Star Surgeon

CHAPTER 18

Since Vespasian left Etla we have been trying to infiltrate the Empire with our agents,” Dermod resumed quietly, “and have been successful in planting eight groups including one on the Central World itself. Our intelligence regarding public opinion, and through it the propaganda machinery used to guide it, is fairly dependable.

“We know that feeling against us is high over the Etla business,” he continued, “or rather what we are supposed to have done to the Etlans, but I’ll come to that later. This latest development will make things even worse for us …

According to the Imperial government, Dermod explained, Etla had been invaded by the Monitor Corps. Its natives, under the guise of being offered medical assistance, had been callously used as guinea-pigs to test out various types of bacteriological weapons. As proof of this hadn’t the Etlans suffered a series of devastating plagues which had commenced within days of the Monitors leaving? Such callous and inhuman behavior could not go unpunished, and the Emperor was sure that every citizen was behind him in the decision he had taken.

But information received-again according to Imperial sources- from a captured agent of the invaders made it plain that their behavior on Etla was no isolated instance of wanton brutality. On that luckless planet the invaders had been preceded by an extra-terrestrial-a stupid, harmless being sent to test the planet’s defenses before landing themselves, a mere tool about which they had denied any connection or knowledge when later they contacted the Etlan authorities. It was now plain that they made wide use of such extra-terrestrial life-forms. That they used them as servants, as experimental animals, probably as food …

There was a tremendous structure maintained by the invaders, a combination military base and laboratory, where atrocities similar to those practiced on Etla were carried on as a matter of course. The invader agent, who had been tricked into giving the spatial coordinates of this base, had confessed to what went on there. It appeared that the invaders ruled over a large number of differing extra-terrestrial species, and it was here that the methods and weapons were developed which held them in bondage.

The Emperor stated that he was quite willing, indeed he considered it his duty, to use his forces to stamp out this foul tyranny. He also felt that he should use only Imperial forces, because he had to confess with shame that relations between the Empire and the extra-terrestrials within its sphere of influence had not always been as warm as they should have been. But if any of these species who may have been slighted in the past were to offer their aid, he would not refuse it.

And this explains many of the puzzling aspects of these enemy attacks,” Dermod went on. “They are restricting themselves to vibratory and chemical weapons, and in the confined space of our defense globe we must do the same, because this place must be captured rather than destroyed. The Emperor must find out the positions of the Federation planets to keep the war going. The fact that they fight viciously and to the death can be explained by their being afraid of capture, because to them the hospital is nothing but a space-going torture chamber.

“And the completely ineffectual recent attack,” he continued, “must have been mounted by some of the hot-headed e-t friends of the Empire, who were probably allowed to come here without proper training or information about our defenses. They were wiped out, and that will cause a lot of e-ts on their side who are wavering to make up their minds.

“In the Empire’s favor,” he ended bitterly.

When the fleet commander stopped speaking Conway remained silent; he had had access to the Empire reports sent to Williamson and knew that Dermod was not exaggerating the situation. O’Mara had had similar information and maintained the same grim silence. But Dr. Mannon was not the silent type.

“But this is ridiculous!” he burst out. “They’re twisting things! This is a hospital, not a torture chamber. And they’re accusing us of the things they are doing themselves …

Dermod ignored the outburst, but in such a way as not to give offense. He said soberly, “The Empire is unstable politically. With enough time we could replace their present government with something more desirable. The Imperial citizens would do it themselves, in fact. But we need time. And we also have to stop the war from spreading too much, from gaining too much momentum. If too many extra-terrestrial allies join the Empire against us the situation will become too complex to control, the original reasons for fighting, or the truth or otherwise of these accusations, will cease to matter.

“We can gain time by holding out here as long as possible,” he ended grimly, “but there isn’t much we can do about restricting the war. Except hope.”

He swung his helmet forward and began to fasten it, although his face-plate was still open for conversation. It was then that Mannon asked the question which Conway had wanted to ask for a long time, but fear of being thought a coward had stopped him from asking it.

“Do we have any chance, really, of holding out?”

Dermod hesitated a moment, obviously wondering whether to be reassuring or to tell the truth. Then he said, “A well-supported and supplied defensive globe is the ideal tactical position. It can also, if the enemy outnumbers it sufficiently, be a perfect trap …

When Dermod left, the specimen he had brought with him was claimed by Thornnastor, the Tralthan Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, who would no doubt be happy with it for days. O’Mara went back to bullying his charges into remaining sane, and Mannon and Conway went back to their wards. The reaction of the staff to the possibility of e-ts attacking them was about equally divided between concern over the war spreading and interest regarding the possible methods necessary to treat casualties belonging to a brand new species.

But two weeks passed without the expected attack developing. The Monitor Corps warships continued to arrive, shoot their astrogators back in life-ships, and take up their positions. From the hospital’s direct vision ports they seemed to cover the sky, as if Sector General was the center of a vast, tenuous star cluster with every star a warship. It was an awesome and tremendously reassuring sight, and Conway tried to visit one of the direct vision panels at least once every day.

