Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

by James White

  It had been a bad few minutes while it lasted, Conway thought with relief, because the dim lighting and the opacity of the fog which the MSVKs called an atmosphere would have made the SRTT difficult to find if it had been lost to sight. If that had happened at this stage … Well, Conway preferred not to think about that.

  But the DBLF recreation room was only minutes away now, and the SRTT was heading straight for it. The being was changing again, into something low and heavy which was moving on all fours. It seemed to be drawing itself in, condensing, and there was a suggestion of a carapace forming. It was still in that condition when two Monitors, yelling and waving their arms wildly, dashed suddenly out of an intersection and stampeded it into the corridor which contained the recreation room …

  … And found it empty!

  Conway swore luridly. There should have been half a dozen Monitors strung across that corridor to bar its way, but he had made such good time getting here that they were not in position yet. They were probably still inside the rec room placing their equipment, and the SRTT would go right past the doorway.

  But he had not counted on the quick mind and even more agile body of Prilicla. His assistant must have realized the position in the same instant that he did. The little GLNO ran clicking down the corridor, rapidly overtaking the SRTT, then swinging up onto the ceiling until it had passed the runaway before dropping back. Conway tried to yell a warning, tried to shout that a fragile GLNO had no chance of heading off a being who was now the characteristics of an outsize and highly mobile armored crab, and that Prilicla was committing suicide. Then he saw what his assistant was aiming at.

  There was a powered stretcher-carrier in its alcove about thirty feet ahead of the fleeing SRTT. He saw Prilicla skid to a halt beside it, hit the starter, then charge on. Prilicla was not being stupidly brave, it was being brainy and fast which was much better in these circumstances.

  The stretcher-carrier, uncontrolled, lurched into motion and went wobbling across the corridor—right into the path of the charging SRTT. There was a metallic crash and a burst of dense yellow and black smoke as its heavy batteries shattered and shorted across. Before the fans could quite clear the air the Corpsmen were able to work around the stunned and nearly motionless runaway and herd it into the recreation room.

  A few minutes later a Monitor officer approached Conway. He gave a jerk of his head which indicated the weird assortment of gadgetry which had been rushed to the compartment only minutes ago and which lay in neat piles around the room, and included the green-clad men ranged solidly against the walls—all facing toward the center of the big compartment where the SRTT rotated slowly in the exact center of the floor, seeking a way of escape. Quite obviously he was eaten up with curiosity, but his tone was carefully casual as he said, “Dr. Conway, I believe? Well, Doctor, what do you want us to do now?”

  Conway moistened his lips. Up to now he had not thought much about this moment—he had thought that it would be easy to do this because the young SRTT had been such a menace to the hospital in general and caused so much trouble in his own section in particular. But now he was beginning to feel sorry for it. It was, after all, only a kid who had been sent out of control by a combination of grief, ignorance and panic. If this thing did not turn out right …

  He shook off the feelings of doubt and inadequacy and said harshly, “You see that beastie in the middle of the room. I want it scared to death.”

  He had to elaborate, of course, but the Monitors got the idea very quickly and began using the equipment which had been sent them with great fervor and enthusiasm. Watching grimly, Conway identified items from Air Supply, Communications and the various diet kitchens, all being used for a purpose for which they had never been designed. There were things which emitted shrill whistles, siren howls of tremendous volumes and others which consisted simply of banging two metal trays together. To this fearful racket was added the whoops of the men wielding those noisemakers.

  And there was no doubt that the SRTT was scared—Prilicla reported its emotional reactions constantly. But it was not scared enough.

  “Quiet!” yelled Conway suddenly. “Start using the silent stuff!”

  The preceding din had only been a primer. Now would come the really vicious stuff—but silent, because any noise made by the SRTT had to be heard.

  Flares burst around the shaking figure in the middle of the floor, blindingly incandescent but of negligible heat. Simultaneously tractor and pressor beams pushed and pulled at it, sliding it back and forth across the floor, occasionally tossing it into mid-air or flattening it against the ceiling. The beams worked on the same principle as the gravity neutralizer belts, but were capable of much finer control and focus. Other beam operators began flinging lighted flares at the suspended, wildly struggling figure, only yanking them back or turning them aside at the last possible moment.

  The SRTT was really frightened now, so frightened that even nonempaths could feel it. The shapes it was taking were going to give Conway nightmares for many weeks to come.

  Conway lifted a hand mike to his lips and flicked the switch. “Any reaction up there yet?”

  “Nothing yet,” O’Mara’s voice boomed from the speakers which had been set up around the room. “Whatever you’re doing at the moment you’ll have to step it up.”

  “But the being is in a condition of extreme distress …” began Prilicla.

  Conway rounded on his assistant. “If you can’t take it, leave!” he snapped.

  “Steady, Conway,” O’Mara’s voice came sharply. “I know how you must feel, but remember that the end result will cancel all this out …”

  “But if it doesn’t work.” Conway protested, then: “Oh never mind.” To Prilicla he said, “I’m sorry.” To the officer beside him he asked, “Can you think of any way of putting on more pressure?”

