Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice

by James White

  But there was enough space inside the lander to take all of them, especially when those not wearing gravity compensators, which was everyone but Prilicla, were further compressed by the lander’s savage deceleration. Lieutenant Dodds, Rhabwar’s astrogation officer and the lander’s pilot, had been told that speed had priority over a comfortable ride, and it obeyed that particular order with enthusiasm. So fast and uncomfortable was the descent that Cha Thrat saw nothing of Goglesk until she stepped onto its surface.

  For a few moments she thought that she was back on Sommaradva, standing in a grassy clearing beside the shore of a great inland lake and with the tree-shrouded outlines of a small, servile township in the middle distance. But the ground beneath her feet was not that of her home planet, and the grass, wildflowers, and all the vegetation around her were subtly different in color, odor, and leaf structure from their counterparts on Sommaradva. Even the distant trees, although looking incredibly similar to some of the lowland varieties at home, were the products of a completely different evolutionary background.

  Sector General had seemed strange and shocking to her at first, but it had been a fabrication of metal, a gigantic artificial house. This was a different world!

  “Is your species afflicted with sudden and inexplicable bouts of paralysis?” Naydrad asked. “Stop wasting time and bring out the litter.”

  She was guiding the powered litter down the unloading ramp when Wainright’s flyer landed and rolled to a stop close beside them. The five Earth-humans who manned the Goglesk base jumped out. Four of them scattered quickly and began running toward the town, testing their translation and public address equipment as they went, while the Lieutenant came toward the lander.

  “If you have anything to do that involves two or more of you working closely together,” it said quickly, “do it now while the flyer is hiding you from view of the town. And when you move out, remain at least five meters apart. If these people see you moving closer together than that, or making actual bodily contact by touching limbs, it won’t precipitate a joining, but it will cause them to feel deeply shocked and intensely uncomfortable. You must also—”

  “Thank you, friend Wainright,” Prilicla said gently. “We cannot be reminded too often to be careful.”

  The Lieutenant’s features deepened in color, and it did not speak again until, walking i a well-separated line abreast, they were approaching the outskirts of the town.

  “It doesn’t look like much to us,” Wainright said softly, the feelings behind its words making Prilicla tremble, “but they had to fight very hard every day of their lives to achieve it, and I think they’re losing.”

  The town occupied a wide crescent of grass and stony outcroppings enclosing a small, natural harbor. There were several jetties projecting into deep water, and most of the craft tied up alongside had thin, high funnels and paddle wheels as well as sails. One of the boats, clearly the legacy of a past joining, was smoke-blackened and sunk at its moorings. Hugging the water’s edge was a widely separated line of three- and four-story buildings, made of wood, stone, and dried clay. Ascending ramps running around all four walls gave access to the upper levels, so that from certain angles the buildings resembled thin pyramids.

  These, according to the Goglesk tape, were the town’s manufacturing and food-processing facilities, and she thought that the smell of Gogleskan raw fish was just as unpleasant as that of their Sommaradvan counterparts. Perhaps that was the reason why the private dwellings, whose roofs and main structural supports were provided by the trees around the edge of the clearing, were so far away from the harbor.

  As they moved over the top of a small hill, Wainright pointed out a low, partially roofed structure with a stream running under it. From their elevated position they could see into the maze of corridors and tiny rooms that was the town’s hospital and Khone’s adjoining dwelling.

  The Lieutenant began speaking quietly into its suit mike, and she could hear the words of warning and reassurance being relayed at full volume from the speakers carried by the four Earth-humans who had preceded them.

  “Please do not be afraid,” it was saying. “Despite the strange and frightening appearance of the beings you are seeing, they will not harm you. We are here to collect Healer Khone, at its own request, for treatment in our hospital. While we are transferring Khone to our vehicle we may have to come very close to the healer, and this may accidentally cause a call for joining to go out. A joining must not be allowed to happen, and so we urge everyone to move away from your homes, deep into the forest or far from the shore, so that a distress signal will not reach you. As an additional safeguard, we will place around the healer’s home devices that will make a loud and continuous sound. This sound will be as unpleasant to you as it is to us, but it will merge with and change the sound of any nearby distress signal so that it will no longer be a call for joining.”

  Wainright looked toward Prilicla and when the empath signaled its approval, it changed to the personal suit frequency and went on. “Record and rerun that, please, until I either amend the message or tell you to stop.”

  “Will they believe all that?” Naydrad called suddenly from its position along the line. “Do they really trust us off-planet monsters?”

  The Lieutenant moved several paces down the hill before replying. “They trust the Monitor Corps because we have been able to help them in various ways. Khone trusts Conway for obvious reasons and as their trusted healer, it has been able to convince the townspeople that Conway’s horrifying friends are also worthy of trust. The trouble is, Gogleskans are a race of loners who don’t always do as they’re told.

  “Some of them,” it went on, “could have good reasons for not wanting to leave their homes. Illness or infirmity, young children to be cared for, or for reasons that seem good only to a Gogleskan. That’s why we have to use the sound distorters.”

  Naydrad seemed satisfied but Cha Thrat was not. Out of consideration for Prilicla, who would suffer everyone else’s feelings of anxiety as well as her own, she remained silent.

