Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice

by James White

  The jaws crashed shut and it swept around them and headed for the other end of the ward. They could not see clearly but, judging by the voices coming from the Nurses’ Station, it seemed intent on wrecking the place.

  “My patients!” Charge Nurse Hredlichli burst out. “My new treatment frames and medication cabinets …”

  “According to the monitors,” Cresk-Sar broke in, “the patients are still all right, but they’ve been lucky. I’m sending in the transfer team now to knock out One Sixteen. It will be a bit tricky. Both of you get back here, quickly.”

  “No, wait,” O’Mara said. “We’ll try talking to it again. This is not a violent patient and I don’t believe that we are in any real danger.” On Cha Thrat’s frequency it added, “But there is always a first time for being wrong.”

  For some reason a picture from Cha Thrat’s childhood rose suddenly to the surface of her adult mind. She saw again the tiny, many-colored fish that had been her favorite pet, as it circled and butted desperately and hopelessly against the glass walls of its bowl. Beyond those walls, too, lay an environment in which it would quickly asphyxiate and die. But that small fish, like this overlarge one, was not thinking of that.

  “When One Sixteen gave you its name,” O’Mara said with quiet urgency, “it placed a binding obligation on both of you to help the other in every way possible, as would a life-mate or a member of your family. When you mentioned the possibility of a cure by your Sommaradvan wizards, regardless of the efficacy of such other-species treatment, you were expected to provide the wizard regardless of any effort, cost, or personal danger to yourself.”

  There were noises of tearing metal and the complaining voices of the other AUGLs being transmitted through the green water, and Hredlichli sounded very agitated. O’Mara ignored them and went on. “You must keep faith with it, Cha Thrat, even though your wizards might not be able to help One Sixteen any more than we can. And I realize that you haven’t the authority to call in one of your wizards. But if Sector General and the Monitor Corps were to put their combined weight behind you—”

  “They wouldn’t come to this place,” Cha Thrat said. “Wizards are notoriously unstable people, but they are not stupid—It’s coming back!”

  This time One Sixteen was coming at them more slowly and deliberately, but still too fast for them to swim to safety, nor could the transfer team with their anesthetic darts reach them in time to do any good. There was no sound from the patients in the ward and the beings watching from the Nurses’ Station. As the AUGL loomed closer she could see that its eyes had the feral, manic look of a wounded predator, and slowly it was opening its mouth.

  “Use its name, dammit!” O’Mara said urgently.

  “Mu-Muromeshomon,” she stammered. “My—my friend, we are here to help you.”

  The anger in its eyes seemed to dim a little so that they reflected more of its pain. The mouth closed slowly and opened again, but only to speak.

  “Friend, you are in great and immediate danger,” the AUGL said. “You have spoken my name and told me that the hospital cannot cure me with its medicines and machines, and it no longer tries, and you will not help me even though you have said that a cure is possible. If our positions were reversed I would not act, or refuse to act, as you have done. You are an unequal friend, without honor, and I am disappointed and angry with you. Go away, quickly, and protect your life. I am beyond help.”

  “No!” Cha Thrat said fiercely. The mouth was opening wider, the eyes were showing a manic gleam once more, and she realized that when the AUGL attacked, she would be its first victim. Desperately she went on. “It is true that I cannot help you. Your sickness does not respond to the healer’s herbs or the surgeon’s knife, because it is a ruler’s disease that requires the spells of a wizard. A Sommaradvan wizard might cure you but, since you are not yourself a Sommaradvan, there is no certainty. Here there is the Earth-human, O’Mara, a wizard with experience of treating rulers of many different life-forms. I would have approached it about your case at once but, being a trainee and unsure of the procedure, I was about to request a meeting for another, an unimportant, reason during which I would have spoken of you in detail …”

  The AUGL had closed its mouth but was moving its jaws in a way that could be indicating anger or impatience. She went on quickly. “In the hospital I have heard many people speak of O’Mara and his great powers of wizardry—”

  “I’m the Chief Psychologist, dammit,” O’Mara broke in, “not a wizard. Let’s try to be factual about this and not make more promises we can’t possibly keep!”

