Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

by James White

  After that O’Mara straightened out his legs and lowered his back gently to the floor. Despite the three Gs acting on him, the strain of maintaining that half-sitting position for the last half hour made him feel almost comfortable.

  The baby had stopped crying.

  “What I was about to say,” said the Monitor heavily when the silence looked like lasting for a few minutes, “was that your record on previous jobs does not fit what I find here. Previously you were, as you are now, a restless, discontented type, but you were invariably popular with your colleagues and only a little less so with your superiors—this last being because your superiors were sometimes wrong and you never were …”

  “I was every bit as smart as they were,” said O’Mara tiredly, “and proved it often. But I didn’t look intelligent, I had mucker written all over me!”

  It was strange, O’Mara thought, but he felt almost disinterested in his own personal trouble now. He couldn’t take his eyes off the angry blue patch on the infant’s side. The color had deepened and also the center of the patch seemed to have swelled. It was as if the super-hard tegument had softened and the FROB’s enormous internal pressure had produced a swelling. Increasing the gravity and pressure to the Hudlarian normal should, he hoped, halt that particular development—if it wasn’t a symptom of something else entirely.

  O’Mara had thought of carrying his idea a step further and spraying the air around the patient with food compound. On Hudlar the natives’ food was comprised of tiny organisms floating in their super-thick atmosphere, but then again the handbook expressly stated that food particles must be kept away from the affected areas of tegument, so that the extra gravity and pressure should be enough …

  “ … Nevertheless,” the Monitor was saying, “if a similar accident had happened on one of your previous jobs, your story would have been believed. Even if it had been your fault they would have rallied around to defend you from outsiders like myself.

  “What caused you to change from a friendly, likeable type of personality to this … ?”

  “I was bored,” said O’Mara shortly.

  There had been no sound from the infant yet, but he had seen the characteristic movements of the FROB’s appendages which foretold of an outburst shortly to come. And it came. For the next ten minutes speech was, of course, impossible.

  O‘Mara heaved himself onto his side and rolled back onto his now raw and bleeding elbows. He knew what was wrong; the infant had missed its usual after-feed nursing. O’Mara humped his way slowly across to the two counterweight ropes of the gadget he had devised for petting the infant and prepared to remedy this omission. But the ends of the ropes hung four feet above the floor.

  Lying propped by one elbow and straining to raise the dead weight of his other arm, O’Mara thought that the rope could just as easily have been four miles away. Sweat poured off his face and body with the intensity of the effort and slowly, trembling and wobbling so much that his gauntleted hand went past it first time, he reached up and grabbed hold. Still gripping it tightly he lowered himself gently back bringing the rope with him.

  The gadget operated on a system of counterweights, so that there was no extra pull needed on the controlling ropes. A heavy weight dropped neatly onto the infant’s back, administering a reassuring pat. O’Mara rested for a few minutes, then struggled up to repeat the process with the other rope, the pull on which would also wind up the first weight ready for use again.

  After about the eighth pat he found that he couldn’t see the end of the rope he was reaching for, though he managed to find it all the same. His head was being kept too high above the level of the rest of his body for too long a time and he was constantly on the point of blacking out. The diminished flow of blood to his brain was having other effects, too …

  “ … There, there,” O’Mara heard himself saying in a definitely maudlin voice. “You’re all right now, pappy will take care of you. There now, shush …”

  The funny thing about it was that he really did feel a responsibility and a sort of angry concern for the infant. He had saved it once only to let this happen! Maybe the three Gs which jammed him against the floor, making every breath a day’s work and the smallest movement an operation which called for all the reserves of strength he possessed, was bringing back the memory of another kind of pressure—the slow, inexorable movement together of two large, inanimate and uncaring masses of metal.

  The accident.

  As fitter-in-charge of that particular shift O‘Mara had just switched on the warning lights when he had seen the two adult Hudlarians chasing after their offspring on one of the faces being joined. He had called them through his translator, urging them to get to safety and leave him to chase the youngster clear—being much smaller than its parents the slowly closing faces would take longer to reach it, and during those extra few minutes O’Mara would have been able to herd it out of danger. But either their translators were switched off or they were reluctant to trust the safety of their child to a diminutive human being. Whatever the reason, they remained between the faces until it was too late. O’Mara had to watch helplessly as they were trapped and crushed by the joining structures.

  The sight of the young one, still unharmed because of its smaller girth, floundering about between the bodies of its late parents sent O‘Mara into belated action. He was able to chase it out of danger before the sections came close enough to trap it, and had just barely made it himself. For a few heart-stopping seconds back there O’Mara had thought he would have to leave a leg behind.

  This was no place for kids anyway, he told himself angrily as he looked at the quivering, twitching body with the patches of vivid, scabrous blue. People shouldn’t be allowed to bring kids out here, even tough people like the Hudlarians.

  But Major Craythorne was speaking again.

  “ … Judging by what I hear going on over there,” said the Monitor acidly, “you’re taking very good care of your charge. Keeping the youngster happy and healthy will definitely be a point in your favor …”

  Happy and healthy, thought O’Mara as he reached toward the rope yet again. Healthy … !

