by James White
“Sometimes,” Cha Thrat said defensively, “I’m not sure who or what I am myself. When I am thinking like a senior person I can’t help behaving like a …” She stopped herself before she said too much.
“Like a Diagnostician,” O’Mara said drily. “Oh, don’t worry, this department never reveals anyone’s deep, dark, and, in your case, peculiar secrets. Prilicla, when it wasn’t enthusing over your behavior immediately preceding and during Khone’s delivery and on the Rhiim ship, told me about the joining it feels you underwent on Goglesk. Being Prilicla, it is anxious to avoid any painful and embarrassing incidents between its friends Conway, Murchison, and yourself, and so are we.
“But the fact remains,” the Chief Psychologist went on, “that you shared minds with Khone who, because of an earlier sharing with Conway, gave you much of the knowledge and experience of a Sector General Diagnostician as well as a Gogleskan healer. You also became deeply involved on the mental level with one of the Rhiim parasites, not to mention some earlier prying into the mind of your Chalder friend, AUGL-One Sixteen. I’m not surprised that there are times when you aren’t quite sure who or what you are. Is there any doubt about that at present?”
“No,” she replied, “you are talking only to Cha Thrat.”
“Good,” O’Mara said, “because it is Cha Thrat’s problematical future that we must now consider. Since the business on Rhabwar, when you were not only insubordinate but completely right, the option of a career in Maintenance, even though Timmins speaks highly of you, is closed, as is any hope you may have had of service as a ship’s medic with the Monitor Corps. Shipboard discipline is often invisible, but it is there and it is strict, and no ship commander would risk taking on a doctor with a proven record of insubordination.
“The Cultural Contact people you’ve been helping with the Rhiim parasite,” it continued, “are less discipline-oriented than the others, and they are impressed with you and are grateful enough to offer you a spot on your home planet, after the disciplinary dust has had a chance to settle, of course. What would you say to returning to Sommaradva?”
Cha Thrat made an untranslatable sound and O’Mara said drily, “I see. But the medical and surgical options are also closed to you. In spite of the respect in which are held by many of the senior staff, nobody wants a know-it-all trainee nurse on their wards who is likely to say or do something that will suggest that its Charge Nurse or doctor on duty are, well, clinically incorrect. And while you have influence in high places, that also could disappear if the truth about your Gogleskan mind-swap became common knowledge.”
Cha Thrat was wondering if there was anything she could do or say that would halt the relentless closing down of her options, when Braithwaite looked up from its display.
“Excuse me, sir,” it said. “But from my knowledge of the personalities involved, Conway, Khone, and Prilicla are unlikely to discuss it among anyone but themselves, and Murchison, who is a very intelligent entity indeed, will do likewise when she realizes the truth or learns it from her life-mate. Her psych profile indicates the presence of a well-developed sense of humor, and it might well be that the thought of an other-species entity, and another female at that, looking upon her with the same libidinous feelings as those of her life-mate, Conway, would be funnier than it was embarrassing. Naturally, I would not suggest that any of these misdirected feelings would be translated into action, but certain entertaining sexual fantasies could arise that would illuminate the whole area of interspecies—”
“Braithwaite,” O’Mara said quietly, “it is talk like that which gives people the wrong impression about e-t psychologists.
“As for you, Cha Thrat,” it went on, “I decided a long time ago that there was only one position here that suited your particular talents. Once again you will start as a trainee, at the bottom, and advancement will be slow because your chief is very hard to please. It is a difficult and often thankless job that will cause irritation to most people, but then you’ve become used to that. You will have a few compensations, like being able to poke your olfactory orifices into everyone else’s business whenever you think it necessary. Do you accept?”
Suddenly Cha Thrat’s pulse was clearly audible to her and she was finding it difficult to breathe. “I—I don’t understand,” she said.
O’Mara took a deep breath, then exhaled through its nose and said, “You do understand, Cha Thrat. Don’t pretend to be stupid when you aren’t.”
“I do understand,” she agreed, “and I am most grateful. The delay was due to a combination of initial disbelief and consideration of the implications. You are saying that I am to learn the skills of nonmaterial healing, the casting of spells, and that I am to become a trainee wizard.”
“Something like that,” the Chief Psychologist said. It glanced at the display on her desk and added, “I see that you’ve already been exposed to the senior staff psych chart amendment procedure. It is routine, unexciting but very necessary work. Braithwaite has been trying to unload the job on someone for months.”
THE GENOCIDAL HEALER
TO JEFF
AKA JEFFREY MCLLWAIN, MD, FRCS
WHO IS ALSO GREAT WITH SICK
REFRIGERATORS;
IN APPRECIATION
CHAPTER 1
They had assembled in a temporarily unused compartment on the hospital’s eighty-seventh level. The room had seen service at various times as an observation ward for the birdlike Nallajims of physiological classification LSVO, as a Melfan ELNT operating theater, and, most recently, as an overflow ward for the chlorine-breathing Illensan PVSJs, whose noxious atmosphere still lingered in trace quantities. For the first and only time it was the venue of a military court and, Lioren thought hopefully, it would be used to terminate rather than extend life.