  “You are not a psychologist!” Cha Thrat said. She was so angry with this Earth-human who would not accept the obvious that for a moment she almost forgot about the threat from One Sixteen. Not for the first time she wondered what obscure and undefined ruler’s disease it was that made beings who possessed high intelligence, and The Power in great measure, behave so stupidly at times. Less vehemently, she went on. “On Sommaradva a psychologist is a being, neither servile-healer nor warrior-surgeon, who tries to be a scientist by measuring brain impulses or bodily changes caused by physical and mental stress, or by making detailed observations of behavior. A psychologist tries to impose immutable laws in an area of spells and nightmares and changing realities, and tries to make a science of what has always been an art, an art practiced only by wizards.”

  They were both watching her, eyes unblinking, motionless. The patient’s expression had not changed but the Earth-human’s face had gone a much deeper shade of pink.

  “A wizard will use or ignore the instruments and tabulations of the psychologist,” she continued, “to cast spells that influence the complex, insubstantial structures of the mind. A wizard uses words, silences, minute observation, and intuition to compare and gradually change the sick, internal reality of the patient to the external reality of the world. That is the difference between a psychologist and a wizard.”

  The Earth-human’s face was still unnaturally dark. In a voice that was both quiet and harsh it said, “Thank you for reminding me.”

  Formally Cha Thrat said, “No thanks are required for that which needs to be done. Please, may I remain here to watch? Before now I have never had the chance to see a wizard at work.”

  “What,” the AUGL asked suddenly, “will the wizard do to me?”

  It sounded curious and anxious rather than angry, and for the first time since entering the ward she began to feel safe.

  “Nothing,” O’Mara said surprisingly. “I shall do nothing at all …”

  Even on Sommaradva the wizards were full of surprises, unpredictable behavior and words that began by sounding irrelevant, ill chosen, or stupid. What little of the literature that was available to one of the warrior-surgeon level, she had read and reread. So she composed herself and, with great anticipation, watched and listened while the Earth-human wizard did nothing at all.

  The spell began very subtly with words, spoken in a manner that was anything but subtle, describing the arrival of AUGL-One Sixteen at the hospital as the commanding officer and sole survivor of its ship. The vessels of water-breathing species, and especially those of the outsize denizens of Chalderescol, were notoriously unwieldy and unsafe, and it had been exonerated of all blame for the accident both by the Monitor Corps investigators and the authorities on Chalderescol—but not by itself. This was realized when the patient’s physical injuries had healed and it continued to complain of severe psychosomatic discomfort whenever the subject of returning home was discussed.

  Many attempts were made to make the patient realize that it was punishing itself, cutting itself off from its home and friends, for a crime that was very probably imaginary, but without success—it would not consciously admit that it had committed a crime, so telling it that it was not guilty had no effect. A Chalder’s most prized possession was its personal integrity, and as an authority that integrity was unassailable. AUGL-One Sixteen was a sensitive, intelligent, and highly qualified being who, outw
ardly, was a submissive and cooperative patient. But where its particular delusion was concerned it was as susceptible to influence as the orbit of a major planet.

  And so Sector General had acquired a permanent patient, an AUGL specimen in perfect health and a continuing and strictly unofficial challenge to its Department of Psychology, because only in the hospital could it be pain-free and relatively happy.

  Silently Cha Thrat apologized to the Earth-human for thinking that it had been negligent, and listened in admiration as the spell took positive form.

  “And now,” O’Mara went on, “due to a combination of circumstances, a significant change has occurred. The talks with transient AUGL patients have made you increasingly homesick. Your anger over your neglect by the medical staff has been growing because, subconsciously, you yourself were beginning to suspect that you were not sick and their attention was unnecessary. And then there was the unwarranted, but for you fortunate, interference by Trainee Cha Thrat, who confirmed your suspicion that you were not being treated as a patient.

