by James White
Conway wriggled deeper into his chair, closed his eyes and let the pieces of the puzzle slide gently into place.
It had begun on the planet where the EPLHs had been the dominant life-form. In the course of time they had achieved civilization which included interstellar flight and an advanced medical science. Their life span, lengthy to begin with, was artificially extended so that a relatively short-lived species like the Ians could be forgiven for believing them to be immortal. But a high pride had had to be paid for their longevity: reproduction of their kind, the normal urge toward immortality of race in a species of mortal individuals, would have been the first thing to go; then their civilization would have dissolved-been forced apart, rather-into a mass of star-traveling, rugged individualists; and finally there would have been the psychological rot which set in when the risk of purely physical deterioration had gone.
Poor demi-gods, thought Conway.
They avoided each other’s company for the simple reason that they’d already had too much of it — century after century of each other’s mannerisms, habits of speech, opinions and the sheer, utter boredom of looking at each other. They had set themselves vast, sociological problems — taking charge of backward or errant planetary cultures and dragging them up by their bootstraps, and similar large-scale philanthropies-because they had tremendous minds, they had plenty of time, they had constantly to fight against boredom and because basically they must have been nice people. And because part of the price of such longevity was an ever-growing fear of death, they had to have their own personal physicians — no doubt the most efficient practitioners of medicine known to them — constantly in attendance.
Only one piece of the puzzle refused to fit and that was the odd way in which the EPLH had negated his attempts to treat it, but Conway had no doubt that that was a physiological detail which would soon become clear as well. The important thing was that he now knew how to proceed.
Not every condition responded to medication, despite Thornnastor’s claims to the contrary, and he would have seen that surgery was indicated in the EPLH’s case if the whole business had not been so be-fogged with considerations of who and what the patient was and what it was supposed to have done. The fact that the patient was a near-deity, a murderer and generally the type of being not to be trifled with were details which should not have concerned him.
Conway sighed and swung his feet to the floor. He was beginning to feel so comfortable that he decided he had better go to bed before he fell asleep.
Immediately after breakfast next day Conway began setting up things for the EPLH’s operation. He ordered the necessary instruments and equipment sent to the observation ward, gave detailed instructions regarding its sterilization — the patient was supposed to have killed one doctor already for allowing it to become sick, and a dim view would be taken if another one was the cause of it catching something else because of faulty aseptic procedures — and requested the assistance of a Tralthan surgeon to help with the fine work. Then half an hour before he was due to start Conway called on O’Mara.
The Chief Psychologist listened to his report and intended course of action without comment until he had finished, then he said, “Conway, do you realize what could happen to this hospital if that thing got loose? And not just physically loose, I mean. It is seriously disturbed mentally, you say, if not downright psychotic. At the moment it is unconscious, but from what you tell me its grasp of the psychological sciences is such that it could have us eating out of its manipulatory appendage just by talking at us.
“I’m concerned as to what may happen when it wakes up.”
It was the first time Conway had heard O’Mara confess to being worried about anything. Several years back when a runaway spaceship had crashed into the hospital, spreading havoc and confusion through sixteen levels, it was said that Major O’Mara had expressed a feeling of concern on that occasion also.
“I’m trying not to think about that,” said Conway apologetically. “It just confuses the issue.”
O’Mara took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose, a mannerism of his which could convey more than twenty scathing sentences. He said coldly, “Somebody should think about these things, Doctor. I trust you will have no objection to me observing the coming operation …
To what was nothing less than a politely worded order there could be no reply other than an equally polite, “Glad to have you, sir.”
When they arrived in the observation ward the patient’s “bed” had been raised to a comfortable operating height and the EPLH itself was strapped securely into position. The Tralthan had taken its place beside the recording and anesthetizing gear and had one eye on the patient, one on its equipment and the other two directed toward Prilicla with whom it was discussing a particularly juicy piece of scandal which had come to light the previous day. As the two beings concerned were PVSJ chlorine breathers the affair could have only an academic interest for them, but apparently their academic interest was intense. At the sight of O’Mara, however, the scandal-mongering ceased forthwith. Conway gave the signal to begin.
The anesthetic was one of several which Pathology had pronounced safe for the EPLH life-form, and while it was being administered Conway found his mind going off at a tangent toward his Tralthan assistant.
Surgeons of that species were really two beings instead of one, a combination of FGLI and OTSB. Clinging to the leathery back of the lumbering, elephantine Tralthan was a diminutive and nearly mindless being who lived in symbiosis with it. At first glance the OTSB looked like a furry ball with a long ponytail sprouting from it, but a closer look showed that the ponytail was composed of scores of fine manipulators most of which incorporated sensitive visual organs. Because of the rapport which existed between the Tralthan and its symbiote the FGLI-OTSB combination were the finest surgeons in the Galaxy. Not all Tralthans chose to link up with a symbiote, but FGLI medics wore them like a badge of office.
Suddenly the OTSB scurried along its host’s back and huddled atop the dome-like head between the eye-stalks, its tail hanging down toward the patient and fanning out stiffly. The Tralthan was ready to begin.