Three high-ranking Monitor Corps officers had taken their seats facing a multispecies audience that might be sympathetic, antagonistic, or simply curious. The most senior was an Earth-human DBDG, who opened the proceedings.
“I am Fleet Commander Dermod, the president of this specially convened court-martial,” it said in the direction of the recorder. Then, inclining its head to one side and then the other, it went on. “Advising me are the Earth-human Colonel Skempton of this hospital, and the Nidian, Lieutenant-Colonel Dragh-Nin, of the Corps’s other-species legal department. We are here at the behest of Surgeon-Captain Lioren, a Tarlan BRLH, who is dissatisfied with the verdict of a previous Federation civil-court hearing of its case. The Surgeon-Captain is insisting on its right as a serving officer to be tried by a Monitor Corps military tribunal.
“The charge is gross professional negligence leading to the deaths of a large but unspecified number of patients while under its care.”
Without taking its attention from the body of the court, and seeming deliberately to avoid looking at the accused, the fleet commander paused briefly. The rows of chairs, cradles, and other support structures suited to the physiological requirements of the audience held many beings who were familiar to Lioren: Thornnastor, the Tralthan Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology; the Nidian Senior Tutor, Cresk-Sar; and the recently appointed Earth-human Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery, Conway. Some of them would be willing and anxious to speak in Lioren’s defense, but how many would be as willing to accuse, condemn, and punish?
“As is customary in these cases,” Fleet Commander Dermod resumed gravely, “the counsel for the defense will open and the prosecution will have the last word, followed by the consultation and the agreed verdict and sentence of the officers of this court. Appearing for the defense is the Monitor Corps Earth-human, Major O’Mara, who has been Chief of the Department of Other-Species Psychology at this hospital since it first became operational, assisted by the Sommaradvan, Cha Thrat, a member of the same department. The accused, Surgeon-Captain Lioren, is acting for and is prosecuting itself.
“Major O’Mara, you may begin.”
While Dermod had been speaking, O’Mara, whose two eyes were recessed and part
ially hidden by thin flaps of skin and shadowed by the gray hair which grew in two thick crescents above them, had looked steadily at Lioren. When it rose onto its two feet, the prompt screen remained unlit. Plainly the Chief Psychologist intended speaking without notes.
In the angry and impatient manner of an entity unused to the necessity for being polite, it said, “May it please the court, Surgeon-Captain Lioren stands accused, or more accurately stands self-accused, of a crime of which it has already been exonerated by its own civil judiciary. With respect, sir, the accused should not be here, we should not be here, and this trial should not be taking place.”
“That civil court,” Lioren said harshly, “was influenced by a very able defender to show me sympathy and sentiment when what I needed was justice. Here it is my hope that—”
“I will not be as able a defender?” O’Mara asked.
“I know you will be an able defender!” Lioren said loudly, knowing that the process of translation was removing much of the emotional content from the words. “That is my greatest concern. But why are you defending me? With your reputation and experience in other-species psychology, and the high standards of professional behavior you demand, I expected you to understand and side with me instead of—”
“But I am on your side, dammit—” O’Mara began. He was silenced by the distinctively Earth-human and disgusting sound of the fleet commander clearing its main breathing passage.
“Let it be clearly understood,” Dermod said in a quieter voice, “that all entities having business before this court will address their remarks to the presiding officer and not to each other. Surgeon-Captain Lioren, you will have the opportunity to argue your case without interruption when your present defender, be he able or inept, has completed his submission. Continue, Major.”
Lioren directed one eye toward the officers of the court, another he kept on the silent crowd behind him, and a third he fixed unwaveringly upon the Earth-human O’Mara, who, still without benefit of notes, was describing in detail the accused’s training, career, and major professional accomplishments during his stay at Sector Twelve General Hospital. Major O’Mara had never used such words of praise to or about Lioren in the past, but now the things it was saying would not have been out of place in a eulogy spoken over the mortal remains of the respected dead. Regrettably, Lioren was neither dead nor respected.
As the hospital’s Chief Psychologist, O’Mara’s principal concern was and always had been the smooth and efficient operation of the ten-thousand-odd members of the medical and maintenance staff. For administrative reasons, the entity O’Mara carried the rank of major in the Monitor Corps, the Federation’s executive and law-enforcement arm, which was also charged with the responsibility for the supply and maintenance of Sector General. But keeping so many different and potentially antagonistic life-forms working together in harmony was a large job whose limits, like those of O’Mara’s authority, were difficult to define.
Given even the highest qualities of tolerance and mutual respect among all levels of its personnel, and in spite of the careful psychological screening they underwent before being accepted for training in the Galactic Federation’s most renowned multienvironment hospital, there were still occasions when serious interpersonal friction threatened to occur because of ignorance or misunderstanding of other-species cultural mores, social behavior, or evolutionary imperatives. Or, more dangerously, a being might develop a xenophobic neurosis which, if left untreated, would ultimately affect its professional competence, mental stability, or both.
