Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice

by James White

  The room itself was larger and the furniture more comfortable, but there were no joints visible in the construction. It was as if every item had been fabricated in one piece. All the doors and drawers and fastenings in the replicas worked perfectly, which the originals had never done, and the air smelled different—in fact, it did not smell at all.

  Gradually her initial feelings of pleasure and relief were being diluted by the realization that this was nothing more than a tiny, familiar bubble of normality inside a vast, alien, and terrifyingly complex structure. The fear and anxiety she was beginning to feel were greater than she had ever experienced on her incredibly distant home planet, and with them was a growing degree of loneliness so acute that it felt like an intense, physical hunger.

  But she was not liked or wanted on far Sommaradva, and here, at least, they had taken positive measures to welcome her, so much so that she had to remain in this terrible place if only to discharge the obligation. And she would try to learn as much as she could before the hospital rulers decided that she was unsuitable and sent her home.

  She should start learning now.

  Was the hunger real, she wondered, rather than imaginary? She had not been able to eat to repletion during the earlier visit to the dining hall because her mind had been on matters other than food. She began to plan the route there, and to the location of her first lecture in the morning, from her present position. But she did not feel like another trip along the hospital’s weirdly populated corridors just yet. She was very tired, and the room had a limited-menu food dispenser for trainees who did not wish to interrupt their studies by going to the dining hall.

  She referred to the list of foods suited to her metabolism and tapped for medium-to-large portions. When she was feeling comfortably distended, she tried to sleep.

  The room and the corridor outside were full of quiet, unidentifiable sounds, and she did not know enough to be able to ignore them. Sleep would not come and she was beginning to feel afraid again, and to wonder if her thoughts and feelings were of the kind to interest the wizard O’Mara, and that made her even more fearful for her future at Sector General. While still lying at rest, physically if not mentally, she used the ceiling projection facility of the communicator to see what was happening on the entertainment and training channels.

  According to the relevant information sheet, ten of the channels continuously screened some of the Galactic Federation’s most popular entertainment, current interest, and drama programs with a translator output, if required. But she discovered that while she could understand the words that the different physiological types were saying to and about each other, the accompanying actions were in turn horrifying, mystifying, ridiculous, or downright obscene to Sommaradvan eyes. She switched to the training channels.

  There she had a choice of watching displays of currently meaningless figures and tabulations on the temperatures, blood pressures, and pulse rates of about fifty different life-forms, or surgical operations in progress that were visually disquieting and not calculated to lull anyone to sleep.

  In desperation, Cha Thrat tried the sound-only channels. But the music she found, even when the volume was reduced to bare audibility, sounded as if it were coming from a piece of malfunctioning heavy machinery. So it was a great surprise when the room alarm began reminding her, monotonously and with steadily increasing volume, that it was time to awaken if she required breakfast before her first lecture.

  CHAPTER 4

  The lecturer was a Nidian who had been introduced as Senior Physician Cresk-Sar. While it was speaking, it prowled up and down the line of trainees like some small, hairy, carnivorous beast, which meant that every few minutes it passed Cha Thrat so closely that she wanted to either fold her limbs in defensive mode or run away.

  “To minimize verbal confusion during meetings with other-species entities,” it was saying, “and to avoid inadvertently giving offense, it is assumed that all members of the medical and support staff who do not belong to your own particular species are sexless. Whether you are addressing them directly or discussing them in their absence, you will always think of them as an ‘it’. The only exception to this rule is when an other-species patient is being treated for a condition directly related to its sex, in which case the doctor must know whether it is male or female, or one of the multisexed species, if the proper treatment is to be carried out.

  “I am a male Nidian DBDG,” Cresk-Sar went on, “but do not think of me as ‘he’ or ‘him’. Think of me as ‘it’.”

  As the disgusting, hairy shape moved to within a few paces of her before turning away again, Cha Thrat thought that she would have no difficulty in thinking of this Senior Physician as “it.”

  With the intention of finding someone less repulsive to look at, she turned her eyes toward the trainee closest to her—one of the three silver-furred Kelgians attending the lecture. It was strange, she thought, how the Nidian’s fur made her cringe inwardly while the equally alien covering of the Kelgian relaxed and calmed her like a work of great art. The fur was in constant motion, with long, slow ripples moving from the creature’s conical head right down to its tail, with occasional cross-eddies and wavelets appearing, as if the incredibly fine pelt was a liquid stirred by an unfelt wind. At first she thought the movements were random, but a pattern of ripples and eddies seemed to be developing the more closely she watched.

