Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

by James White

  “I’m looking after Thornnastor’s patients, plus some new arrivals,” Conway said quietly. “The Corpsmen and FGLI patients have been taken care of, and I was about to ask you for a DBLF tape for the Kelgians who have just come in.”

  O’Mara snorted. “I’ll send down a Kelgian doctor to take care of that,” he said angrily, “and your nurses can take care of the others for the time being. You don’t seem to realize that this is one level out of three-hundred eighty-four, Doctor Conway. That there are ward patients urgently in need of the simplest treatment or medication, and they won’t get it because the staff concerned whistle while they cheep. That the casualties are piling up around the locks, some of them in corridors which have been opened to space. Those pressure litters won’t supply air forever, you know, and the people in them can’t be feeling very happy …”

  “What do you want me to do?” said Conway.

  For some reason this made O’Mara angrier. He said bitingly, “I don’t know, Doctor Conway. I am a psychologist. I can no longer act effectively because most of my patients no longer speak the same language. Those who do I’ve tried to chivvy into thinking of something to get us out of this mess. But they’re all too busy treating the sick in their own neighborhood to think of the hospital as a whole. They want to leave it to the Big Brains …”

  “In these circumstances,” Conway put in, “a Diagnostician seems to be the logical person to come up with a bright idea.”

  O’Mara’s anger was being explained, Conway thought. It must be pretty frustrating for a psychologist who could neither listen or talk to his patients. But the anger seemed almost personal, as if Conway himself had fallen down on the job in some fashion.

  “Thornnastor is out of the picture,” O’Mara said, lowering his voice slightly. “You were probably too busy to know that the other two Diagnosticians who stayed behind were killed earlier today. Among the Senior Physicians, Harkness, Irkultis, Mannon—”

  “Mannon! Is he … ?”

  “I thought you might have known about him,” O’Mara said almost gently, “since it happened just two levels away. He was working on two QCQLs when the theater was opened up. A piece of flying metal ruptured his suit. He’s decompressed, and before that poison they use for air escaped completely he breathed some of it. But he’ll live.”

  Conway found that he had been holding his breath. He said, “I’m glad.”

  “Me, too,” said O’Mara gruffly. “But what I started to say was that there are no Diagnosticians left and no Senior Physicians other than yourself, and the place is in a mess. As the senior surviving medical officer in the hospital, what do you plan to do about it?”

  He stood watching Conway, and waiting.

  CHAPTER 20

  Conway had thought that nothing could make him feel worse than the realization some hours previously that the Translator system had broken down. He didn’t want this responsibility, the very thought of it scared him to death. Yet there had been times when he’d dreamed of being Sector General’s director and having absolute control over all things medical within the gigantic organization. But in those dreams the hospital had not been a dying, war-torn behemoth that was virtually paralyzed by the breakdown of communications between its separate and vital organs, nor had it bristled with death-dealing weapons, nor had it been criminally understaffed and horribly overcrowded with patients.

  Probably these were the only circumstances which would allow someone like himself to become Director of a hospital like this, Conway told himself sadly. He wasn’t the best available, he was the only one available. Even so it gave him a quite indescribable feeling, compounded of fear, anger and pride, that he was to be its head for the remaining days or weeks of its life.

  Conway gave a quick look around his ward, at the orderly if uneven rows of Tralthan and Earth-human beds and at the quietly efficient staff. He had made it this way. But he was beginning to see that he had been hiding himself down here, that he had been running away from his responsibilities.

  “I do have an idea,” he said suddenly to O’Mara. “It isn’t a good idea, and I think we ought to go to your office to talk about it, because you’ll probably object to it, loudly, and that might disturb the patients.”

  O’Mara looked at him sharply. When he spoke the anger had gone from his voice so that it was merely normally sarcastic again. He said, “I find all your ideas objectionable, Doctor. It’s because I’ve got such an orderly mind.”