  “ … But there are other considerations,” the quiet voice went on. “Were you guilty of negligence in not switching on the warning lights until after the accident occurred, which is what you are alleged to have done? And your previous record notwithstanding, here you have been a surly, quarrelsome bully and your behavior toward Waring especially … !”

  The Monitor broke off, looked faintly disapproving, then went on, “A few minutes ago you said that you did all these things because you were bored. Explain that.”

  “Wait a minute, Major,” Caxton broke in, his face appearing suddenly behind Craythorne’s on the screen. “He’s stalling for some reason, I’m sure of it. All those interruptions, this gasping voice he’s using and this shush-a-bye-baby stuff is just an act to show what a great little nursemaid he is. I think I’ll go over and bring him back here to answer you face to face—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said O’Mara quickly. “I’ll answer any questions you want, right now.”

  He had a horrible picture of Caxton’s reaction if the other saw the infant in its present state; the sight of it made O’Mara feel queasy and he was used to it now. Caxton wouldn’t stop to think, or wait for explanations, or ask himself if it was fair to place an e-t in charge of a human who was completely ignorant of its physiology or weaknesses. He would just react. Violently.

  And as for the Monitor …

  O‘Mara thought that he might get out of the accident part, but if the kid died as well he hadn’t a hope. The infant had had a mild though uncommon disease which should have responded to treatment days ago, and instead had become progressively worse, so it would die anyway if O’Mara’s last desperate try at reproducing its home planet’s conditions did not come off. What he needed now was time. According to the book, about four to six hours of it.

  Suddenly the futility of it all hit
him. The infant’s condition had not improved—it heaved and twitched and generally looked to be the most desperately ill and pitiable creature that had ever been born. O’Mara swore helplessly. What he was trying to do now should have been tried days ago, his baby was as good as dead, and continuing this treatment for another five or six hours would probably kill or cripple him for life. And it would serve him right!

  VI

  The infant’s appendages curled in the way O‘Mara knew meant that it was going to cry again, and grimly he began pushing himself onto his elbows for another patting session. That was the very least he could do. And even though he was convinced that going on was useless, the kid had to be given the chance. O’Mara had to have time to finish the treatment without interruptions, and to insure that he would have to answer this Monitor’s questions in a full and satisfactory manner. If the kid started crying again he wouldn’t be able to do that.

  “ … For your kind cooperation,” the Major was saying dryly. “First off, I want an explanation for your sudden change of personality.”

  “I was bored,” said O’Mara. “Hadn’t enough to do. Maybe I’d become a bit of a sorehead, too. But the main reason for setting out to be a lousy character was that there was a job I could do here which could not be done by a nice guy. I’ve studied a lot and think of myself as a pretty good rule-of-thumb psychologist …”

  Suddenly came disaster. O’Mara’s supporting elbow slipped as he was reaching for the counterweight rope and he crashed back to the floor from a distance of two-and-a-half feet. At three Gs this was equivalent to a fall of seven feet. Luckily he was in a heavy duty suit with a padded helmet so he did not lose consciousness. But he did cry out, and instinctively held onto the rope as he fell.

  That was his mistake.

  One weight dropped, the other swung up too far. It hit the ceiling with a crash and loosened the bracket which supported the light metal girder which carried it. The whole structure began to sag, and slip, then was suddenly yanked floorward by four Gs onto the infant below. In his dazed state O’Mara could not guess at the amount of force expended on the infant—whether it was a harder than usual pat, the equivalent of a sharp smack on the bottom, or something very much more serious. The baby was very quiet afterward, which worried him.

  “ … For the third time,” shouted the Monitor, “what the blazes is going on in there?”

  O’Mara muttered something which was unintelligible even to himself. Then Caxton joined in.

  “There’s something fishy going on, and I bet it involves the kid! I’m going over to see—”

  “No wait!” said O’Mara desperately. “Give me six hours …”

  “I’ll see you,” said Caxton, “in ten minutes.”

  “Caxton!” O’Mara shouted, “if you come through my airlock you’ll kill me! I’ll have the inner seal jammed open and if you open the outer one you’ll evacuate the place. Then the Major will lose his prisoner.”

  There was a sudden silence, then:

  “What,” asked the Monitor quietly, “do you want the six hours for?”

  O’Mara tried to shake his head to clear it, but now that it weighed three times heavier than normal he only hurt his neck. What did he want six hours for? Looking around him he began to wonder, because both the food sprayer and its connecting water tank had been wrecked by the fall of tackle from the ceiling. He could neither feed, wash, nor scarcely see his patient for fallen wreckage, so all he could do for six hours was watch and wait for a miracle.

  “I’m going over,” said Caxton doggedly.

  “You’re not,” said the Major, still polite but with a no-nonsense tone. “I want to get to the bottom of this. You’ll wait outside until I’ve spoken with O‘Mara alone. Now O’Mara, what … is … happening?”

