Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

by James White

  Caxton stormed out, followed more slowly by Waring. At the door the tractor-beam man paused, addressed one printable and three unprintable words to O’Mara, grinned suddenly and left. The Major sighed.

  “O’Mara,” he said sternly, “you’re out of a job again, and while I don’t as a rule give unasked for advice I would like to remind you of a few facts. In a few weeks time the staff and maintenance engineers for this hospital will be arriving and they will be comprised of practically every known species in the galaxy. My job is to settle them in and keep friction from developing between them so that eventually they will work together as a team. No text-book rules have been written to cover this sort of thing yet, but before they sent me here my superiors said that it would require a good rule-of-thumb psychologist with plenty of common sense who was not afraid to take calculated risks. I think it goes without saying that two such psychologists would be even better …”

  O’Mara was listening to him all right, but he was thinking of that grin he’d got from Waring. Both the infant and Waring were going to be all right now, he knew, and in his present happy state of mind he could refuse nothing to anybody. But apparently the Major had mistaken his abstraction for something else.

  “ … Dammit I’m offering you a job! You fit here, can’t you see that? This is a hospital, man, and you’ve cured our first patient … !”

  CHAPTER 2

  SECTOR GENERAL

  Like a sprawling, misshapen Christmas tree the lights of Sector Twelve General Hospital blazed against the misty backdrop of the stars. From its view-ports shone lights that were yellow and red-orange and soft, liquid green, and others which were a searing actinic blue. There was darkness in places also. Behind these areas of opaque metal plating lay sections wherein the lighting was so viciously incandescent that the eyes of approaching ships’ pilots had to be protected from it, or compartments which were so dark and cold that not even the light which filtered in from the stars could be allowed to penetrate to their inhabitants.

  To the occupants of the Telfi ship which slid out of hyper-space to hang some twenty miles from this mighty structure, the garish display of visual radiation was too dim to be detected without the use of instruments. The Telfi were energy-eaters. Their ship’s hull shone with a crawling blue glow of radioactivity and its interior was awash with a high level of hard radiation which was also in all respects normal. Only in the stern section of the tiny ship were the conditions not normal. Here the active core of a power pile lay scattered in small, subcritical and unshielded masses throughout the ship’s Planetary Engines room, and here it was too hot even for the Telfi.

  The group-mind entity that was the Telfi spaceship Captain—and Crew—energized its short-range communicator and spoke in the staccato clicking and buzzing language used to converse with those benighted beings who were unable to merge into a Telfi gestalt.

  “This is a Telfi hundred-unit gestalt,” it said slowly and distinctly. “We have casualties and require assistance. Our Classification to one group is VTXM, repeat VTXM ���”

  “Details, please, and degree of urgency,” said a voice briskly as the Telfi was about to repeat the message. It was translated into the same language used by the Captain. The Telfi gave details quickly, then waited. Around it and through it lay the hundred specialized units that were both its mind and multiple body. Some of the units were blind, deaf and perhaps even dead cells that received or recorded no sensory impressions whatever, but there were others who radiated waves of such sheer, excruciating agony that the group-mind writhed and twisted silently in sympathy. Would that voice never reply, they wondered, and if it did, would it be able to help them … ?

  “You must not approach the Hospital nearer than a distance of five miles,” said the voice suddenly. “Otherwise there will be danger to unshielded traffic in the vicinity, or to beings within the establishment with low radiation tolerance.”

  “We understand,” said the Telfi.

  “Very well,” said the voice. “You must also realize that your race is too hot for us to handle directly. Remote controlled mechanisms are already on the way to you, and it would ease the problem of evacuation if you arranged to have your casualties brought as closely as possible to the ship’s largest entry port. If this cannot be done, do not worry—we have mechanisms capable of entering your vessel and removing them.”

  The voice ended by saying that while they hoped to be able to help the patients, any sort of accurate prognosis was impossible at the present time.

  The Telfi gestalt thought that soon the agony that tortured its mind and wide-flung multiple body would be gone, but so also would nearly one quarter of that body …

  With that feeling of happiness possible only with eight hours sleep behind, a comfortable breakfast within and an interesting job in front of one, Conway stepped out briskly for his wards. They were not really his wards, of course—if anything went seriously wrong in one of them the most he would be expected to do would be to scream for help. But considering the fact that he had been here only two months he did not mind that, or knowing that it would be a long time before he could be trusted to deal with cases requiring other than mechanical methods of treatment. Complete knowledge of any alien physiology could be obtained within minutes by Educator tape, but the skill to use that knowledge—especially in surgery—came only with time. Conway was looking forward with conscious pride to spending his life acquiring that skill.

  At an intersection Conway saw an FGLI he knew—a Tralthan intern who was humping his elephantine body along on six spongy feet. The stubby legs seemed even more rubbery than usual and the little OTSB who lived in symbiosis with it was practically comatose. Conway said brightly, “Good morning,” and received a translated—and therefore necessarily emotionless—reply of “Drop dead.” Conway grinned.

  There had been considerable activity in and about Reception last evening. Conway had not been called, but it looked as though the Tralthan had missed both his recreation and rest periods.

