Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice (13 page)

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Authors: James White

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“If I had an Earth-human, a Kelgian, even a Nidian personality sharing my mind,” she persisted, “I would understand why the things I sometimes do are considered wrong, and would be able to avoid doing
them. The other-species material would be used for interpersonal behavioral guidance only. As a trainee I would not try to use its medical or surgical knowledge on my patients without permission.”
The Diagnostician was suddenly overcome by an attack of coughing. When it recovered it said, “Thank you, Cha Thrat. I’m sure the patients would thank you, too. But it’s impossible to … O’Mara, this is your field. You answer it.”
The Chief Psychologist moved close to the bedside and looked down at her. It said, “Hospital regulations do not allow me to do as you ask, nor would I do so if I could. Even though you are an unusually strong and stubborn personality, you would find it very difficult to control the other occupant of your mind. It
isn’t
an alien entity fighting for control, but because the type of leading medical specialist who donates the tapes is frequently a very strong-minded and aggressive person used to getting its own way, it would feel as if it is taking control. The ensuing purely subjective conflict could give rise to episodes of pain, skin eruptions, and more troublesome organic malfunctionings. All have a psychosomatic basis, of course, but they will hurt you just as much as the real thing. The risk of permanent mental damage is great and, until a trainee has learned to understand the external personalities of the beings around it, it would not receive one of their Educator tapes.
“In your case there is an additional reason,” O’Mara added. “You are a female.”
Sommaradvan prejudices
, she thought furiously,
even here in Sector General!
and made a sound that at home would have resulted in an immediate and probably violent breakdown in communication. Fortunately, the sound did not translate.
“The conclusion you have just jumped to is wrong,” O’Mara went on. “It is simply that the females of all the two-sexed species yet discovered have evolved with certain peculiarities, as opposed to abnormalities, of mind. One of them is a deeply rooted, sex-based fastidiousness and aversion toward anything or anyone entering or trying to possess their minds. The only exception is in the situation when lifemating has taken place, where, in many species, the processes of physical
and mental sharing and the feelings of possession complement each other. But I can’t imagine you falling in love with an other-species mind impression.”
“Do male entities,” Cha Thrat asked, both satisfied and intrigued by the explanation, “receive mind recordings from other-species females, then? Could
I
be given a female tape?”
“There is only one recorded instance of that …” O’Mara began.
“Let’s not go into that,” Conway broke in, its face becoming a darker shade of pink. “I’m sorry, Cha Thrat, you cannot be given an Educator tape, now or ever. O’Mara has explained why, just as he has explained the political circumstances of your arrival here and the delicate state of the cultural contact on Sommaradva that would be jeopardized if we simply dismissed you from the hospital. Wouldn’t it be better for all concerned if you left of your own free will?”
Cha Thrat was silent for a moment, her eyes turned toward the limb that she had thought would be lost forever, trying to find the right words. Then she said, “You don’t owe me anything for my work on ship ruler Chiang. I have already explained, during my first meeting with the Chief Psychologist, that the delay in attending to its injuries was caused by my not wanting to lose a limb because if, as a result of my decision to perform the operation it lost a limb, then so would I. As a warrior-surgeon I cannot escape a responsibility willingly accepted.
“And now,” she went on, “if I were to leave the hospital as you suggest, it would not be of my own free will. I cannot do, or leave undone, something that I know to be wrong.”
The Diagnostician was also looking at the replaced limb. “I believe you,” it said.
O’Mara exhaled slowly and half turned to leave. It said, “I’m very sorry I didn’t pick up on that ‘losing a limb’ remark you made at our first meeting; it would have saved us all a lot of trouble. Against my better judgment I relented after the AUGL-One Sixteen business, but the bloody drama during the FROB demonstration was too much. The remainder of your stay here will not be very pleasant because, in spite of the earlier recommendations you’ve had from Diagnostician Conway
and myself, nobody wants you anywhere near their patients.