A Tralthan medic with a subconscious fear of the abhorrent little predators which had for so long infested its home planet might find itself unable to bring to bear on one of the physiologically similar, but highly civilized, Kreglinni the proper degree of clinical detachment necessary for its treatment. Neither would it feel comfortable working with or, in the event of personal accident or illness, being treated by a Kreglinni medical colleague. It was the responsibility of Chief Psychologist O’Mara to detect and eradicate such problems before they could become life- or sanity-threatening or, if all else failed, to remove the potentially troublesome individuals from the hospital.
There had been times, Lioren remembered, when this constant watch for signs of wrong, unhealthy, or intolerant thinking which the Chief Psychologist performed with such dedication made it the most feared, distrusted, and disliked entity in Sector General.
But now O’Mara seemed to be displaying the type of uncharacteristic behavior that it had always considered as a warning symptom in others. By defending this great and terrible crime of negligence against an entire planetary population, a piece of wrong thinking without precedent in Federation history, it was ignoring and reversing the professional habits and practices of a lifetime.
Lioren stared for a moment at the entity’s head fur, which was a much lighter shade of gray than he remembered, and wondered whether the confusions of advancing age had caused it to succumb to one of the psychological ills from which it had tried so hard to protect everyone else. Its words, however, were reasoned and coherent.
“ … At no time was it suggested that Lioren was promoted beyond its level of competence,” O’Mara was saying. “It is a Wearer of the Blue Cloak, the highest professional distinction that Tarla can bestow. Should the court wish it I can go into greater detail regarding its total dedication and ability as an other-species physician and surgeon, based on observations made during its time in this hospital. Documentation and personal affidavits provided by senior and junior Monitor Corps officers regarding its deservedly rapid promotion after it left us are also available. But that material would be repetitious and would simply reinforce the point that I have been making, that Lioren’s professional behavior up to and, I submit, while committing the offense of which it is charged, was exemplary.
“I believe that the only fault that the court will find in the accused,” O’Mara went on, “is that the professional standards it has set itself, and until the Cromsag Incident achieved, were unreasonably high and its subsequent feelings of guilt disproportionately great. Its only crime was that it demanded too much of itself when—”
“But there is no crime!” O’Mara’s assistant, Cha Thrat, broke in loudly. It rose suddenly to its full height. “On Sommaradva the rules governing medical practice for a warrior-surgeon are strict, stricter by far than those accepted on other worlds, so I fully understand and sympathize with the feelings of the accused. But it is nonsense to suggest that strict self-discipline and high standards of professional conduct are in any sense bad, or a crime, or even a venial offense.”
“The majority of the Federation’s planetary histories,” O’Mara replied in an even louder voice, the deepening facial color showing its anger at this interruption from a subordinate, “contain many instances of fanatically good political leaders or religious zealots which suggest otherwise. Psychologically it is healthier to be strict in moderation and allow a little room for—”
“But surely,” Cha Thrat broke in again, “that does not apply to the truly good. You seem to be arguing that good is … is bad!”
Cha Thrat was the first entity that Lioren had seen of the Sommaradvan DCNF classification. Standing, it was half again as tall as O’Mara, and its arrangement of four ambulatory limbs, four waist-level heavy manipulators, and a further set for food provision and fine work encircling the neck gave it a shape that was pleasingly symmetrical and stable—unlike that of the Earth-humans, who always seemed to be on the point of falling on their faces. Of all the beings in the room, Lioren wondered if this entity would be the one who best understood his feelings. Then he concentrated his mind on the images coming from the eye that was watching the officers of the court.
Colonel Skempton was showing its teeth in the silent snarl Earth-humans gave when displaying amusement or friendship, the Nidian officer’s features were unreadable behind their covering of facial fur, and the fleet commander’s expression did not change at all when it spoke.
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“Are the counsels for the defense arguing among themselves regarding the guilt or otherwise of the accused,” it asked quietly, “or simply interrupting each other in their eagerness to expedite the case? In either event, please desist and address the court one at a time.”
“My respected colleague,” O’Mara said in a voice which, in spite of the emotion-filtering process of translation, sounded anything but respectful, “was speaking in support of the accused but was a trifle overeager. Our argument will be resolved, in private, at another time.”
“Then proceed,” the fleet commander said.
Cha Thrat resumed its seat, and the Chief Psychologist, its face pigmentation still showing a deeper shade of pink, went on, “The point I am trying to make is that the accused, in spite of what it believes, is not totally responsible for what happened on Cromsag. To do so I shall have to reveal information normally restricted to my department. This material is—”
Fleet Commander Dermod was holding up one forelimb and hand, palm outward. It said, “If this material is privileged, Major, you cannot use it without permission from the entity concerned. If the accused forbids its use—”
“I forbid its use,” Lioren said firmly.
“The court has no choice but to do the same,” Dermod went on as if the Surgeon-Captain had not spoken. “Surely you are aware of this?”
“I am also aware, as, I believe, are you, sir,” said O’Mara, “that if given the chance the accused would forbid me to say or do anything at all in its defense.”