Then on the way back from one of these visits he ran across a party of Kelgians.

For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes. All the Kelgian DBLFs had been evacuated, he had watched the last of them go himself, yet here were twenty-odd of the outsize caterpillars humping along in single file. A closer look showed that they were not wearing the usual brassard with engineering or medical emblems on it-instead their silvery fur was dyed with circular and diamond patterns of red, blue and black. This was Kelgian military insignia. Conway went storming off to O’Mara.

… I was about to ask the same question, Doctor,” the Chief Psychologist said gruffly, indicating his vision screen, “although in much more respectful language. I’m trying to get the fleet commander now, so stop shouting and sit down!”

Dermod’s face appeared a few minutes later. His tone was polite but hurried when he said, “This is not the Empire, gentlemen. We are obliged to inform the Federation government and through it the people of the true state of affairs as we see them, although the item about our being attacked by an enemy e-t force has not yet been made public.

“But you must give the e-ts within the Federation credit for having the same feelings as ourselves,” he went on, “Extra-terrestrials have stayed behind at Sector General, and on their various home worlds their friends are beginning to feel that they should come out here and help defend them. It is as simple as that.”

“But you said that you didn’t want the war to spread,” Conway protested.

“I didn’t ask them to come here, Doctor,” Dermod said sharply, “but now they’re here I can certainly use them. The latest intelligence reports indicate that the next attack may be decisive …

Later over lunch Mannon received the news about the e-t defenders with the deepest gloom. He was beginning to enjoy being only himself and guzzling steak at dinner, he told Conway sadly, and now with the likelihood of e-t casualties coming in it looked as if they were all going to be tape-ridden again. Prilicla ate spaghetti and observed how lucky it was that the e-t staff hadn’t left the hospital after all, not-looking at Conway when it said it, and Conway said very little.

The next attack, Dermod had said, may be decisive …

It began three weeks later after a period during which nothing happened other than the arrival of a volunteer force of Tralthans and a single ship whose crew and planet of origin Conway had never heard of before, and whose classification was QLCL. He learned that Sector General had never had the opportunity of meeting these beings professionally because they were recent, and very enthusiastic, members of the Federation. Conway prepared a small ward to receive possible casualties from this race, filling it with the horribly corrosive fog they used for an atmosphere and stepping up the lighting to the harsh, actinic blue which QLCLs considered restful.

The attack began in an almost leisurely fashion, Conway thought as he watched it through the observation panel. The main defense globe seemed barely disturbed by the three minor attacks launched at widely separate points on its surface. All that was visible was three tiny, confused swirls of activity-moving points of light that were ships, missiles, counter-missiles and explosions-which looked too slow to be dangerous. But the slowness was only apparent, because the ships were maneuvering at a minimum of five Gs, with automatic anti-gravity devices keeping their crews from being pulped by the tremendous accelerations in use, and the missiles were moving at anything up to fifty Gs. The wide-flung repulsion screens which sometimes deflected the missiles were invisible as were the pressors and rattlers which nearly always stopped those which the screens missed. Even so this was merely an initial probing at the hospital’s defenses, a series of offensive patrols, the curtain-raiser.

Conway turned away from the view-port and began moving toward his post. Even the unimportant skirmishes produced casualties and he really had no business being up here sightseeing. Besides, he would get a much truer picture of how the battle was going down in the wards.

For the next twelve hours casualties arrived in a steady trickle, then the light, probing attacks changed to heavy, feinting thrusts and the wounded came in an irregular stream. Then the attack proper began and they became a flood.

He lost all sense of time, of who his assistants were, of the number of cases he dealt with. There were many times when he needed a pep shot to clear the fatigue from his mind and hands, but pep-shots were now forbidden regardless of circumstances — the medical staff were hard pressed enough without some of them becoming patients. Instead he had to work tired, knowing that he was not bringing everything he had to the treatment of his patients, and he ate and slept when he reached the point of not being able to hold his instruments properly. Sometimes it was the towering bulk of a Tralthan at his side, sometimes a Corpsman medical orderly, sometimes Murchison. Mostly it was Murchison, he thought. Either she didn’t need to sleep, or she snatched a catnap the same times as he did, or even at a time like this he was more inclined to notice her. It was usually Murchison who pushed food at his unresisting face and told him when he really ought to lie down.

By the fourth day the attack showed no signs of diminishing. The rattlers on the outer hull were going almost constantly, their power drain making the lights flicker.

The principle which furnished artificial gravity for the floor and compensated for the killing accelerations used by the ships also lay behind the weapons of both sides — the repulsion screen, originally a meteor protection device, the tractor and pressor beams, and the rattler which was a combination of both. The rattler pushed and pulled-vibrated- depending on how narrowly it was focused, at up to eighty Gs. A push of eighty gravities then a pull of eighty gravities, several times a minute. Naturally it was not always focused accurately on target, both ships were moving and taking counter-measures, but it was still tight enough to tear the plating off a hull or, in the case of a small ship, to shake it until the men inside rattled.