“Let’s face it, Cha Thrat,” it ended as both Earth-humans moved toward the door, “you’re in the doghouse.”
She heard them talking with a third person in the corridor, but the words were too muffled for translation. Then the door opened and another Earth-human entered. It was wearing the dark-green uniform of the Monitor Corps and looked familiar.
Cheerfully it said, “I’ve been waiting outside in case they couldn’t talk you into leaving, and O’Mara was pretty sure they wouldn’t. I’m Timmins, in case you don’t remember me. We have to have a long talk.
“And before you ask,” it went on, “the doghouse, so far as you’re concerned, is the Maintenance Department.”
I
t was obvious from the beginning that Lieutenant Timmins did not consider its job to be either servile or menial, and it was not long before the Lieutenant had her beginning to feel the same way. It wasn’t just the Earth-human’s quiet enthusiasm for its job, there was also the portable viewer and set of study tapes it had left at her bedside that convinced her that this was work for warriors—although not, of course, for warrior-surgeons. The wide-ranging and complex problems of providing technical and environmental support for the sixty-odd—some of them very odd indeed—life-forms comprising the hospital’s patients and staff made her earlier medical and physiological studies seem easy by comparison.
Her last formal contact with the training program was when Cresk-Sar arrived, carried out a brief but thorough examination, and, subject to the findings of the eye specialist, Doctor Yeppha, who would be visiting her shortly, pronounced her physically fit to begin the new duties. She asked if there would be any objection to her continuing to view the medical teaching channels in her free time, and the Senior Physician told her that she could watch whatever she pleased in her spare time, but it was unlikely that she would ever be able to put any of the medical knowledge gained into practice.
It ended by saying that while it was relieved that she was no longer the Training Department’s responsibility, it was sorry to lose her and that it joined her erstwhile colleagues in wishing her success and personal satisfaction in the new work she had chosen.
Doctor Yeppha was a new life-form to her experience, a small, tripedal, fragile being that she classified as DRVJ. From the furry dome of its head there sprouted, singly and in small clusters, at least twenty eyes. She wondered whether the overabundance of visual sensors had any bearing on its choice of specialty, but thought it better not to ask.
“Good morning, Cha Thrat,” it said, taking a tape from the pouch at its waist and pushing it into the viewer. “This is a visual acuity test designed primarily to check for color blindness. We don’t care if you have muscles like a Hudlar or a Cinrusskin, there are machines to do the really heavy work, but you have to be able to see. Not only that, you must be able to clearly identify colors and the subtle shades and dilution of color brought about by changes in the intensity of the ambient lighting. What do you see there?”
“A circle made up of red spots,” Cha Thrat replied, “enclosing a star of green and blue spots.”
“Good,” Yeppha said. “I am making this sound much simpler than it really is, but you will learn the complexities in time. The service bays and interconnecting tunnels are filled with cable looms and plumbing all of which is color coded. This enables the maintenance people to tell at a glance which are power cables and which the less dangerous communication lines, or which pipes carry oxygen, chlorine, methane, or organic effluvia. The danger of contamination of wards by other-species atmospheres is always present, and such an environmental catastrophe should not be allowed to occur because some partially sighted nincompoop has connected up the wrong set of pipes. What do you see now?”
And so it went on, with Yeppha putting designs in subtly graduated colors on the screen and Cha Thrat telling it what she saw or did not see. Finally the DRVJ turned off the viewer and replaced the tape in its pouch.
“You don’t have as many eyes as I do,” it said, “but they all work. There is no bar, therefore, to you joining the Maintenance Department. My sincere commiserations. Good luck!”
The first three days were to be devoted exclusively to unsupervised lessons in internal navigation. Timmins explained that whenever or wherever an emergency occurred, or even if a minor fault was reported, the maintenance people were expected to be at the site of the trouble with minimum delay. Because they would normally be carrying tools or replacement parts with them on a self-powered trolley, they were forbidden the use of the main hospital corridors, except in the direst of emergencies—staff and patient traffic there was congested enough as it was without risking a vehicular thrombosis. She was therefore expected to find her way from A to B, with diversions through H, P, and W, without leaving the service bays and tunnels or asking directions of anyone she might meet.