  A few yards beyond the Tralthan he met another who was walking slowly alongside a small DBDG like himself. Not entirely like himself, though—DBDG was the one-group classification which gave the grosser physical attributes, the number of arms, heads, legs, etc., and their placement. The fact that the being had seven-fingered hands, stood only four feet tall and looked like a very cuddly teddy bear—Conway had forgotten the being’s system of origin, but remembered being told that it came from a world which had suffered a sudden bout of glaciation which had caused its highest life-form to develop intelligence and a thick red fur coat—would not have shown up unless the Classification were taken to two or three groups. The DBDG had his hands clasped behind his back and was staring with vacant intensity at the floor. His hulking companion showed similar concentration, but favored the ceiling because of the different position of his visual organs. Both wore their professional insignia on golden armbands, which meant that they were lordly Diagnosticians, no less. Conway refrained from saying good morning to them as he passed, or from making undue noise with his feet.

  Possibly they were deeply immersed in some medical problem, Conway thought, or equally likely, they had just had a tiff and were pointedly ignoring each other’s existence. Diagnosticians were peculiar people. It wasn’t that they were insane to begin with, but their job forced a form of insanity onto them.

  At each corridor intersection annunciators had been pouring out an alien gabble which he had only half heard in passing, but when it switched suddenly to Terran English and Conway heard his own name being called, surprise halted him dead in his tracks.

  “ … To Admittance Lock Twelve at once,” the voice was repeating monotonously. “Classification VTXM-23. Dr. Conway, please go to Admittance Lock Twelve at once. A VTXM-23 …”

  Conway’s first thought was that they could not possibly mean him. This looked as if he was being asked to deal with a case—a big one, too, because the “23” after the classification code referred to the nu
mber of patients to be treated. And that Classification, VTXM, was completely new to him. Conway knew what the letters stood for, of course, but he had never thought that they could exist in that combination. The nearest he could make of them was some form of telepathic species—the V prefixing the classification showed this as their most important attribute, and that mere physical equipment was secondary—who existed by the direct conversion of radiant energy, and usually as a closely cooperative group or gestalt. While he was still wondering if he was ready to cope with a case like this, his feet had turned and were taking him toward Lock Twelve.

  His patients were waiting for him at the lock, in a small metal box heaped around with lead bricks and already loaded onto a power stretcher carrier. The orderly told him briefly that the beings called themselves the Telfi, that preliminary diagnosis indicated the use of the Radiation Theater, which was being readied for him, and that owing to the portability of his patients he could save time by calling with them to the Educator room and leaving them outside while he took his Telfi physiology tape.

  Conway nodded thanks, hopped onto the carrier and set it moving, trying to give the impression that he did this sort of thing every day.

  In Conway’s pleasurable but busy life with the high unusual establishment that was Sector General there was only one sour note, and he met it again when he entered the Educator room: there was a Monitor in charge. Conway disliked Monitors. The presence of one affected him rather like the close proximity of a carrier of a contagious disease. And while Conway was proud of the fact that as a sane, civilized and ethical being he could never bring himself actually to hate anybody or anything, he disliked Monitors intensely. He knew, of course, that there were people who went off the beam sometimes, and that there had to be somebody who could take the action necessary to preserve the peace. But with his abhorrence of violence in any form, Conway could not like the men who took that action.

  And what were Monitors doing in a hospital anyway?

  The figure in neat, dark green coveralls seated before the Educator control console turned quickly at his entrance and Conway got another shock. As well as a Major’s insignia on his shoulder, the Monitor wore the Staff and Serpents emblem of a Doctor!

  “My name is O’Mara,” said the Major in a pleasant voice. “I’m the Chief Psychologist of this madhouse. You, I take it, are Dr. Conway.” He smiled.

  Conway made himself smile in return, knowing that it looked forced, and that the other knew it also.

  “You want the Telfi tape,” O’Mara said, a trifle less warmly. “Well, Doctor, you’ve picked a real weirdie this time. Be sure you get it erased as soon as possible after the job is done—believe me, this isn’t one you’ll want to keep. Thumb-print this and sit over there.”

  While the Educator head-band and electrodes were being fitted, Conway tried to keep his face neutral, and keep from flinching away from the Major’s hard, capable hands. O’Mara’s hair was a dull, metallic gray in color, cut short, and his eyes also had the piercing qualities of metal. Those eyes had observed his reactions, Conway knew, and now an equally sharp mind was forming conclusions regarding them.

  “Well, that’s it,” said O’Mara when finally it was all over. “But before you go, Doctor, I think you and I should have a little chat; a re-orientation talk, let’s call it. Not now, though, you’ve got a case—but very soon.”

  Conway felt the eyes boring into his back as he left.

  He should have been trying to make his mind a blank as he had been told to do, so the knowledge newly impressed there could bed down comfortably, but all Conway could think about was the fact that a Monitor was a high member of the hospital’s permanent staff—and a doctor, to boot. How could the two professions mix? Conway thought of the armband he wore which bore the Tralthan Black and Red Circle, the Flaming Sun of the chlorine-breathing Illensa and intertwining Serpents and Staff of Earth—all the honored symbols of Medicine of the three chief races of the Galactic Union. And here was this Dr. O’Mara whose collar said he was a healer and whose shoulder tabs said he was something else entirely.