  “You have much in common with our outspoken trainee,” it continued. “Both of you have reasons, real or imaginary, for not wanting to go home. On Sommaradva as on Chalderescol, personal integrity and public honor are held in high regard. But the trainee is woefully ignorant of the customs of other species and, when you took the unprecedented step of saying your name to a non-Chalder, it disappointed and hurt you grievously by continuing to act toward you as had the other members of the staff. You were driven to react violently but, because of the constraints imposed by your personality type, the violence was directed at inanimate objects.

  “But,” the Earth-human went on, “the simple act of giving your name to this sympathetic and untutored Sommaradvan, whom you had known only a few days, is the clearest possible indication of how badly you wanted help to get away from the hospital. You do still want to go home?”

  AUGL-One Sixteen replied with another high-pitched, bubbling sound that did not translate. Its eyes watched only the Earth-human, and the muscles around its closed jaws were no longer clenched into iron rigidity.

  “It was a stupid question,” O’Mara said. “Of course you want to go home. The trouble is, you are afraid and also want to stay here. A dilemma, obviously. But let me try to solve it by telling you that you are once again a patient here, subject to the hospital regimen and my own special and continuing treatment, and until I pronounce you cured you will not go home …”

  On the surface the situation had not changed, Cha Thrat thought admiringly. The hospital still retained its permanent AUGL patient, but now there was doubt about the permanency of the arrangement. Now it fully understood its position and had been given a choice, to stay or leave, and its departure date was unspecified so as to relieve its natural fears about leaving. But it was no longer completely satisfied with its life in the hospital, and already the Earth-human wizard was altering its internal reality by gently stressing the rehabilitative aspects of the therapy. Material would be provided by the Monitor Corps on the changes that had occurred on the home world in its absence, which would be useful if it decided to leave and informative should it stay, and there would be regular and frequent visits by O’Mara itself and other persons it would specify.

  Oh, yes, she thought as it talked on, this Earth-human wizard was good.

  The transfer team and their anesthetic dart guns had long since left the Nurses’ Station, which meant that Cresk-Sar and Hredlichli must have decided that the danger from AUGL-One Sixteen had passed. Looking at the passive and distress-free patient who was hanging on O’Mara’s every word, she was in entire agreement with them.

  “ … And you should now realize,” the Earth-human was saying, “that if you want to go, and can convince me that you are able to adapt to home-planet life, I shall with great pleasure and reluctance kick you out. You have been a patient for a very long time and, among many members of the senior staff, our professional concern has developed into the personal variety. But the best thing that a hospital can do for a friend is to send it away, as quickly as possible, cured.

  “Do you understand?” O’Mara ended.

  For the first time since the Earth-human had begun talking to it, AUGL-One Sixteen turned its attention to Cha Thrat. It said plaintively, “I am feeling much better, I think, but confused and worried by all that I must do. Was that a spell? Is O’Mara a good wizard?”

  Cha Thrat tried to control her enthusiasm as she said, “It is the beginning of a very fine spell, and it is said that a really good wizard makes its patient do all the hard work.”

  O’Mara made another one of its untranslatable noises and signaled Hredlichli that it was safe for the nurses to return to their patients. As they turned to leave AUGL-One Sixteen, who was once again its friendly and docile self, the Chalder spoke again.

  “O’Mara,” it said formally, “you may use my name.”

  When they were again in the air of the lock antechamber and all but Hredlichli had their visors open, the Charge Nurse said angrily, “I don’t want that—that interfering sitsachi anywhere near me! I know that One Sixteen is going to get better and leave sometime, and I’m glad about that. But just look at the place! Wrecked, it is! I refuse to allow that trainee in my ward. That’s final!”

  O’Mara looked at the chlorine-breather for a moment, then in the quiet, unemotional tones of a ruler it said, “It is, of course, within your authority to accept or refuse any trainee. But Cha Thrat, whether or not it is accompanied by me, will be granted visiting facilities whenever and as often as the patient itself or myself consider it necessary. I do not foresee a lengthy period of treatment. We are grateful for your cooperation, Charge Nurse, and no doubt you are anxious to return to your duties.”