Neither was she allowed to make an illegal check on her position by emerging into the main corridor system to go to lunch.
“Wearing the lightweight protective envelope will probably be unnecessary,” Timmins said as he lifted the grating in the floor just outside her room, “but maintenance people always wear them in case they have to pass through an area where there may be a nonurgent seepage of own-species toxic gas. You have sensors to warn you of the presence of all toxic contaminants, including radiation, a lamp in case one of the tunnels has a lighting failure, a map with your route clearly shown, a distress beacon in case you become hopelessly lost or some other personal emergency occurs, and, if I may say so, more than enough food to keep you alive for a week much less a day!
“Don’t worry and don’t try to hurry, Cha Thrat,” it went on. “Look on this as a long, leisurely walk through unexplored territory, with frequent breaks for a picnic. I’ll see you outside Access Hatch Twelve in Corridor Seven on Level One Twenty in fifteen hours, or less.”
It laughed suddenly and added, “Or possibly more.”
The service tunnels were very well lit, but low and narrow—at least so far as the Sommaradvan life-form was concerned—with alcoves set
at frequent intervals along their length. The alcoves were puzzling in that they were empty of cable runs, pipes, or any form of mechanisms, but she discovered their purpose when a Kelgian driving a powered trolley came charging along the tunnel toward her and yelled, “Move aside, stupid!”
Apart from that encounter she seemed to have the tunnel to herself, and she was able to move much more easily than she had ever been able to do in the main corridor whose floor was now above her head. Through the ventilator grilles she could clearly hear the sounds of thumping and tapping and slithering of other-species ambulatory appendages overhead, and the indescribable babble of growling, hissing, gobbling, and cheeping conversation that accompanied it.
She moved forward steadily, careful not to be surprised by another fast-moving vehicle as she consulted her map, and occasionally stopped to dictate notes describing the size, diameter, and color codings on the protective casings of the mechanisms and connecting pipes and cable runs that covered the tunnel walls and roof. The notes, Timmins had told her, would enable it to check her progress during the test, as well as give her an important check on her general location.
The power and communication lines would look the same anywhere in the hospital, but most of the plumbing here bore the color codings for water and the atmospheric mixture favored by the warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms that made up more than half of the Federation’s member species. Under the levels where they breathed chlorine, methane, or super-heated steam the colors would be much different and so would be her protective clothing.
A mechanism that did not appear to be working caught her attention. Through its transparent cover she could see a group of unlit indicators and a serial number that probably meant something to the entities who had built the thing, but to nobody else who was not familiar with their written language. She located and pressed the plate of the audible label and switched on her translator.
“I am a standby pump on the drinking water supply line to the DBLF ward Eighty-three diet kitchen,” it announced. “Functioning is
automatic when required, currently inoperative. The hinged inspection panel is opened by inserting your general-purpose key into the slot marked with a red circle and turning right through ninety degrees. For component repair or replacement consult Maintenance Instructions Tape Three, Section One Twenty. Don’t forget to close the panel again before you leave.
“I am a standby pump …” it was beginning again when she took her hand away, silencing it.
At first she had been worried by the thought of traveling continuously along the low, narrow service tunnels, even though O’Mara had assured Timmins that her psych profile was free of any tendency toward claustrophobia. All of the tunnels were brightly lit and, she had been told, they remained so even if they were unoccupied for long periods. On Sommaradva this would have been considered a criminal waste of power. But in Sector General the additional demand on the main reactor for continuous lighting was negligible, and was more than outweighed by the maintenance problem that would have been posed if fallible onoff switches had been installed at every tunnel intersection.
Gradually her route took her away from the corridors and the alien cacophony of the people using them, and she felt more completely and utterly alone than she had believed it possible to feel.
