The compleat collected s.., p.424
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 424
"I wouldn't bet on it," said the sergeant. His pallor had returned.
The overdose was sleeping peacefully when they stopped at her bed. Malcolm handed the square of soaked lint to the diminutive Nurse Collins and said, "It will help keep down the swelling, but you'll probably have a multi-coloured bruise around that eye in the morning. Would you like me to ask Sister to relieve you of duty until ...?"
"Thank you, no," said Collins, holding the pad against her face. "She already asked me if I wanted to go off duty. It probably looks worse than it feels."
"It certainly looks better than the Prof's war wound," said Malcolm. "Any idea why she went for him like that?"
Collins shook her head. "She had begun to come up and was crying a little. The Prof. started talking reassuringly to her, and he had taken off his cap and mask so that she could see his face while he was doing his stuff. You know the Prof., he could calm a mad elephant when he talks and sort of smiles at a ... Anyway, she went for him. This John character must have given her a very bad time, to make her want to commit suicide."
"What did he do to her?" asked Malcolm.
Collins was silent for a moment. Her tone, when she replied, sounded angry and almost jealous as she said, "She had been talking a lot in her sleep, talking to and about this John character. Apparently they worked together on an aid project somewhere in Africa. He didn't do a single thing to her, and that was the trouble. He was kindly and polite and invariably helpful which, she insisted, was the way he acted towards the local natives. She wasn't against the natives, you understand, it was just that she felt that she had more to offer the project head than they had. If you were to ask me, Doctor, I would say that her trouble is caused by a severe case of unrequited love."
Malcolm stared for a moment at the relaxed and remarkably lovely face of the overdose, then he said, "Nonsense, Nurse. In the first place I can't imagine any man not requiting the love of a young woman like that. In the second, nobody these days would suicide for love."
"With respect, Doctor," said Collins very disrespectfully, "you are an insensitive clod without the slightest trace of romance in your soul."
Sergeant Telford, who was standing close behind him, cleared his throat and said, "I didn't realise that there was so much violence and drama in a hospital ward. Your Professor Donnelly will have a hard time explaining those scratches to his wife."
"He hasn't got a wife, or anything," said the nurse. "And that really is a criminal waste of an important natural resource."
Malcolm grinned at her and said, "You're shocking the sergeant, Nurse, and don't you go getting a case of unrequited love. Your husband would object."
While they had been speaking he had noticed Nurse Bandhu leaving Mr. Hesketh's cubicle and hurrying towards the pharmacy. Malcolm wondered who had relieved her, because otherwise she would not have left such a critically ill patient. The sergeant was staring towards the Hesketh cubicle, too, his eyebrows expressing worry. But she returned a few seconds later carrying one of the distinctively marked phials of neomorph. By the time Malcolm and the sergeant reached the cubicle doors, Professor Donnelly was on his way out.
He nodded to the sergeant and said to Malcolm, "Mr. Hesketh was having some discomfort and seemed to be seriously worried about something. I gave him an additional fifteen mils. Make sure he doesn't have any more for at least twelve hours. Now I'm going to bed, Doctor. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir," said Malcolm, cringing inwardly at the size of the additional dose the Prof. had administered and wondering whether it was Collins or Bandhu who now had charge of the most severe overdose. But he did not, of course, share these thoughts with the sergeant as he said, "You would be wasting your time here. Mr. Hesketh is no longer capable of holding a lucid conversation with anyone. But if you want to listen to him rambling, you can do that much more comfortably in the monitor room. I'll show you where it is."
While he was seating the sergeant in the extra chair in the monitor room, Malcolm explained that from time to time, and usually when the ward was temporarily understaffed due to meal breaks, a senior nurse or the sister or himself occupied the observer's position so as to keep an eye on patients who were unattended. He showed the other how to increase the volume of the sound sensors on any bed or cubicle, then went on to explain the purpose and function of the battery of screens and medical tell-tales ranged around them. He was about to introduce the subject of young Tommy again when the sergeant interrupted with a question.
