Star Surgeon

CHAPTER 19

For a long time, although it might have only been a few seconds, Conway could not bring himself to leave the alcove which contained the intercom unit, and the Chief Psychologist would have been clinically concerned about the thoughts which were going through his mind just then. But slowly he fought down the panic that made him want to run away and hide somewhere, by reminding himself savagely that there was nowhere to run to and by forcing himself to look at the FGLIs drifting about in the antechamber. The place was literally filled with them.

Conway himself knew only the rudiments of Tralthan physiology, but that was the least of his worries because he could easily take an FGLI tape. What he had to do was to start things moving for them now. But it was hard to think of each other and the Corpsmen shouting to know what was the matter and the casualties, many of whom were conscious, making pitiful, frantic noises that were muffled only slightly by their pressure envelopes.

“Sergeant!” Conway bawled suddenly at the senior orderly, waving at the casualties. “Ward Four-B, Two-Hundred and Seventh level. Know where it is?”

The NCO bobbed his head, and Conway turned to the nurses.

He got nowhere with the Nidian and QCQL despite all his efforts at sign language, and it was only when he wrapped his legs around one of the FGLI’s forelimbs and by brute force twisted the appendage containing its visual equipment until the cluster of eyes pointed at where the causalities were going that he got anywhere at all. Finally he made the Tralthans understand-he hoped-that they were to accompany the injured and do what they could for them when they arrived.

Four-B had been given over almost entirely to FGLI casualties and most of the staff were Tralthan also, which meant that some of the patients could be reassured by nurses speaking their own language. Conway refused to think of the other casualties who did not have this advantage. He had been assigned Thornnastor’s wards. One thing at a time.

When he reached O’Mara’s office the Major wasn’t there. Carrington, one of his assistants, explained that O’Mara was busy trying to match up patients and staff into species wherever possible, and that he wanted to see Conway immediately the Doctor was finished in the Tralthan wards. Carrington added that as communications were either dead or tied up with e-ts yelling gibberish at each other would he mind either reporting back here or remaining where he was so that the Major could find him. Ten minutes later Conway had the tape he wanted and was on his way to Four-B.

He had taken FGLI tapes before and they weren’t too bad. There was a tendency for him to feel awkward at having to walk on only two feet instead of six, and he wanted to move his head and neck about to follow moving objects instead of merely swiveling his eyes. But it was not until he reached the ward that he realized how fully his Tralthan mind partner had settled in. The rows of Tralthan patients became his most immediate and pressing concern, while only a small part of his mind was engaged with the problem of the Tralthan nurses who were obviously close to panic and whose words, for some odd reason, he could not understand. For the Earth-human nurses-puny, shapeless and unlovely bags of dough-he felt only impatience.

Conway went over to the group of shapeless and unlovely bags, although to the human portion of his mind a couple of them looked very shapely indeed, and said, “Give me your attention, please. I have a Tralthan tape which will enable me to treat these FGLJs, but the Translator breakdown means I can’t talk to them or the Tralthan staff. You girls will have to help with the preliminary examinations and in the theater.”

They were all staring at him and losing their fear at being told what to do again by someone in authority, even though they were being told to do the impossible. There were forty-seven FGLI patients in the ward, which included eight new arrivals needing immediate attention. There were only three Earth-human nurses.

“The FGLI staff and yourselves can’t talk now,” he went on after a moment’s hesitation, “but you use the same system of medical notation. Some method of communication can be worked out. It will be slow and roundabout, of course, but you must let them know what we are doing and get their help.

“Wave your arms,” he ended, “draw pictures. Above all, use your pretty little heads.”

Soft soap at a time like this, he thought ashamedly. But it was all he could think of at the moment, he wasn’t a psychologist like O’Mara …

He had dealt with four of the most urgent cases when Mannon arrived with another FGLJ in a stretcher held to the floor with magnets. The patient was Thornnastor and it was immediately obvious that the Diagnostician would be immobilized for a long time to come.

Mannon gave details of Thornnastor’s injuries and what he had done about them, then went on, “… Seeing that you have the monopoly on Tralthans you’d better handle its post-op nursing. And this is the sanest and quietest ward in the hospital, dammit. What’s your secret? Boyish charm, a bright idea, or have you access to a bootleg Translator?”