  Like everyone else in Maintenance, she knew about those distorters. Suggested and designed by Ees-Tawn, the department’s head of Unique Technology, in response to one of Conway’s long-term Gogleskan requirements, the devices were still in the prototype stage. If successful they would go into mass production until they were in every Gogleskan home, factory, and seagoing vessel. It was not expected that the devices would eliminate joinings entirely, but with sensitive audio detectors coupled to automatic actuators, it was hoped that the link-ups that did occur would be limited to a few persons. That would mean that a joining’s destructive potential would be negligible, shorter in duration, and psychologically less damaging to the beings concerned.

  Under laboratory conditions the distorters were effective against several FOKT distress call recordings provided by Conway, but the device had yet to be tested on Goglesk itself.

  The stink of fish worsened, and the sound of the monitors broadcasting the Lieutenant’s message grew louder as they neared the hospital. Apart from a few glimpses she had of the Earth-humans moving between the houses at the edge of the clearing, there were no signs of life in the town.

  “Stop sending now,” Wainright briskly said. “Anyone who hasn’t acted on the message by now doesn’t intend to. Harmon, take up the flyer and give me an aerial view of this area. The rest of you place the distorters around the hospital, then stand by. Cha Thrat, Naydrad, ready with the litter?”

  Quickly, Cha Thrat positioned the vehicle close to the entrance of Khone’s dwelling, ran out the rear ramp, and opened the canopy in readiness to receive the patient. They could not risk touching Khone within sight of other Gogleskans and were hoping that the little healer would come out and board the vehicle itself. In case it did not, Naydrad would send in its remote-controlled probe to find out why.

  Because they would make conversation difficult—and so far nothing had happened that could cause any Gogleskan to emit a distress call—t
he distorters remained silent.

  “Friend Khone,” Prilicla said, and the waves of sympathy, reassurance, and friendship emanating from it were almost palpable. “We have come to help you. Please come out.”

  They waited for what seemed like a very long time, but there was neither sight nor sound of Khone.

  “Naydrad …” Wainright began.

  “I’m doing it,” the Kelgian snapped.

  The tiny vehicle, bristling with sound, vision, and biosensors as well as a comprehensive array of handling devices, rolled across the uneven surface and into Khone’s front entrance, pushing aside the curtain of woven vegetable fibers that hung there. The view all around it was projected onto the litter’s repeater screen.

  Cha Thrat thought that the probe itself, to someone who did not know its purpose, was a frightening object. Then she reminded herself that Diagnostician Conway, and through it Khone, knew all about such mechanisms.

  The probe revealed nothing but a deserted house.

  “Perhaps friend Khone required special medication from the hospital and went to get it,” Prilicla said worriedly. “But I cannot feel its emotional radiation, which means that it is either far from here or unconscious. If the latter, then it may require urgent attention, so we cannot afford to waste time by searching every room and passageway in the hospital with the probe. It will be quicker if I search for it myself.”

  Its iridescent wings were beating slowly, already moving it forward when it went on. “Move well back, please, so that your conscious feelings will not obscure the fainter, unconscious radiation of the patient.”

  “Wait!” the Lieutenant said urgently. “If you find it, and it awakens suddenly to see you hovering above it …”

  “You are correct, friend Wainright,” Prilicla said. “It might be frightened into sending out a distress call. Use your distorters.”

  Cha Thrat quickly moved back with the medical team beyond the range of maximum sensitivity for the Cinrusskin’s empathic faculty, and they adjusted their headsets to deaden external sounds while enabling them to communicate with each other. As a screaming, moaning, whistling cacophony erupted from the distorter positions around the hospital, Cha Thrat wondered about the depth of unconsciousness of their patient. The noise was enough to wake the dead.

  It was more than enough to rouse Khone.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I feel it!” Prilicla called, excitement causing its hovering flight to become wildly unstable. “Friend Naydrad, send in the probe. The patient is directly beneath me, but I don’t want to risk frightening it by a sudden, close approach. Quickly, it is very weak and in pain.”

  Now that it had an accurate fix on Khone’s position, Naydrad quickly guided the probe to the room occupied by the Gogleskan. Prilicla rejoined the others around the litter’s repeater screen where the sensor data was already being displayed.

  The pictures showed the interior of one of the hospital’s tiny examination rooms with the figure of Khone lying against the low wall that separated the healer and patient during treatment. A small table contained a variety of very long-handled, highly polished wooden implements that appeared to be probes, dilators, and spatulas for the nonsurgical investigation of body orifices, some jars of local medication, and, incongruously, the lifeless x-ray scanner left by Conway. A few of the instruments had fallen to the floor, and it seemed likely that Khone had been examining a patient on the other side of the wall when the healer had collapsed. It was also probable that the patient concerned had originated the last message received by Wainright.

  “I am Prilicla, friend Khone,” the empath said via the probe’s communicator. “Do not be afraid …”

  Wainright made an untranslatable sound to remind Prilicla that, apart from the initial words of identification, Gogleskans did not address each other as persons and became mentally distressed if anyone tried to do so.