  One thing was now sure: Conway would never feel really content here again until he discovered why the Chief Psychologist of the hospital was a Monitor.

  II

  This was Conway’s first experience of an alien physiology tape, and he noted with interest the mental double vision which had increasingly begun to affect his mind—a sure sign that the tape had “taken.” By the time he had reached the Radiation Theater, he felt himself to be two people—an Earth-human called Conway and the great, five-hundred unit Telfi gestalt which had been formed to prepare a mental record of all that was known regarding the physiology of that race. That was the only disadvantage—if it was a disadvantage—of the Educator Tape system. Not only was knowledge impressed on the mind undergoing “tuition,” the personalities of the entities who had possessed that knowledge was transferred as well. Small wonder then that the Diagnosticians, who held in their mind sometimes as many as ten different tapes, were a little bit queer.

  A Diagnostician had the most important job in the hospital, Conway thought, as he donned radiation armor and readied his patients for the preliminary examination. He had sometimes thought in his more self-confident moments of becoming one himself. Their chief purpose was to perform original work in xenological medicine and surgery, using their tape-stuffed brains as a jumping-off ground, and to rally round, when a case arrived for which there was no physiology tape available, to diagnose and prescribe treatment.

  Not for them were the simple, mundane injuries and diseases. For a Diagnostician to look at a patient that patient had to be unique, hopeless and at least three-quarters dead. When one did take charge of a case though, the patient was as good as cured—they achieved miracles with monotonous regularity.

  With the lower orders of doctor there was always the temptation, Conway knew, to keep the contents of a tape rather than have it erased, in the hope of making some original discovery that would bring them fame. In practical, level-headed men like himself, however, it remained just that, a temptation.

  Conway did not see his tiny patients even though he examined them individually. He couldn’t unless he went to a lot of unnecessary trouble with shielding and mirrors to do so. But he knew what they were like, both inside and out, because the tape had practically made him one of them. That knowledge, taken together with the results of his examinations and the case history supplied him, told Conway everything he wanted to know to begin treatment.

  His patients had been part of a Telfi gestalt engaged in operating an interstellar cruiser when there had been an accident in one of the power piles. The small, beetle-like and—individually—very stupid beings were radiation eaters, but that flare-up had been too much even for them. Their trouble could be classed as an extremely severe case of over-eating coupled with prolonged over-stimulation of their sensory equipment, especially of the pain centers. If he simply kept them in a shielded container and starved them of radiation—a course of treatment impossible on their highly radioactive ship—about seventy percent of them could be expected to cure themselves in a few hours. They would be the lucky ones, and Conway could even tell which of them came into that category. Those remaining would be a tragedy because if they did not suffer actual physical death their fate would be very much worse: they would lose the ability to join minds, and that in a Telfi was tantamount to being a hopeless cripple.

  Only someone who shared the mind, personality and instincts of a Telfi, could appreciate the tragedy it was.

  It was a great pity, especially as the case history showed that it was these individuals who had forced themselves to adapt and remain operative during that sudden flare of radiation for the few seconds necessary to scatter the pile and so save their ship from complete destruction. Now their metabolism had found a precarious balance based on three times the Telfi normal energy intake. If this intake of energy was interrupted for any lengthy period of time, say a few more hours, t
he communications centers of their brains would suffer. They would be left like so many dismembered hands and feet, with just enough intelligence to know that they had been cut off. On the other hand, if their upped energy-intake was continued they would literally burn themselves out within a week.

  But there was a line of treatment indicated for these unfortunates, the only one, in fact. As Conway prepared his servos for the work ahead he felt that it was a highly unsatisfactory line—a matter of calculated risks, of cold, medical statistics which nothing he could do would influence. He felt himself to be little more than a mechanic.

  Working quickly, he ascertained that sixteen of his patients were suffering from the Telfi equivalent of acute indigestion. These he separated into shielded, absorbent bottles so that re-radiation from their still “hot” bodies would not slow the “starving” process. The bottles he placed in a small pile furnace set to radiate at Telfi normal, with a detector in each which would cause the shielding to fall away from them as soon as their excess radioactivity had gone. The remaining seven would require special treatment. He had placed them in another pile, and was setting the controls to simulate as closely as possible the conditions which had obtained during the accident in their ship, when the nearby communicator beeped at him. Conway finished what he was doing, checked it, then said “Yes?”

  “This is Enquiries, Dr. Conway. We’ve had a signal from the Telfi ship asking about their casualties. Have you any news for them yet?”

  Conway knew that his news was not too bad, considering, but he wished intensely that it could be better. The breaking up or modification of a Telfi gestalt once formed could only be likened to a death trauma to the entities concerned, and with the empathy which came as a result of absorbing their physiology tape Conway felt for them. He said carefully, “Sixteen of them will be good as new in roughly four hours time. The other seven will be fifty percent fatalities, I’m afraid, but we won’t know which for another few days. I have them baking in a pile at over double their normal radiation requirements, and this will gradually be reduced to normal. Half of them should live through it. Do you understand?”