  “I’d hate anything like that being done to me,” said the Monitor tightly, “but I would suggest adding spin. Some species are utterly demoralized by spin when they can take practically anything else …”

  Spin was added to the pummeling which the SRTT was already undergoing with the pressors—not a simple spin, but a wild, rolling, pitching movement which made Conway’s stomach feel queasy just by looking at it, and the flares dived and swooped around it like insane moons around their primary. Quite a few of the men had lost their first enthusiasm, and Prilicla swayed and shook on its six pipe-stem legs, in the grip of an emotional gale which threatened to blow it away.

  It had been wrong to bring Prilicla in on this, Conway told himself angrily; no empath should have to go through this sort of hell by proxy. He had made a mistake from the very first, because the whole idea was cruel and sadistic and wrong. He was worse than a monster …

  High in the center of the room the twisting, spinning blur that was the younger SRTT began to emit a high-pitched and terrified gobbling noise.

  A crashing bedlam erupted from the wall speakers; shouts, cries, breaking noises and the sounds of running feet over-laying that of something slower and infinitely heavier. They could hear O’Mara’s voice shouting out some sort of explanation to somebody at the top of his lungs, then an unidentified voice yelled at them, “For Pete’s sake stop it down there! Buster’s papa has woke up and is wrecking the joint … !”

  Quickly but gently they checked the spinning SRTT and lowered it to the floor, then they waited tensely while the shouting and crashing being relayed to them from Observation Ward Three reached a crescendo and began gradually to die down. Around the room men stood motionless watching each other, or the whimpering being on the floor, or the wall speakers, waiting. And then it came.

  The sound was similar to the alien gobbling which had been relayed through the annunciators some hours previously, but without the accompanying roar of static, and because everyone had their Translators switched on the words also came through as English.

  It was the elder SRTT, incurable no longer because it was physically whole again, speaking both reassu
ringly and chidingly to its erring offspring. In effect it was saying that junior had been a bad boy, that he must cease forthwith running around and getting himself and everyone else into a state, and that nothing else unpleasant would happen to him if he did as he was told by the beings now surrounding him. The sooner it did these things, the elder SRTT ended, the sooner they could both go home.

  Mentally, the runaway had taken a terrible beating, Conway knew. Maybe it had taken too much. Tense with anxiety he watched it—still in a shape that was neither fish, flesh or fowl—begin humping its way across the floor. When it began gently and submissively to butt one of the watching Monitors in the knees, the cheer that went up very nearly gave it a relapse.

  “When Prilicla here gave me the clue to what was troubling the elder SRTT, I was sure that the cure would have to be drastic,” Conway said to the Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians ranged around and behind O’Mara’s desk.

  The fact that he was seated in such august company was a sure sign of the approval in which he was held, but despite that he still felt nervous as he went on. “Its regression toward the—to it—fetal state—complete dissolution into individual and unthinking cells floating in the primeval ocean—was far advanced, perhaps too far judging by its physical state. Major O’Mara had already tried various shock treatments which it, with its fantastically adaptable cell structure, was able to negate or ignore. My idea was to use the close physical and emotional bond which I discovered existed between the SRTT adult and its last-born offspring, and get at it that way.”

  Conway paused, his eyes drifting sideways briefly to take in the shambles around them. Observation Ward Three looked as though a bomb had hit it, and Conway knew that there had been a rather hectic few minutes here between the time the elder SRTT had come out of its catatonic state and explanations had been given it. He cleared his throat and went on:

  “So we trapped the young one in the DBLF recreation room and tried to frighten it as much as possible, piping the sounds it made up here to the parent. It worked. The elder SRTT could not lie doing nothing while its latest and most loved offspring was apparently in frightful danger, and parental concern and affection overcame and destroyed the psychosis and forced it back to present time and reality. It was able to pacify the young one, and so all concerned were left happy.”

  “A nice piece of deductive reasoning on your part, Doctor,” O’Mara said warmly. “You are to be commended …”

  At that moment the intercom interrupted him. It was Murchison reporting that the three AUGLs were showing the first signs of stiffening up, and would he come at once. Conway requested an AUGL tape for Prilicla and himself, and explained the urgency of the matter. While they were taking them the Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians began to leave. A little disappointedly Conway thought that Murchison’s call had spoiled what might have been his greatest moment.

  “Don’t worry about it, Doctor,” O’Mara said cheerfully, reading his mind again. “If that call had come five minutes later your head would have been too swollen to take a physiology tape …”

  Two days later Conway had his first and only disagreement with Dr. Prilicla. He insisted that without the aid of Prilicla’s empathic faculty—an incredibly accurate and useful diagnostic tool—and Murchison’s vigilance, the cure of all three AUGLs would not have been possible. The GLNO stated that, much as it was against its nature to oppose his superior’s wishes, on this occasion Dr. Conway was completely mistaken. Murchison said that she was glad that she had been able to help, and could she please have some leave?

  Conway said yes, then continued the argument with Prilicla, even though he knew he had no hope of winning it.

  Conway honestly knew that he would not have been able to save the infant AUGLs without the little empath’s help—he might not have saved any of them, in fact. But he was the Boss, and when a Boss and his assistants accomplish something the credit invariably goes to the Boss.

