Sector general omnibus, p.41
Sector General Omnibus, page 41
“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, Q'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 pipe stem 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 Cinrus skin, 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 white 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 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.
The shortage of nursing staff of all species was chronic. With regard to doctors the position was desperate. He called O’Mara.
“We haven’t enough doctors,” he said. “I think nurses should be given more discretion in the diagnosis and treatment of casualties. They should do as they think best without waiting for authority from a doctor who is too busy to supervise anyway. The casualties are still coming in and I can’t see any other way of—”
“Do it, you’re the boss,” O’Mara broke in harshly.
“Right,” said Conway, nettled. “Another thing. I’ve had offers by a lot of the doctors to take two or three tapes for translation purposes in addition to the tape they draw for current ops. And some of the girls have volunteered to do the same- “No!” said O’Mara. “I’ve had some of your volunteers up here and
they aren’t suitable. The doctors left to us are either very junior interns or Corps medical officers and e-ts who came with the volunteer forces. None of them have experience with multiple physiology tapes. It would render them permanently insane within the first hour.
“As for the girls,” he went on, a sardonic edge in his voice, “you have noticed by this time that the female Earth-human DBDG has a rather peculiar mind. One of its peculiarities is a deep, sex-based mental fastidiousness. No matter what they say they will not, repeat not, allow alien beings to apparently take over their pretty little brains. If such should happen, severe mental damage would result. No again. Off.”
Conway resumed his tour. It was beginning to get him down now. Even though his technique was improving the process of Translation was an increasing strain. And in the relatively easy periods between translations he felt as if there were seven different people all arguing and shouting inside his brain, and his own was very rarely the loudest voice. His throat was raw from making noises that it had never been designed for, and he was hungry.
All seven of him had different ideas for assuaging that hunger, revoltingly different ideas. Since the hospital’s catering arrangement had suffered as badly as everything else there was no wide selection from which he could have picked neutral items that would not have offended, or at least not completely nauseated, his alter egos. He was reduced to eating sandwiches with his eyes shut, in case he would find out what was in them, and drinking water and glucose. None of him objected to water.
Eventually an organization for the reception and treatment of casualties was operating again in all the habitable levels-it was slow, but it was operating. And now that there were facilities for treating them Conway’s next job was to move the patients who were currently jamming the approaches to the airlocks. There were actually pressure-litters anchored to the outer hull, he had been told.
Prilicla objected.
For a few minutes he tried to find out why. One of Prilicla’s objections was that Conway was tired, which he countered by telling it that everybody in the hospital, including Prilicla itself, was tired. The other objections were either too weak or too subtle for the limited communications available. Conway ignored them and headed for the nearest lock.
The problems here were very similar to those inside the hospital- the major disadvantage being his spacesuit radio which hampered translation considerably. But to offset this he could get around much more quickly. The tractor beam men who handled the wrecks and wreckage around the hospital could whisk his whole party from point to point within seconds.
But he discovered that the Melfan segment of his mind, which had been seriously troubled by the weightless conditions inside the hospital, was utterly terrified outside it. The Melfan ELNT who had produced the tape had been an amphibious, crab-like being who lived mainly under water and had had no experience whatever of space. Conway had to fight down the panic which threatened his whole, multi-tenanted mind as well as the fear which all of him felt at the battle going on above his head.
O’Mara had told him that the attack was easing off, but Conway could not imagine anything more savage than what he was seeing.
Between the warring ships no missiles were being used—the attackers and defenders were too condensed, too inextricably tangled up. Like tiny, fast-moving models, so sharply defined that he felt he could reach up and grab one, the ships wheeled through their wild, chaotic dance. Singly and in groups they lunged, whirled, took frantic evasive action, broke formation or had their formations broken, reformed and attacked again. It was endless, implacable and almost hypnotic. There was, of course, no noise. What missiles were launched were directed at the hospital, a target too big to miss, and they were felt rather than heard.
Between the ships, tractor and pressor beams jabbed out like solid, invisible fingers, slowing or deflecting the target ship so that a rattler could be focused. Sometimes three or more vessels would converge on a single target and tear it apart within seconds. Sometimes a well-directed rattler would rip apart the artificial gravity system an instant before it disrupted the drive. With the crew hammered flat by high acceleration the ship would go tumbling out of the fight, unless someone put another rattler on it or a tractor man on Sector General’s hull pulled it down to look for survivors.
Whether or not there were any survivors the wreck could be used . . .
The once smooth and shining hull was a mass of deep, jagged-edged craters and buckled plating. And because the missile lighting did strike twice, or even three times, in the same place-that was how the Translator computer had been destroyed—the craters were being plugged with wreckage in an effort to keep the missiles from exploding deeper inside the hospital. Any type of wreckage served, the tractor men weren’t choosy.
Conway was on a tractor-beam mount when one of the wrecks was pulled in. He saw the rescue team shooting from the shelter of the airlock, circle the hulk carefully, then enter. About ten minutes later they came out towing . . . something.
“Doctor,” said the NCO in charge of the installation, “I think I goofed. My men say the beastie they’ve pulled out of that wreck is new to them and want you to have a look. I’m sorry, but one wreck is like any other wreck. I don’t think it is one of ours . . .
Six parts of Conway’s mind contained personalities whose memories did not contain data on the war and they did not think it mattered. As the minority opinion Conway didn’t think it mattered either, but he knew that neither the sergeant nor himself had time to start an ethical debate on it. He had a quick look, then said, “Take it inside. Level Two-forty, Ward Seven.”