  “This device will not cause pain or harm,” Prilicla continued more impersonally. “Its purpose is to lift the patient, very gently, and convey it to a position where expert attention is available. It is beginning to do so now.”

  On the repeater screen Cha Thrat saw the probe extend two wide, flat plates and slide them between the floor and Khone’s recumbent body.

  “Stop!”

  The two voices, Khone’s through the communicator and Prilicla’s in response to the Gogleskan’s blast of emotional radiation, sounded as one. The empath’s fragile body was shaking as if caught in a high wind.

  “I’m sorry, friend Khone …” it began, then remembering, went on. “Sincere apologies are tendered for the severe discomfort caused to the patient. Even greater gentleness will be striven for in future. But is the patient-healer able to furnish information on the exact position of, and possible reasons for, the pain?”

  “Yes and no,” Khone said weakly. Its pain had diminished because Prilicla was no longer trembling. It went on. “The pain is located in the area of the birth canal. There is loss of function and diminished sensation in the lower limbs, and the upper limbs and the medial area are similarly but less markedly affected. The cardiac action is accelerated and respiration is difficult. It is thought that the birth process had begun and was interrupted, but the reason is unknown because the scanner has not worked for some time and it is doubted if the patient’s digits retain sufficient dexterity to change the power cell.”

  “The probe mounts its own scanner,” Prilicla said reassuringly, “and its visual and clinical findings will be transmitted to the healers out here. It will also change the power cell in the other scanner so that the patient will be able to aid the healers outside with its own Gogleskan observations and experience.”

  The empath began trembling again, but Cha Thrat had the feeling that the shaking was due to its personal concern for Khone rather than a return of the other’s pain.

  “The scanner is being deployed now,” Prilicla went on. “It will approach closely but will not touch the patient.”

  “Thanks are expressed,” Khone said.

  As she watched the increasingly detailed scan of Khone’s pelvic area, Cha Thrat grew more and more angry over her ignorance of Gogleskan physiology. And it made little difference that the degree of ignorance of Prilicla, Murchison, and Naydrad was only slightly less than her own. The one person with the ability to help Khone now was many light-years away in Sector General, and there was a strong probability that even the presence of the Diagnostician Conway would not have resolved this problem.

  “The healer-patient can see for itself,” Prilicla said gently, “that the fetus is large and is improperly presented to the birth canal. It is also pressing against the major nerve bundles and impeding the blood supply to the muscles in the area, making it impossible for the fetus to be expelled in its present position.

  “Would the healer-patient agree,” the empath went on, “that the birth cannot proceed without immediate surgical intervention?”

  “No!” Khone said vehemently, forgetting to be impersonal. “You must not touch me!”

  “But we’re your …” Prilicla began. It hesitated for an instant, then went on. “Only friends wishing to help the patient are here. The psychological difficulties are understood. If necessary the probe can be instructed to administer sedative medication so that the patient will be unconscious and unaware of being touched while the operation is in progress.”

  “No,” Khone said again. “The patient must be conscious during and for a short period following the birth. There are things that the parent must do for the new-born. Can your mechanism be instructed to perform the operation? The patient would be less frightened by the touch of a machine than that of an off-world monster.”

  Prilicla trembled again with the emotional effort needed to make a negative reply. It said, “Regrettably not. The remote-controlled manipulators are not sufficiently accurate or responsive for such a delicate procedure. If an observation might be made, the patient is in a severely weakened state and may shortly become unconscious with
out the assistance of medication.”

  Khone was silent for a moment, then with a note of desperation in its voice the Gogleskan said, “It is consciously realized that the off-world healers feel friendship and deep concern for the patient. But subconsciously, on the darker, unthinking levels of the mind, the close approach of one of these visually horrifying creatures would represent an immediate and deadly threat to the life of the patient, which would inevitably lead to a call for joining.”

  “The call would not be heard,” Prilicla said, and explained the purpose of the sound distorters. But Khone’s reply set the empath trembling again.

  “A call for joining,” it said, “presupposes a condition of extreme mental distress that is followed by a massive and uncontrolled expenditure of physical energy. The effect on the patient and fetus could lead to termination.”

  Quickly Prilicla said, “Time is short and the clinical condition is deteriorating rapidly. Risks must be taken. The probe mechanism can be made to provide two-way vision, and pictures of the off-world friends will be sent. Will the patient choose from among them the least frightening being, who will then try to assist it?”

  While the litter’s vision pickup swung to cover each of them in turn, Khone was saying “The Earth-humans are familiar and trusted, as are the Cinrusskin and Kelgian seen during the earlier visit to Goglesk, but all of them would arouse blind, instinctive terror if they approached closely. The other two beings are unfamiliar, both to the recollection of the patient or in the memories of the Earth-human Conway. Are they healers?”

  There was a note of relief in the empath’s voice as it replied, “Both are recent arrivals at the hospital and were unknown to Conway at the time of its first visit. The small, globular being is Danalta, an entity capable of taking any required physical form including, if desirable, that of a Gogleskan, or of extruding any limbs or sensory organs necessary for the repair or alleviation of an organic malfunction. It will work under the Senior Physician’s direction and is an ideal choice for—”