  Flat on his back again O‘Mara fought to gain enough breath to carry on an extended conversation. He had decided that the best thing to do would be to tell the Monitor the exact truth, and then appeal to him to back O’Mara up in the only way possible which might save the infant—by leaving him alone for six hours. But O‘Mara was feeling very low as he talked, and his vision was so poor that he couldn’t tell sometimes whether his eyelids were open or shut. He did see someone hand the Major a note, but Craythorne didn’t read it until O’Mara had finished speaking.

  “You are in a mess,” Craythorne said finally. He briefly looked sympathetic, then his tone hardened again. “And ordinarily I should be forced to do as you suggest and give you that six hours. After all, you have the book and so you know more than we do. But the situation has changed in the last few minutes. I’ve just had word that two Hudlarians have arrived, one of them a doctor. You had better step down, O’Mara. You tried, but now let some skilled help salvage what they can from the situation. For the kid’s sake,” he added.

  It was three hours later. Caxton, Waring and O’Mara were facing the Major across the Monitor’s desk. Craythorne had just come in.

  He said briskly, “I’m going to be busy for the next few days so we’ll get this business settled quickly. First, the accident. O’Mara, your case depends entirely on Waring’s corroboration for your story. Now there seems to be some pretty devious thinking here on your part. I’ve already heard Waring’s evidence, but to satisfy my own curiosity I’d like to know what you think he said?”

  “He backed up my story,” said O’Mara wearily. “He had no choice.”

  He looked down at his hands, still thinking about the desperate sick infant he had left in his quarters. He told himself again that he wasn’t responsible for what had happened, but deep inside he felt that if he had shown more flexibility of mind and had started the pressure treatment sooner the kid would have been all right now. But the result of the accident enquiry didn’t seem to matter now, one way or the other, and neither did the Waring business.

  “Why do you think he had no choice?” prodded the Monitor sharply.

  Caxton had his mouth open, looking confused. Waring would not meet O’Mara’s eyes and he was beginning to blush.

  “When I came here,” O‘Mara said dully, “I was looking out for a secondary job to fill my spare time, and hounding Waring was it. He is the reason for my being an obnoxious type, that was the only way I could go to work on him. But to understand that you have to go a bit further back. Because of that power pile accident,” O’Mara went on, “all the men of his section were very much in Waring’s debt—you’ve probably heard the details by now. Waring himself was a mess. Physically he was below par—had to get shots to keep his blood-count up, was just about strong enough to work his control console, and was fairly wallowing in self-pity. Psychologically he was a wreck. Despite all Pelling’s assurances that the shots would only be necessary for a few more months he was convinced that he had pernicious anemia. He also believed that he had been made sterile, again despite everything the doctor told him, and this conviction made him act and talk in a way which would give any normal man the creeps—because that sort of thing is pathological and there wasn’t anything like that wrong with him. When I saw how things were I started to ridicule him every chance I got. I hounded him unmercifully. So the way I see it he had no other choice but to support my story. Simple gratitude demanded it.”

  “I begin to see the light,” said the Major. “Go on.”

  “The men around him were very much in his debt,” O‘Mara continued. “But instead of putting the brakes on, or giving him a good talking to, they smothered him with sympathy. They let him win all fights, card-games or whatever, and generally treated him like a little tin god. I did none of these things. Whenever he lisped or stuttered or was awkward about anything,” O’Mara went on, “whether it was due to one of his mental and self-inflicted disabilities or a physical one which he honestly couldn’t help, I jumped on him hard with both feet. Maybe I was too hard sometimes, but remember that I was one man trying to undo the harm that was being done by fifty. Naturally he hated my guts, but he always knew exactly where he was with me. And I never pu
lled punches. On the very few occasions when he was able to get the better of me, he knew that he had won despite everything I could do to stop him—unlike his friends who let him beat them at everything and in so doing made his winning meaningless. That was exactly what he needed for what ailed him, somebody to treat him as an equal and made no allowances at all. So when this trouble came,” O’Mara ended, “I was pretty sure he would begin to see what I’d been doing for him—consciously as well as subconsciously—and that simple gratitude plus the fact that basically he is a decent type would keep him from withholding the evidence which would clear me. Was I right?”

  “You were,” said the Major. He paused to quell Caxton who had jumped to his feet, protesting, then continued, “Which brings us to the FROB infant.

  “Apparently your baby caught one of the mild but rare diseases which can only be treated successfully on the home planet,” Craythorne went on. He smiled suddenly. “At least, that was what they thought until a few hours ago. Now our Hudlarian friends state that the proper treatment has already been initiated by you and that all they have to do is wait for a couple of days and the infant will be as good as new. But they’re very annoyed with you, O’Mara,” the Monitor continued. “They say that you’ve rigged special equipment for petting and soothing the kid and that you’ve done this much more often than is desirable. The baby has been overfed and spoiled shamelessly, they say, so much so that at the moment it prefers human beings to members of its own species—”

  Suddenly Caxton banged the desk. “You’re not going to let him get away with this,” he shouted, red-faced. “Waring doesn’t know what he’s saying sometimes …”

  “Mr. Caxton,” said the Monitor sharply, “All the evidence available proves that Mr. O’Mara is blameless, both at the time of the accident and while he was looking after the infant later. However, I am not quite finished with him here, so perhaps you two would be good enough to leave …”