"I'm curious about your power requirements," he said in a tone which was suspicious to the point of hostility. He waved his hand at the monitor screens and the brightly-lighted ward outside, then went on, "This equipment is ... hungry. Yet I don't see any attempt being made to ration power, or even conserve it."
"It isn't widely known," Malcolm said quickly, "but we don't use power walkers here. This is one of the ten or so major hospitals in the world which use their own self-contained nuclear generators. Ours was installed about thirty years ago, just before the Big Power-down. Occasionally the subject of our generator comes up in the Council, but the contribution we could make towards the city's overall power demand is so small that we, as a valuable public service, are allowed to retain the output of our nuclear power source with the minimum of bureaucratic interference.
"Meanwhile," he went on, "Upper-level technologists with strings of qualifications that long come here to Mid- and Mid-Upper level jobs as technical medics just to get the chance to play with our dinky little nuclear generator. We have been very fortunate in attracting top-level technical and medical help, from all over the world."
"Patients, too?"
Telford was pointing at the female OD's case-history display, which gave the information that she had taken the overdose at a medical mission in central Africa and had been flown to the hospital for treatment. The policeman's expression showed vague dissatisfaction, as if he was wondering why the girl had not been treated in Africa where the incident had occurred, and who it was thought so highly of her and possessed enough authority to order one of the few operational Government jets to take her more than three thousand miles for treatment. Her John, perhaps? Or maybe it was Malcolm himself who was wondering about these things, and he was simply putting thoughts into Telford's head.
"We get them from all over, too," said Malcolm, smiling. "The price of fame, I suppose. In a way, the patients here represent all the ills of the world in microcosm. They are the end-results of criminal and political violence, population pressure, malnutrition, psychological disturbance. You name the condition and we can trace it back to the first causes. We live in a very sick world, Sergeant. But a little earlier, just before our moment of drama with the OD, I was about to ask a favour ..."
Telford's hostility over the apparent wastage of power had disappeared, but Malcolm had the feeling that the subject would come up again. The sergeant listened patiently until Malcolm had finished listing the few facts and single theory they had about the boy's Big Mary, and when he responded his voice was quiet, unhurried and as clinical as that of a top consultant talking to the relatives of a terminal patient.
He said, "One female power walker, if she is a power walker, looks and acts like any other. They walk endlessly on their treadmills and sing and scream in frustration all day or night long, and when they are off-shift they eat and drink too much to try to forget the walking of yesterday and tomorrow. This one seems to be unusual in that she has formed, or perhaps has retained, an emotional attachment to the boy. Someone in my department may have noticed a power walker displaying such uncharacteristic behaviour, but I can't promise anything."
"I wouldn't believe you if you did, Sergeant," said Malcolm gratefully. He pointed at screen Seven and added, "But take a look at the boy. If you can't find his Big Mary for him in five or six days, forget it."
"Understood," said Telford quietly. "But would you mind if I interviewed him, voice only, from this room? Face to face, the sight of my uniform might make him nervous, and evasive. If he couldn't see me and I implied that I was one of the medical staff ...?"
He broke off as Ann's voice came suddenly from the speaker marked Patient Transfer Room. She stud. "The burns and multiple thoracics is here, Doctor. We're putting him in cubicle Two."
"Coming," said Malcolm. To Telford he added, "No objection, Sergeant. You know your own job best."
The new arrival was accompanied by two theatre nurses and a junior doctor who talked compulsively while they were transferring the man from the sealed and tented litter on to the air-bed in the equally aseptic surroundings of cubicle Two. The young medic knew his stuff, Malcolm noted, but he was quite obviously a stranger to the hospital and to this particular type of casualty. He kept talking in a quiet, unemotional and utterly monotonous voice about the patient's condition on arrival in the theatre.
