is physically well enough to be discharged.”
“I understand,” Cha Thrat said. “The explanation excuses you.”
The Earth-human grew pinker in the face, then said, “Listen carefully, Cha Thrat, this is important. The Chalders are one of the few intelligent species whose personal names are used only between mates, members of the immediate family, or very special friends. Yet you, an other-species stranger, have been told, and have spoken aloud, One Sixteen’s personal name. Have you done this in ignorance? Do you realize that this exchange of names means that anything you may have said to it, or any future action you may have promised, is as binding as the most solemn promise given before the highest imaginable physical or metaphysical authority?”
“Do you realize now how serious this is?” O’Mara went on in a tone of quiet urgency. “Why did it tell you its name? What, exactly, was said between you?”
She could not speak for a moment because the patient had moved very close, so close that she could see the individual points of its six rows of teeth. A strangely detached and uncaring portion of her mind wondered what evolutionary imperative had caused the upper three rows to be longer than the lower set. Then the jaw snapped shut with a boney crash that was muffled by the surrounding water, and the caring part of her mind wondered what it would sound like if a limb or her torso were between those teeth.
“Have you fallen asleep?” O’Mara snapped.
“No,” she said, wondering why an intelligent being had asked such a stupid question. “We talked because it was lonely and unhappy. The other nurses were busy with a post-op patient and I was not. I told it about Sommaradva and the circumstances that led to me coming here, and some of the things I would be able to do if I qualified for Sector General. It said that I was brave and resourceful, not sick and old and increasingly fearful like itself.
“It said that many times it dreamed of swimming free in the warm ocean of Chalderescol,” she went on, “instead of this aseptic, water-filled box with its plastic, inedible vegetation. It could talk about the home world to other AUGL patients, but much of their post-op recovery time was spent under sedation. The medical staff were pleasant to it and would talk, on the rare occasions when they had time to do so. It said that it would never escape from the hospital, that it was too old and frightened and sick.”
“Escape?” O’Mara said. “If our permanent patient has begun to regard the hospital as a prison, that is a very healthy sign, psychologically. But go on, what were you saying to it?”
“We spoke of general subjects,” she replied. “Our worlds, our work, our past experiences, our friends and families, our opinions—”
“Yes, yes,” the Earth-human said impatiently, looking at One Sixteen, who was edging closer. “I’m not interested in the small talk. What did you say that might have brought on this trouble?”
Cha Thrat tried to choose the words that would describe the situation concisely, accurately, and briefly as she replied, “It told me about the space accident and injuries that brought it here originally, and the continuing but irregular episodes of pain that keep it here, and of its deep unhappiness with its existence generally.
“I was uncertain of its exact status on Chalderescol,” she went on, “but from the way it had described its work I judged it to be an upperlevel warrior, at least, if not a ruler. By that time we had exchanged names, so I de
cided to tell it that the treatment being provided by the hospital was palliative rather than curative, and it was being treated for the wrong sickness. I said that its malady was not unknown to me and, although I was not qualified to treat the condition, there were wizards on Sommaradva capable of doing so. I suggested, on several occasions, that it was becoming institutionalized and that it might be happier if it returned home.”
The patient was very close to them now. Its massive mouth was closed but not still, because there was a regular chewing motion that suggested that the teeth were grinding together. The movement was accompanied by a high-pitched, bubbling moan that was both frightening and strangely pitiful.
“Go on,” O’Mara said softly, “but be very careful what you say.”
“There is little more to tell,” Cha Thrat said. “During our last meeting I told it that I was leaving for a two-day rest period. It would speak only of the wizards, and wanted to know if they could cure its fear as well as the pains. It asked me as a friend to treat it, or send for one of our Sommaradvan brothers who would be able to cure it. I told it that I had some knowledge of the spells of the wizards, but not enough to risk treating it, and that I lacked the status and authority to summon a wizard to the hospital.”
“What was the response to that?” O’Mara asked.
“None,” Cha Thrat said. “It would not speak to me thereafter.”
Abruptly they were looking into the AUGL’s open mouth, but it was keeping its uncomfortably short distance as it said, “You were not like the others, who did nothing and promised nothing. You held out the hope of a cure by your wizards, then withdrew it. You cause me pain that is many times worse than that which keeps me here. Go away, Cha Thrat. For your own safety, go away.”