  On the way to O’Mara’s office they passed a group of high-ranking Monitor officers and the Major told him that they were part of Dermod’s staff who were preparing to shift tactical command into the hospital. At the moment Dermod was commanding from Vespasian. But even the capital ships were taking a beating now, and the fleet commander had already had Domitian not quite shot from under him …

  When they arrived Conway said, “It isn’t such a hot idea, and seeing those Corpsmen on the way up here has given me a better one. Suppose we ask Dermod to let us use his ship Translators … ?”

  O’Mara shook his head. “It won’t work,” he said. “I thought of that idea, too. It seems the only Translator computers of any use to us are on the big ships, and they are such an integral part of the structure that it would practically wreck the ship to take one out. Besides, for our absolute minimum needs we would require twenty capital ship computers. We haven’t got twenty capital ships left, and what we do have Dermod says he has a much better use for.

  “Now what was your other not very good idea?”

  Conway told him.

  When he had finished, O’Mara looked at him steadily for nearly a minute. Finally he said, “Consider your idea objected to, but strongly. Consider, if you like, that I jumped up and down and pounded the desk, because that is what I’d be doing if I wasn’t so blasted tired. Don’t you realize what you’d be letting yourself in for?”

  From somewhere below them came a tearing crash with ridiculous, gong-like overtones. Conway jerked involuntarily, then said, “I think so. There will be a lot of mental confusion and discomfort, but I hope to avoid most of it by letting the tape entity take over almost completely until I have what I need, then I partly suppress it and do the translation. That was how it worked with the Tralthan tape and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with DBLFs or any of the others. The DBLF language should be a cinch, it being easier to moan like a Kelgian than hoot like a Tralthan …”

  He would not have to stay in any one place for very long, Conway hoped, only long enough to sort out the local translation problems. Some of the e-t sounds would be difficult to reproduce orally, but he had an idea for modifying certain musical instruments which might take care of that. And he would not be the only walking Translator, there were still e-t and human doctors who could help by taking one or two tapes. Some of them might have done so already, but had not thought of using them for translation yet. As he talked Conway’s tongue was having a hard job to keep up with his racing mind.

  “Just a minute,” said O’Mara at one point. “You keep talking about letting one personality come to the fore, then suppressing it, then bringing out two together and so on. You might find that you haven’t that much control. Multiple physiology tapes are tricky, and you’ve never had more than two before at any one time. I have your records.”

  O’Mara hesitated for a moment, then went on seriously, “What you get is the recorded memories of an e-t high in the medical profession on its home planet. It isn’t an alien entity fighting for possession of your mind, but because its memory and personality are impressed alongside your own you may be panicked into thinking that it is trying to take over. Some of our tapes were taken from very aggressive individuals, you see.

  “Odd things happen to doctors who take a number of longterm tapes for the first time,” O’Mara went on. “Pains, skin conditions, perhaps organic malfunctionings develop. All have a psychosomatic basis, of course, but to the person concerned they hurt just as much as the real thing. These disturbances
can be controlled, even negated, by a strong mind. Yet a mind with strength alone will break under them in time. Flexibility allied with strength is required, also something to act as a mental anchor, something that you must find for yourself …

  “Suppose I agree to this,” he ended abruptly, “how many will you need?”

  Conway thought quickly. Tralthan, Kelgian, Melfan, Nidian, the ambulating plants he had met before going to Etla, who also had remained behind, and the beasties Mannon had been treating when he was knocked out of it. He said, “FGLI, DBLF, ELNT, Nidian-DBDG, AACP and QCQL. Six.”

  O’Mara compressed his lips. “I wouldn’t mind if it was a Diagnostician doing this,” he objected, “because they are used to splitting their minds six ways. But you are just—”

  “The senior medical officer of the hospital,” Conway finished for him, grinning.

  “Hm,” said O’Mara.

  In the silence they could hear human voices and a peculiar, alien gabbling go past in the corridor outside. Whoever was making the noise must have been shouting very loud because the Major’s office was supposed to be soundproof.