He said that according to the hospital's grape-vine, which was more accurate and certainly more detailed than the news broadcasts, a six-man traffic control vehicle had crashed at the mouth of an underpass when cyclist traffic was at its evening peak. The police vehicle had already been on fire when it crashed and exploded in the mouth of the tunnel. A number of survivors reported seeing a protester carrying an empty rocket launcher—some kind of religious nut, judging by the things he had been shouting as he ran away from the exploding vehicle.
The incident could not have happened at a worse time.
Dozens had perished in the blazing pool of fuel from the vehicle's ruptured tanks, but close on four hundred others had died of asphyxiation from the toxic fumes associated with the fire. They had been trapped in the wide, low-roofed tunnel by the pressure of rush-hour cyclists too impatient even to think about the reason for the blockage ahead of them. The casualties currently going through Admissions and Casualty were minor for the most part, people who had been a safe distance from the solid plug of burns and asphyxiation cadavers, or who had suffered because of the forcible redirection of traffic. But there had been an awful lot of relatively minor casualties, and the Sister-in-Charge of Admissions had her own ideas regarding the priorities on such occasions.
The sergeant, Malcolm thought, will have to wait a little longer for the Hesketh personal effects.
According to the theatre medic, their patient had been the only man in the vehicle wearing full protective armour, which included riot helmet, gas filter face mask, and seals which were supposed to give a measure of protection against hand-thrown fire bombs. A cautious individual, obviously, considering the fact that he had been occupying the command seat in an already heavily armoured security vehicle. But his caution had paid off. When the missile opened up the vehicle he alone had been able to escape by crawling out of the blazing wreckage and through the burning pool of fuel to the safety of the raised pedestrian way.
Shrapnel from the missile had entered the patient's chest and stomach in five places, but its force had been so diminished by the body armour that the wounds were nonfatal. However, the holes knocked in the armour had allowed entry to the burning fuel which had ignited clothing in those areas, and one of the fire seals at his right hip had burned through as well. In themselves the punctured wounds were not too serious, but the associated burns were going to make life that little bit more difficult for the patient and his nursing staff.
When they had been working with him for nearly an hour he began coming out of the anaesthetic and had to be given neomorph, which started him talking. "Look," he kept saying weakly. "Look, look, look, look ..."
"I don't know who or what he wants us to look at," said Ann, when he had been talking for about ten minutes, "but I wish he would vary the monologue a bit."
"He was saying the same word," said the theatre medic, "all the way in on the ambulance."
"Look, look, save me ..." said the patient in a half whisper.
"Don't worry, Mr. Sawyer," said Ann reassuringly, "we'll save you."
The hissing of the air bed reinforced the sibilants in her words, giving them a strangely alien sound—as if behind the masks and gowns were people whose antecedents had been lizards instead of apes. Malcolm shook his head in self-irritation and brought his wandering mind back to the job in hand.
Finally the patient's transfer was complete. He floated on his cushion of air, nothing in contact with the burns and wounds but light dressings, and his arms and legs anchored firmly to the bed supports by padded cuffs so that he would be unable to dislodge the tubes which carried the intravenous feed, saline and indicated medication into his system. Ann had assigned a tall, greying nurse called Fallon to the special patient. She, too, appeared to be new to the hospital but was obviously very competent. Malcolm gave her instructions regarding observations and medication, then he returned to the monitor room and the sergeant.
"Anything to report?" asked Malcolm, fighting back a yawn.
Telford nodded. He said, "Most of the activity was in cubicle Two with Commander Sawyer, but then you know all about that. He is a very senior officer, you know, and I didn't think a political assassin could get anywhere near a high-ranker like that. They say even his police guards have police guards. Will he make it?"
"He has a good chance," said Malcolm.
"You don't believe in committing yourself, do you, Doctor?" said the sergeant drily, then went on, "I thought his department might want me to talk, or at least listen, to him. But they said they had everything they needed on the incident and to forget about it."