The absence of outside sounds made the subdued humming and clicking of the power and pumping systems around her appear to grow louder and more threatening, and she took to pressing the audible labels at random, just to hear another voice—even though it was simply a machine identifying itself and its often mystifying purpose.
Occasionally she found herself thanking the machine for the information.
The color codings had begun to change from the oxygen-nitrogen and water markings to those for chlorine and the corrosive liquid that the Illensan PVSJ metabolism used as a working fluid, and the corridors were shorter with many more twists and turns. Before her confusion could grow into panic, she decided to make herself as comfortable as
possible in an alcove, substantially reduce the quantity of food she was carrying, and think.
According to her map she was passing from the PVSJ section downward through one of the synthesizer facilities that produced the food required by the chlorine-breathers and into the section devoted to the supply of the AUGL water-breathers. That explained the seemingly contradictory markings and the square-sectioned conduits that made hissing, rumbling noises as the solid, prepackaged PVSJ food was being moved pneumatically along them. However, a large corner of the AUGL section had been converted to a PVSJ operating room and post-op observation ward, and this was joined to the main chlorine section by an ascending spiral corridor containing moving ramps for the rapid transfer of staff and patients, since the PVSJs were not physiologically suited to the use of stairs. The twists and turns of the service tunnel were necessary to get around these topologically complex obstructions. But if she got safely past this complicated interpenetration of the water- and chlorine-breathing sections, the journey should be much simpler.
There was no shortage of vocal company. Warning labels, which spoke whether she pressed them or not, advised her to check constantly for cross-species contamination.
Provision had been made to take food without unsealing her protective suit, but her sensors showed the area clear of toxic material in dangerous quantities, so she opened her visor. The smell was an indescribable combination of every sharp, acrid, heavy, unpleasant, and even pleasant smell that she had ever encountered but, fortunately, only in trace quantities. She ate her food, quickly closed the visor, and moved on with increased confidence.
Three long, straight sections of corridor later she realized that her confidence had been misplaced.
According to her estimates of the distances and directions she had traveled, Cha Thrat should be somewhere between the Hudlar and Tralthan levels. The tunnel walls should have been carrying the thick, heavily insulated power cables for the FROBs’ artificial gravity grids and at least
one distinctively marked pipe to supply their nutrient sprayers, as well as the air, water, and return waste conduits required by the warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing FGLIs. But the cable runs bore color combinations that should not have been there, and the only atmosphere line visible was the small-diameterpipe supplying air to the tunnel itself. Irritated with herself, she pressed the nearest audible label.
“I am an automatic self-monitoring control unit for synthesizer process One Twelve B,” it said importantly. “Press blue stud and access panel will move aside. Warning. Only the container and audible label are reusable. If faulty, components must be replaced and not repaired. Not to be opened by MSVK, LSVO, or other species with low radiation tolerance unless special protective measures are taken.”
She had no desire to open the cabinet, even though her radiation monitor was indicating that the area was safe for her particular life-form. At the next alcove she had another look at her map and list of color codings.
Somehow she had wandered into one of the sections that were inhabited only by automatic machinery. The map indicated fifteen such areas within the main hospital complex, and none of them was anywhere near her planned route. Plainly she had taken a wrong turning, perhaps a series of wrong turnings, soon after leaving the spiral tunnel connecting the PVSJ ward with its new operating room.
She moved on again, watching the tunnel walls and roof in the hope that the next change in the color codings would give her a clue to where she might be. She also cursed her own stupidity aloud and touched every label she passed, but soon decided that both activities were nonproductive. It was a wise decision because, at the next tunnel intersection, she heard distant voices.
Timmins had told her not to speak to anyone or to enter any of the public corridors. But, she reasoned, if she was already hopelessly off-course then there was nothing to stop her taking the side tunnel and moving toward the sound. Perhaps by listening at one of the corridor ventilating grilles she might overhear a conversation that would give her a clue to her present whereabouts.

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