  The argument, if that was the proper word for such an essentially friendly disagreement, raged for days. Things were going well in the Nursery and they hadn’t anything of a serious nature to think about. They were not aware of the wreck which was then on its way to the hospital, or of the survivor it contained.

  Nor did Conway know that within the next two weeks the whole Staff of the hospital would be despising him.

  CHAPTER 5

  OUT-PATIENT

  The Monitor Corps cruiser Sheldon flicked into normal space some five hundred miles from Sector Twelve General Hospital, the wreck which was its reason for coming held gently against the hull within the field of its hyperdrive generators. At this distance the vast, brilliantly lit structure which floated in interstellar space at the galactic rim was only a dim blur of light, but that was because the Monitor Captain had had a close decision to make. Buried somewhere inside the wreck which he had brought in was a survivor urgently in need of medical attention. But like any good policeman his actions were constrained by possible effects on innocent bystanders—in this case the Staff and patients of the Galaxy’s largest multi-environment hospital.

  Hurriedly contacting Reception he explained the situation, and received their reassurances that the matter would be taken care of at once. Now that the welfare of the survivor was in competent hands, the Captain decided that he could return with a clear conscience to his examination of the wreck, which just might blow up in his face at any moment.

  In the office of the hospital’s Chief Psychologist, Dr. Conway sat uneasily on a very easy chair and watched the square, craggy features of O’Mara across an expanse of cluttered desk.

  “Relax, Doctor,” O’Mara said suddenly, obviously reading his thoughts. “If you were here for a carpeting I’d have given you a harder chair. On the contrary, I’ve been instructed to administer a hefty pat on the back. You’ve been up-graded, Doctor. Congratulations. You are now, Heaven help us all, a Senior Physician.”

  Before Conway could react to the news, the psychologist held up a large, square hand.

  “In my own opinion a ghastly mistake has been made,” he went on, “but seemingly your success with that dissolving SRTT and your part in the levitating dinosaur business has impressed the people upstairs—they think it was due to ability instead of sheer luck. As for me,” he ended, grinning, “I wouldn’t trust you with my appendix.”

  “You’re too kind, sir,” said Conway dryly.

  O‘Mara smiled again. “What do you expect, praise? My job is to shrink heads, not swell ’em. And now I suppose I’ll have to give you a minute to adjust to your new glory …”

  Conway was not slow in appreciating what this advance in status was going to mean to him. It pleased him, definitely—he had expected to do another two years before making Senior Physician. But he was a little frightened, too.

  Henceforth he would wear an armband trimmed with red, have the right-of-way in corridors and dining halls over everyone other than fellow Seniors and Diagnosticians, and all the equipment or assistance he might need would be his for the asking. He would bear full responsibility for any patient left in his charge, with no possibility of ducking it or passing the buck. His personal freedom would be more constrained. He would have to lecture nurses, train junior interns, and almost certainly take part in one of the long-term research programs. These duties would necessitate his being in permanent possession of at least one physiology tape, probably two. That side of it, he knew, was not going to be pleasant.

  Senior Physicians with permanent teaching duties were called on to retain one or two of these tapes continuously. That, Conway had heard, was no fun. The only thing which could be said for it was that he would be better off that a Diagnostician, the hospital’s elite, one of the rare beings whose mind was considered stable enough to retain permanently six, seven or even ten Educator tapes simultaneously. To their data-crammed minds were given the job of original research in xenological medicine, and the diagnosis and treatment of new diseases in the hitherto unknown life-forms.


  There was a well-known saying in the hospital, reputed to have originated with the Chief Psychologist himself, that anyone sane enough to want to be a Diagnostician was mad.

  For it was not only physiological data which the Educator tapes imparted, but the complete memory and personality of the entity who had possessed that knowledge was impressed on their brains as well. In effect, a Diagnostician subjected himself or itself voluntarily to the most drastic form of multiple schizophrenia …

  Suddenly O’Mara’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “ … And now that you feel three feet taller and are no doubt raring to go,” the psychologist said, “I have a job for you. A wreck has been brought in which contains a survivor. Apparently the usual procedures for extricating it cannot be used. Physiological classification unknown—we haven’t been able to identify the ship so have no idea what it eats, breathes or looks like. I want you to go over there and sort things out, with a view to transferring the being here as quickly as possible for treatment. We’re told that its movements inside the wreckage are growing weaker,” he ended briskly, “so treat the matter as urgent.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Conway, rising quickly. At the door he paused. Later he was to wonder at his temerity in saying what he did to the Chief Psychologist, and decided that promotion must have gone to his head. As a parting shot he said exultantly, “I’ve got your lousy appendix. Kellerman took it out three years ago. He pickled it and put it up as a chess trophy. It’s on my bookcase …”

  O’Mara’s only reaction was to incline his head, as if receiving a compliment.

  Outside in the corridor Conway went to the nearest communicator and called Transport. He said, “This is Dr. Conway. I have an urgent out-patient case and need a tender. Also a nurse able to use an analyzer and with experience of fishing people out of wrecks, if possible. I’ll be at Admission Lock Eight in a few minutes …”