He sounded dissatisfied, almost aggrieved, as he spoke. Malcolm got the impression that the sergeant had been exposed to some inter-departmental cross-fire but would not, of course, dream of discussing his grievance with outsiders.
"Mr. Hesketh is quiet and the nurse won't tell me anything else about him," Telford went on. "The overdose has been talking, quite sensibly, about her work with the disaster relief team in Africa. Things went very badly there and an awful lot of natives died who shouldn't. She was talking less sensibly about her John ..."
"First meal break," said Ann as she came in with a tray of sandwiches and two steaming cups of brown stuff. "I thought you two might prefer something here, where you can keep an eye on things, instead of in the duty room. Most of the patients are stable and I have someone with the others, but if anything happens unexpectedly just hit the buzzer."
Malcolm nodded and the sergeant said awkwardly, "This business with Mr. Hesketh came up so quickly that I didn't think to bring ration tokens. The coffee will do fine, Sister."
"Nonsense," said Ann. "We are issued with rations for patients as well as staff, and the majority of the patients are on IV feeds and unable to eat. But if it bothers you, think of the food as a donation from your colleague in Two. Besides, that stuff isn't coffee. We have a theory that they make it from ... Why, Sergeant, with your face mask and helmet off you're quite handsome! I'd expected you to look much older, somehow. Maybe you have prematurely aged eyebrows."
"Thank you, Sister," said Telford around a mouthful of sandwich.
Ann left for the duty room and her own meal, and Malcolm said, "Were you going to tell me about Tommy, Sergeant?"
"Yes," said Telford. "Nurse Caldwell played along. We couldn't make the questions too specific, you understand. Children like Tommy tend to feel very subjective about a mother or foster mother, if they are lucky enough to live with one. We didn't want to frighten him ..."
He broke off to stare at the cubicle Seven monitor, which showed the boy's head rolling from side to side on his pillow while he mumbled, "No good. You're no good, boy. You poor apology for a potential citizen, you can't even ..."
Neomorph could deaden the pain in his chest and fractured limbs, but it could do nothing against the remembered pain of childhood.
Tommy was having a nightmare, as everyone did from time to time, about school ...
Chapter Three – Natural Resistance
"... YOU ARE a stupid, sneaking, snivelling, wretched boy," said the Senior Educator in his quiet, angry voice. "You are nine years old and you still act as if you had just come out of nursery block. Have you no self-respect at all, boy?
"Nobody likes walking the wheel," he went on, "but your wheel is one designed for a child half your age, and little more than a toy. Yet you cry and faint and don't make enough power to light the room much less help run the machines. All you want to do is the tidying and cleaning jobs where you can work by yourself, because you say your classmates are a bit rough on you. Or you hang about when the older boys are at advanced classes. But remember, boy, the knowledge of mathematics and reading and writing is not a gift. It is a privilege which must be earned, by hard work.
"Perhaps a few of our boys will eventually become technicians or planners or medics. But we are not one of those mamby-pamby schools whose pupils see their parents for an hour every week. We are in the business of producing the future power walkers, food processors and artisans, the kind of law-abiding, responsible, hard-working citizen which enables this city to survive. Do you understand that, boy?"
Tommy said, "Yes, sir."
"The most important things you are taught in school are obedience and respect for your seniors and, later, for your fellow citizens and their property," he continued in the same soft, frightening voice, "Obedience and respect for property are the two hardest subjects to teach because the young have a natural resistance to them, but learn them you shall, and in particular, obedience to the commands of those in authority whether, as now, it is your Educators or, in later life, the security officials or work leaders.
"I have already tried on several occasions to overcome your natural resistance to work by physical chastisement and by allowing you to spend a night locked in the exercise yard. This time I propose making it three consecutive nights in the yard. It is cold at this time of year, and frequently wet, and I'm told that you are the kind of imaginative boy who frightens himself easily. Fine. Perhaps the combination of physical discomfort and psychological pressure will make you decide that it is better to ..."