  When Hredlichli had gone, Cha Thrat said, “There was no opportunity to speak until now, and I am unsure how my words will be received. On Sommaradva good work is expected of a wizard or any high-level ruler, so that the praise of a subordinate for a superior is unnecessary and insulting. But in this case—”

  O’Mara held up a hand for silence. It said, “Anything you say, whether complimentary or otherwise, will have no effect on what is to happen to you, so save your breath.

  “You are in serious trouble, Cha Thrat,” it went on grimly. “The news of what happened here will soon be all over the hospital. You must understand that to a Charge Nurse the ward is its kingdom, the nursing staff its subjects, and troublemakers, including trainees who exercise too much initiative too soon, are sent into exile, which can, in effect, mean home or to another hospital. I’d be surprised if there is a single Charge Nurse willing to accept you for practical ward training.”

  The Earth-human paused, giving her a moment to assimilate its words, then went on. “You have two options. Go home, or accept a nonmedical and servile position with Maintenance.”

  In a more sympathetic tone than she had ever heard it use before, Cresk-Sar said, “You are a most promising and diligent trainee, Cha Thrat. If you were to take such a position you would still be able to visit and talk to One Sixteen, and attend my lectures, and watch the teaching channels during your free time. But without practical ward experience you could not hope to qualify here.

  “If you don’t resign,” the Senior Physician went on, “it may well be that you will discover firsthand the answer to the question you asked me this morning on the recreation level.”

  Cha Thrat remembered that question very well, and the amusement it had caused among the tutor’s friends. She also remembered her initial feelings of shock and shame when her duties as a trainee nurse had been explained to her. Nothing could be more demeaning for a warrior-surgeon than that, she had thought at the time, but she had been wrong.

  “I am still ignorant of the laws governing the hospital,” she said. “But I realize that I have transgressed them in some fashion and must therefore accept the consequences. I shall not take the easy option.”

  O’Mara sighed and said, “It is your decision
, Cha Thrat.”

  Before she could reply, the Nidian Senior Physician was talking again. “Putting it into Maintenance would be a criminal waste,” the tutor protested. “It is the most promising trainee in its class. If we were to wait until the Hredlichli outcry died down, or until the grapevine is overloaded with another scandal, you might be able to find a ward that would take it for a trial period and—”

  “Enough,” O’Mara said, visibly relenting. “I don’t believe in having second thoughts because the first are usually right. But I’m tired and hungry and I, too, have had enough of your trainee.

  “There is such a ward,” it went on. “FROB Geriatric, which is chronically understaffed and may be desperate enough to accept Cha Thrat. It is not a ward where I would normally assign a trainee who is not of the patients’ own species, but I shall speak to Diagnostician Conway about it at the first opportunity.

  “Now go away,” it ended sourly, “before I cast a spell consigning both of you to the center of the nearest white dwarf.”

  As they were heading for the dining hall, Cresk-Sar said, “It’s a tough ward and, if anything, the work is even harder than a job in Maintenance. But you can say whatever you like to the patients and nobody will mind. Whatever else happens, you can’t get into trouble there.”

  The Nidian’s words were positive and reassuring, but its voice carried undertones of doubt.

  CHAPTER 7

  She was given two extra days off duty, but whether they were a reward for her help with AUGL-One Sixteen or because it took that long for O’Mara to arrange for her transfer to FROB Geriatric, Cresk-Sar would not say. She paid three lengthy visits to One Sixteen in the AUGL ward, during which her reception was enough to turn its tepid water to ice, but she would not risk returning to the recreation level or exploring the hospital. There was less chance of getting into trouble if she stayed in her room and watched the teaching channels.

  Tarsedth pronounced her certifiably insane and wondered why O’Mara had not confirmed this diagnosis.