There was a lot of rattler work going on now. The Empire forces were attacking savagely, compressing the Monitor defense globe down against the hospital’s outer hull. The infighting which was taking place was with rattler only, space being too congested to fling missiles about indiscriminately. This applied only to the warring ships, however — there were still missiles being directed at the hospital, probably hundreds of them, and some of them were getting through. At least five times Conway felt the tell-tale shock against the soles of his shoes where his feet were strapped to the operating room floor.

There was no fine diagnostic skill required in the treatment of these rattled men. It was all too plain that they suffered from multiple and complicated fractures, some of them of nearly every bone in their bodies. Many times when he had to cut one of the smashed bodies out of its suit Conway wanted to yell at the men who had brought it in, “What do you expect me to do with this …

But this was alive, and as a doctor he was supposed to do everything possible to make it stay that way.

He had just finished a particularly bad one, with both Murchison and a Tralthan nurse assisting, when Conway became aware of a DBLF in the room. Conway had become familiar with the dyed patterns of color used by the Kelgian military to denote rank, and he saw that this one bore an additional symbol which identified it as a doctor.

“I am to relieve you, Doctor,” the DBLF said in a flat, Translated, hurried voice. “I am experienced in treating beings of your species. Major O’Mara wants you to go to Lock Twelve at once.”

Conway quickly introduced Murchison and the Tralthan — there was another casualty being floated in and they would be working on it within minutes — then said, “Why?”

“Doctor Thornnastor was disabled when the last missile hit us,” the Kelgian replied, spraying its manipulators with the plastic its race used instead of gloves. “Someone with e-t experience is required to take over Thornnastor’s patients and the FGLIs which are coming in now at Lock Twelve. Major O’Mara suggests you look at them as soon as possible to see what tapes you need.

“And take a suit, Doctor,” the DBLF added as Conway turned to go. “The level above this one is losing pressure.

There had been little for Pathology to do since the evacuation, Conway thought as he propelled himself along the corridors leading to Twelve, but the Diagnostician in charge of that department had demonstrated its versatility by taking over the largest casualty section. In addition to FGLIs of its own species Thornnastor had taken DBLFs and Earth-humans, and the patients who had that lumbering, irascible, incredibly brilliant Tralthan to care for them were lucky indeed. Conway wondered how badly it was injured, the Kelgian doctor hadn’t been able to tell him.

He passed a view-port and took a quick look outside. It reminded him of a cloud of angry fireflies. The stanchion he was gripping slapped his hand, telling him that another missile had struck not too far away.

There were two Tralthans, a Nidian and a space-suited QCQL in the antechamber when he arrived as well as the ever present Corpsmen. The Nidian explained that a Tralthan ship had been nearly pulled apart by enemy rattlers but that many of its crew had survived. The tractor beams mounted on Sector General itself had whisked the damaged vessel down to the lock and …

The Nidian began to bark at him.

“Stop that!” said Conway irritably.

The Nidian looked startled, then it started to bark again. A few seconds later the Tralthan nurses came over and began to deafen him with their modulated fog-horn blasts, and the QCQL was whistling at him through its suit radio. The Corpsmen, engrossed in bringing the casualties through the boarding tube, were merely looking puzzled. Suddenly Conway began to sweat.

They had been hit again, but because he had not been holding onto anything he had not felt it-but he knew exactly where they had been hit. Conway fumbled with his Translator, rapped it sharply with his knuckles-a completely futile gesture-and kicked himself toward the intercom.

On every circuit he tried things howled and trumpeted and moaned and made guttural barking sounds, a mad cacaphony that set Conway’s teeth on edge. A picture of the theater he had just left flashed before his mind, with Murchison and the Tralthan and the Kelgian doctor working on that casualty and not one of them knowing what the other was saying. Instructions, vital directions, demands for instruments or information on the patient’s condition-all would be given in an alien gabble incomprehensible to the theater staff. He was seeing the picture repeated all over the hospital. Only beings of the same species could make themselves understood to each other, and even that did not hold true in every case. There were Earth-humans who did not speak Universal, who spoke languages native to areas on their home planets and who had to rely on Translators even when speaking to other Earth-humans …

From the alien babel Conway’s straining ears were able to isolate words and a voice which he could understand. It was intelligence battling through a high level of background noise, and all at once his ears seemed to tune out the static and hear only the voice, the voice which was saying,

Three torps playing follow-my-leader, sir. They blasted a way right through. We can’t jury-rig a Translator, there’s nothing of it left to do it with. The last torp went off inside the computer room …

Outside the intercom niche the e-t nurses were whistling and growling and moaning at him and at each other. He should be giving instructions for the preliminary examination of his casualties, arranging for ward accommodation, checking on the readiness of the FGLI theater. But he could not do any of these things because his nursing staff would not understand a word he said.