  “All right,” said O’Mara suddenly, “you can try it. But I don’t want to have deal with you in my professional capacity, and that is a much stronger possibility than you seem to think. We’re too short of doctors to have you immobilizing yourself in a straight-jacket, so I’m going to set a watchdog on you. We’ll add GLNO to your list.”

  “Prilicla!”

  “Yes. Being an empath it has had a hard time with the sort of emotional radiation that is going around recently, and I’ve had to keep it under sedation. But it will be able to keep a mental eye on you, and probably help you, too. Move over to the couch.”

  Conway moved to the couch and O‘Mara fitted the helmet. Then the Major began to talk softly, sometimes asking questions, sometimes just talking. Conway should be unconscious for a multiple transfer, he said, he should in fact sleep for at least four hours for the best results, and he needed sleep anyway. Probably, O’Mara said, he had thought up this whole, harebrained scheme just to have a legitimate excuse to sleep. He had a big job ahead, the psychologist told him quietly, and he would really need to be in seven places as well as being seven people at once, so that a sleep would do him good …

  “It won’t be too bad,” Conway said, struggling to keep his eyes open. “I’ll stay in any one place only long enough to learn a few basic words and phrases that I can teach to the nursing staff. Just enough so they’ll understand when an e-t surgeon says ‘Scalpel,’ or ‘Forceps’ or ‘Stop breathing down the back of my neck, Nurse …’”

  The last words that Conway heard clearly were O’Mara saying, “Hang onto your sense of humor, lad. You’re going to need it …”

  He awoke in a room that was too large and too small, alien in six different ways and at the same time completely familiar. He did not feel rested. Clinging to the ceiling by six pipestem legs was a tiny, enormous, fragile, beautiful, disgustingly insectile creature that reminded him of his worst nightmares the amphibious cllels he used to hunt at the bottom of his private lake for breakfast, and many other things including a perfectly ordinary GLNO Cinrusskin like himself. It was beginning to quiver slightly in reaction to the emotional radiation he was producing. All of him knew that the GLNOs from Cinruss were empaths.

  Fighting his way to the surface of a maelstrom of alien thoughts, memories and impressions Conway decided that it was time to go to work. Prilicla was immediately available for the first test of his idea. He began searching for and bringing up the GLNO memories and experiences, sifting through a welter of alien data for the type of information which is not consciously remembered but is constantly in use—data on the Cinrusskin language.

  No, not the Cinrusskin language, he reminded himself sharply, his language. He had to think and feel and listen like a GLNO. Gradually he began to do it …

  And it was not pleasant.

  He was a Cinrusskin, a member of a fragile, low-gravity, insect race of empaths. The handsome, delicately marked exoskeleton and the youthful, iridescent sheen of Prilicla’s not quite atrophied wings were now things which he could properly appreciate, and the way Prilicla’s mandibles quivered in sudden concern at his distress. For Conway was a member of an empathic race, all the memories and experience of his GLNO life were those of a normally happy and healthy empath, but now he was an empath no more. He could see Prilicla, but the faculty which let him share the other’s emotions, and subtly colored every word, gesture and expression so that for two Cinrusskins to be within visual range was to be unalloyed pleasure for both, was missing. He could remember having empathetic contact, remember having it all his life, but now he was little more than a deaf mute.

  His human brain did not possess the empathetic faculty, and it was not bestowed by filling his mind with memories of having had it.

  Prilicla made a series of clicking, buzzing sounds. Conway, who had never spoken with the GLNO other than by means of the toneless and emotion-filtering process of Translation, heard it say “I’m sorry” in a voice full of concern and pity.

  In return Conway tried to make the soft trill and click which was Prilicla’s name, the true sound of the Earth-human word “Prilicla” being only a clumsy approximation. On the fifth attempt he succeeded in making something which was close to the sound he wanted.

  “That is very good, friend Conway,” Prilicla said warmly. “I had not considered this idea of yours possible. Can you understand me?”

  Conway sought the word-sounds he needed, then carefully began to form them. “Thank you,” he said, “and yes.”