“You will observe that this is a surface condition only,” Conway said, for the benefit of the recording equipment, “and that the whole skin area looks dead, dried-up and on the point of flaking off. During the removal of the first skin samples no difficulty was encountered, but later specimens resisted removal to a certain extent and the reason was discovered to be a tiny rootlet, approximately one quarter of an inch long and invisible to the naked eye. My naked eye, that is. So it seems clear that the condition is about to enter a new phase. The disease is beginning to dig in rather than remain on the surface, and the more promptly we act the better.”
Conway gave the reference numbers of the Path reports and his own preliminary notes on the case, then went on … As the patient, for reasons which are at the moment unclear, does not respond to medication I propose surgical removal of the affected tissue, irrigation, cleansing and replacement with surrogate skin. A Tralthan-guided OTSB will be used to ensure that the rootlets are also excised. Except for the considerable area to be covered, which will make this a long job, the procedure is straightforward—”
“Excuse me, Doctors,” Prilicla broke in, “the patient is still conscious.”
An argument, polite only on Prilicla’s side, broke out between the Tralthan and the little empath. Prilicla held that the EPLH was thinking thoughts and radiating emotions and the other maintained that it had enough of the anesthetic in its system to render it completely insensible to everything for at least six hours. Conway broke in just as the argument was becoming personal.
“We’ve had this trouble before,” he said irritably. “The patient has been physically unconscious except for a few minutes yesterday, since its arrival, yet Prilicla detected the presence of rational thought processes. Now the same effect is present while it is under anesthetic. I don’t know how to explain this, it will prob
ably require a surgical investigation of its brain structure to do so, and that is something which will have to wait. The important thing at the moment is that it is physically incapable of movement or of feeling pain. Now shall we begin?”
To Prilicla he added, “Keep listening just in case …
CHAPTER 4
For about twenty minutes they worked in silence, although the procedure did not require a high degree of concentration. It was rather like weeding a garden, except that everything which grew was a weed and had to be removed one plant at a time. He would peel back an affected area of skin, the OTSB’s hair-thin appendages would investigate, probe and detach the rootlets, and he would peel back another tiny segment. Conway was looking forward to the most tedious operation of his career.
Prilicla said, “I detect increasing anxiety linked with a strengthening sense of purpose. The anxiety is becoming intense …
Conway grunted. He could think of no other comment to make.
Five minutes later the Tralthan said, “We will have to slow down, Doctor. We are at a section where the roots are much deeper …
Two minutes later Conway said, “But I can see them! How deep are they now?”
“Four inches,” replied the Tralthan. “And Doctor, they are visibly lengthening as we work.”
“But that’s impossible!” Conway burst out; then, “We’ll move to another area.
He felt the sweat begin to trickle down his forehead and just beside him Prilicla’s gangling, fragile body began to quiver — but not at anything the patient was thinking. Conway’s own emotional radiation just then was not a pleasant thing, because in the new area and in the two chosen at random after that the result was the same. Roots from the flaking pieces of skin were burrowing deeper as they watched.
“Withdraw,” said Conway harshly.
For a long time nobody spoke. Prilicla was shaking as if a high wind was blowing in the ward. The Tralthan was fussing with its equipment, all four of its eyes focused on one unimportant knob. O’Mara was looking intently at Conway, also calculatingly and with a large amount of sympathy in his steady gray eyes. The sympathy was because he could recognize when a man was genuinely in a spot and the calculation was due to his trying to work out whether the trouble was Conway’s fault or not.
“What happened, Doctor?” he said gently.
Conway shook his head angrily. “I don’t know. Yesterday the patient did not respond to medication, today it won’t respond to surgery. Its reactions to anything we try to do for it are crazy, impossible! And now our attempt to relieve its condition surgically has triggered off — something — which will send those roots deep enough to penetrate vital organs in a matter of minutes if their present rate of growth is maintained, and you know what that means
“The patient’s sense of anxiety is diminishing,” Prilicla reported. “It is still engaged in purposeful thinking.”
The Tralthan joined in then. It said, “I have noticed a peculiar fact about those root-like tendrils which join the diseased flakes of skin with the body. My symbiote has extremely sensitive vision, you will understand, and it reports that the tendrils seem to be rooted at each end, so that it is impossible to tell whether the growth is attacking the body or the body is deliberately holding onto the growth.”
Conway shook his head distractedly. The case was full of mad contradictions and outright impossibilities. To begin with no patient, no matter how fouled up mentally, should be able to negate the effects of a drug powerful enough to bring about a complete cure within half an hour, and all within a few minutes. And the natural order of things was for a being with a diseased area of skin to slough it off and replace it with new tissue, not hang onto it grimly no matter what. It was a baffling, hopeless case.
Yet when the patient had arrived it had seemed a simple, straightforward case-Conway had felt more concern regarding the patient’s background than its condition, whose cure he had considered a routine matter. But somewhere along the way he had missed something, Conway was sure, and because of this sin of omission the patient would probably die during the next few hours. Maybe he had made a snap diagnosis, been too sure of himself, been criminally careless.