Conway explained what he was trying to do about the mixed species nurses.

“Ordinarily I don’t hold with nurses and doctors passing notes during an op,” Mannon said. His face was gray with fatigue, his attempt at humor little more than a conditioned reflex. “But it seemed to work for you. I’ll pass the idea on.”

They maneuvered Thornnastor’s vast body into one of the padded frameworks used as beds for FGLIs in weightless conditions, then Mannon said, “I’ve got an FGLI tape, too. Needed it for Thorny, here. Now I’ve got two QCQLs lined up. Didn’t know there was any such beastie until today, but O’Mara has the tape. It’s a suit job, that gunk they breathe would kill anything that walks, crawls or flies, excluding them. They’re both conscious, too, and I can’t talk to them. I can see I’m going to have fun.”

Suddenly his shoulders drooped and the muscles holding up the corners of his mouth gave up the fight. He said dully, “I wish you’d think of something, Conway. In wards like this where the patients and some nurses are of the same classification it isn’t too bad. Relatively, that is. But other places where the casualties and staff are completely mixed, and where singletons among the e-t staff have become casualties in the bombardment, things are rough.”

Conway had heard the bombardment, a continuous and irregular series of crashes that had been transmitted through the metal of the hospital as if someone was beating on a discordant gong. He had heard them and tried not to think about them, for he knew that the staff were becoming casualties and the casualties that the staff had been taking care of were becoming casualties twice over.

“I can imagine,” Conway said grimly. “But with Thornnastor’s wards to look after I’ve plenty to do—”

“Everybody has plenty to do!” Mannon said sharply, “but someone will have to come up with something quick!”

What do you want me to do about it? Conway thought angrily at Mannon’s receding back, then he turned to his next patient.

For the past few hours something distinctly odd had been happening in Conway’s mind. It had begun with an increasingly strong feeling that he almost knew what the Tralthan nurses in the ward were saying. This he put down to the fact that the FGLI tape he had taken — the complete memory record of an eminent physiologist of that race-had given him a lot of data on Tralthan attitudes and expressions and tones of voice. He had never noticed the effect before-probably, he supposed, because he had never had to deal with so many Tralthans in so short a time before, and he had always had a Translator anyway. But working with mainly Tralthan patients had caused the FGLI recorded personality to gain greater than usual prominence at the expense of the human personality.

There was no struggle for possession of his mind, no conflict in the process. It happened naturally because he was being forced to do so much FGLI type thinking. When he did have occasion to speak to an Earth human nurse or patient, he had to concentrate hard if the first few words they spoke were not to sound like gibberish to him.

And now he was beginning to hear and understand Tralthan talking.

It was far from perfect, of course. For one thing the elephantine hootings and trumpetings were being filtered through human rather than Tralthan ears to the FGLI within his mind, and suffered distortion and change of pitch accordingly. The words tended to be muffled and growly, but he did get some of them, which meant that he possessed a Translator of sorts. It was a strictly one-way affair, of course. Or was it?

When he was preparing the next case for the theater he decided to try talking back.

His FGLI alter ego knew how the words should sound, he knew how to work his own vocal cords, and the Earth-human voice was reputed to be one of the most versatile instruments in the Galaxy. Conway took a deep breath and gave forth.

The first attempt was disastrous. It ended in an uncontrollable fit of coughing on his part and spread alarm and consternation for the length and breadth of the ward. But with the third attempt he got through- one of the Tralthan nurses answered him! After that it was just a matter of time until he had enough of the more important directions off pat, and subsequent operations proceeded more quickly, efficiently and with enormously increased chances for the patient.

The Earth-human nurses were greatly impressed by the odd noises issuing from Conway’s overworked throat. At the same time they seemed to see an element of humor in the situation …

“Well, well,” said a familiar, irascible voice behind him, “a ward full of happy, smiling patients, with the Good Doctor keeping up morale by doing animal impressions. What the blazes do you think you’re doing?”

O’Mara, Conway saw with a shock, was really angry-not just playing his usual, short-tempered self. In the circumstances it would be better to answer the question and ignore the rhetoric.

“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.