  They tried more difficult phrases then, technical words to put across obtuse medical and physiological details. Sometimes Conway was able to do it, sometimes not. His was at best only the crudest of pidgin Cinrusskin, but he persevered. Then suddenly there was an interruption.

  “O’Mara here,” said a voice from his room communicator. “You should be awake now so here is the latest position, Doctor. We are still under attack, but this has eased off somewhat since more volunteer e-ts arrived to reinforce us. These are Melfans, some more Tralthans and a force of Illensan chlorine-breathers. So you’re going to have PVSJs to worry about, too. Then inside the hospital …”

  There followed a detailed breakdown of casualties and available staff into species, location and numbers, with further data on problems peculiar to each section and their degree of urgency.

  “ … It’s for you to decide where to start,” O’Mara went on, “and the sooner the better. But in case you are still feeling confused I’ll repeat—”

  “No need,” said Conway, “I got it.”

  “Good. How do you feel?”

  “Awful. Horrible. And very peculiar.”

  “That,” said O’Mara dryly, “is in all respects a normal reaction. Off.”

  Conway released the strapping which held him to the bed and swung his legs out. Immediately he stiffened, unable to let go. Many of the beings inhabiting his mind were terrified by weightless conditions and the reaction was instinctive. Because of this it was very difficult to counter, and he had a moment of sheer panic when he discovered that his feet would not stick to the ceiling the way Prilicla’s did. And when he did relax his grip on the edge of the bed he found that he had been holding on with an appendage that was pallid and flabby and horribly different to the clean, hard outlines of the mandible he had expected to see. But somehow he managed to cross his room into the corridor and traverse it for a distance of fifty yards.

  Then he was stopped.

  An irate medical orderly in Corps green wanted to know why he was out of bed and what ward he had come from. The Corpsman’s language was colorful and not at all respectful.

  Conway became aware of his large, gross, fragile, loathsome pink body. A perfectly good body, part of his mind insisted, if a little on the skinny side. And this shapeless, puny, monstrosity was encircled, where it was joined by its two lower appendages, by a piece of wh
ite fabric which served no apparent purpose. The body looked ridiculous as well as alien.

  Oh damn! thought Conway, struggling up through a smother of alien impressions, I forgot to dress.

  CHAPTER 21

  Conway’s first act was to install one representative from each species in the Communications room. A semblance of order had already been restored to the network by posting Corpsmen at every intercom unit to forbid their use—if the would-be user was not too persistent and well-muscled—to e-ts. This meant that Earth-human personnel could talk to each other. But with e-ts on the switchboard, calls by other species could be answered and redirected. Conway spent nearly two hours, more time than he ever spent anywhere else, putting himself en rapport with the e-t operators and devising a list of synonyms which would allow them to pass simple—very simple—messages to each other. He had two Monitor language experts with him on it, and it was they who suggested that he made a taped record of this seven-way Rosetta stone, and make others to fit the conditions he would find in the wards.

  Wherever he went after that Prilicla, the language experts and a Corps radio technician trailed behind, in addition to the nursing staff he accumulated from time to time. It was an impressive procession, but Conway was in no mood to appreciate it just then.

  Earth-human medical staff made up more than half of the present complement, but Earth-human Monitor casualties outnumbered the e-ts by thirty to one. On some levels one nurse had a whole ward of Corpsmen in her charge, with a few Tralthans or Kelgians trying to assist her. In such cases Conway’s job was simply that of arranging a minimum of communication between the human and e-t nurses. But there were other instances when the staff were ELNTs and FGLIs and the patients in their charge were DBLF, QCQL and Earth-human, or Earth-humans in charge of ELNTs, or the plant-like AACPs looking after a mixed bag of practically everything. The simple answer would have been to move the patients into the charge of staff of their own species—except that they could not be moved for the reason that they were too ill, that there was no staff available to move them, or that there were no nurses of that particular species. In these cases Conway’s job was infinitely more complex.