It was pretty horrible to lose a patient at any time, and at Sector General losing a patient was an extremely rare occurrence. But to lose one whose condition no hospital anywhere in the civilized galaxy would have considered as being serious … Conway swore luridly, but stopped because he hadn’t the words to describe how he felt about himself.
“Take it easy, son.
That was O’Mara, squeezing his arm and talking like a father. Normally O’Mara was a bad-tempered, bull-voiced and unapproachable tyrant who, when one went to him for help, sat making sarcastic remarks while the person concerned squirmed and shamefacedly solved his own problems. His present uncharacteristic behavior proved something, Conway thought bitterly. It proved that Conway had a problem which Conway could not solve himself.
But in O’Mara’s expression there was something more than just concern for Conway, and it was probably that deep down the psychologist was a little glad that things had turned out as they did. Conway meant no reflection on O’Mara’s character, because he knew that if the Major had been in his position he would have tried as hard if not harder to cure the patient, and would have felt just as badly about the outcome. But at the same time the Chief Psychologist must have been desperately worried about the possibility of a being of great and unknown powers, who was also mentally unbalanced, being turned loose on the Hospital. In addition O’Mara might also be wondering if, beside a conscious and alive EPLH, he would look like a small and untutored boy …
“Let’s try taking it from the top again,” O’Mara said, breaking in on his thoughts. “Is there anything you’ve found in the patient’s background that might point to it wanting to destroy itself?”
“No!” said Conway vehemently. “To the contrary! It would want desperately to live. It was taking unselective rejuvenation treatments, which means that the complete cell-structure of its body was regenerated periodically. As the process of storing memory is a product of aging in the brain cells, this would practically wipe its mind clean after every treatment.
“That’s why those taped logs resembled technical memoranda,” O’Mara put in. “That’s exactly what they were. Still, I prefer our own method of rejuvenation even though we won’t live so long, regenerating damaged organs only and allowing the brain to remain untouched …”
“I know,” Conway broke in, wondering why the usually taciturn O’Mara had become so talkative. Was he trying to simplify the problem by making him state it in non-professional terms? “But the effect of continued longevity treatments, as you know yourself, is to give the possessor an increasing fear of dying. Despite loneliness, boredom and an altogether unnatural existence, the fear grows steadily with the passage of time. That is why it always traveled with its own private physician, it was desperately afraid of sickness or an accident befalling it between treatments, and that is why I can sympathize to a certain extent with its feelings when the doctor who was supposed to keep it well allowed it to get sick, although the business of eating it afterward—”
“So you are on its side,” said O’Mara dryly.
“It could make a good plea of self-defense,” Conway retorted. “But I was saying that it was desperately afraid of dying, so that it would be constantly trying to get a better, more efficient doctor for itself … Oh!”
“Oh, what?” said O’Mara.
It was Prilicla, the emotion sensitive who replied. It said, “Doctor Conway has just had an idea.”
“What is it, you young whelp? There’s no need to be so damn secretive …!” O’Mara’s voice had lost its gentle fatherly tone, and there was a gleam in his eye which said that he was glad that gentleness was no longer necessary. “What is wrong with the patient?”
Feeling happy and excited and at the same time very much unsure of himself, Conway stumbled across to the intercom and or
dered some very unusual equipment, checked again that the patient was so thoroughly strapped down that it would be unable to move a muscle, then he said, “My guess is that the patient is perfectly sane and we’ve been blinding ourselves with psychological red herrings. Basically, the trouble is something it ate.”
“I had a bet with myself you would say that sometime during this case,” said O’Mara. He looked sick.
The equipment arrived-a slender, pointed wooden stake and a mechanism which would drive it downward at any required angle and controlled speeds. With the Tralthan’s help Conway set it up and moved it into position. He chose a part of the patient’s body which contained several vital organs which were, however, protected by nearly six inches of musculature and adipose, then he set the stake in motion. It was just touching the skin and descending at the rate of approximately two inches per hour.
“What the blazes is going on?” stormed O’Mara. “Do you think the patient is a vampire or something!”
“Of course not,” Conway replied. “I’m using a wooden stake to give the patient a better chance of defending itself. You wouldn’t expect it to stop a steel one, would you.” He motioned the Tralthan forward and together they watched the area where the stake was entering the EPLH’s body. Every few minutes Prilicla reported on the emotional radiation. O’Mara paced up and down, occasionally muttering to himself.
The point had penetrated almost a quarter of an inch when Conway noticed the first coarsening and thickening of the skin. It was taking place in a roughly circular area, about four inches in diameter, whose center was the wound created by the stake. Conway’s scanner showed a spongy, fibrous growth forming under the skin to a depth of half an inch. Visibly the growth thickened and grew opaque to his scanner’s current setting, and within ten minutes it had become a hard, bony plate. The stake had begun to bend alarmingly and was on the point of snapping.