  “What are you staring at?” the Kelgian said suddenly, its translated words overlaid by the moaning and hissing sounds of its native speech. “Do I have a bald patch, or something?”

  “I’m sorry, I had not meant to give offense,” Cha Thrat said. “Your fur is beautiful and I couldn’t help admiring it the way it moves—”

  “Pay attention, you two!” the Senior Physician said sharply. It moved closer, looked up at each of them in turn, then went prowling down the line again.

  “Cresk-Sar’s fur,” the Kelgian said softly, “is a sight. It makes me think that invisible and no doubt imaginary parasites are about to change their abode. It gives me a terrible psychosomatic itch.”

  This time Cresk-Sar gave them another long look, made an irritated, snuffling sound that did not translate, and continued with what it was saying.

  “ … There is a great deal of illogical behavior associated with sexual differences,” it went on, “and I must emphasize once again, unless the sex of a particular entity has a direct bearing on its course of treatment, the subject must be ignored if not deliberately avoided. Some of you may consider that such knowledge of another species would be helpful, conversationally useful during off-duty meetings or, as often happens in this place, when a particularly interesting piece of gossip is circulating. But believe me, in this area, ignorance is a virtue.”

  “Surely,” said a Melfan trainee halfway down the line, “there are interspecies social occasions, shared meals or lectures, when it would be a gross act of bad manners to ignore another intelligent and socially aware person’s gender. I think that—”

  “And I think,” Cresk-Sar said with a bark, or laugh, “that you are what our Earth-human friends call a gentleman. You haven’t been listening. Ignore the difference. Consider everyone who is not of your own species as neuter. In any case, you would have to observe some of our other-species people very closely to tell the difference, and that in itself could cause serious embarrassment. In the case of Hudlar life-mates, who alternate between male and female mode, the behavior patterns are quite complex.”

  “What would happen,” the Kelgian beside her said, “if they should go, completely or partly, out of synchronization?”

  From the line of trainees there were a number of different sounds, none of which registered on her translator. The Senior Physician was looking at the Kelgian, whose fur, for some reason, had begun to move in rapid, irregular ripples.

  “I shall treat that as a serious question,” Cresk-Sar said, “although I doubt that it was intended as such. Rather than answer it myself, I shall ask one of you to do so. Wo
uld the Hudlar trainee please step forward.”

  So that, Cha Thrat thought, is a Hudlar.

  It was a squat, heavy life-form with a hard, almost featureless darkgray skin, discolored by patches of the dried paint she had seen it spraying on itself before they had entered the lecture theater, and she had decided then that it was extremely careless in its application of cosmetics. The body was supported on six heavy tentacles, each of which terminated in a cluster of flexible digits, curled inward so that the weight was borne on heavy knuckles and the fingers remained clear of the floor.

  There were no body openings that she could see, not even in the head, which contained eyes protected by hard, transparent shells and a semicircular membrane that vibrated to produce the creature’s words as it turned toward them.

  “It is very simple, respected colleagues,” the Hudlar said. “While I am presently male, Hudlars are all sexually neutral until puberty, after which the direction taken is dependent on social-environmental influences, sometimes quite subtle influences that do not involve body contact. A picture of an attractive male-mode Hudlar might impel one from neuter toward female mode, or the other way around. A conscious choice can be made if the career one intends to follow favors a particular sex. Unless one is mated, the postpuberty sex choice is fixed for the remainder of one’s life.

  “When two adults become life-mates,” the Hudlar went on, “that is, when they join for the purpose of becoming parents and not simply for temporary pleasure, the sex changes are initiated shortly after conception. By the time the child is born the male has become much less aggressive, more attentive and emotionally oriented toward its mate, while its mate is beginning to lose the female characteristics. Following parturition, the process continues, with the father-that-was taking responsibility for the child while progressing to full female mode, and the mother develops all the male characteristics that will enable it to be a father-to-be.

  “There is, of course, a time during which both life-mates are emotional neuters,” the Hudlar added, “but this is a period of the pregnancy when physical coupling is contraindicated.”

  “Thank you,” the Senior Physician said, but held up a small, hairy hand to indicate that the Hudlar should remain where it was. “Any further comments, questions?”

  It was looking at the Kelgian beside her, the one who had asked the original question, but Cha Thrat spoke on impulse.

  “It seems to me that the Hudlars are fortunate,” she said, “in that they are not troubled by the situation of the members of one sex considering themselves innately superior to the other, as is the case on Sommaradva …”

  “And on too many other worlds of the Federation,” the Kelgian interjected, the fur rising into tufts behind its head.

  “ … I thank the Hudlar for its explanation,” Cha Thrat went on, “but I was surprised to find that it is presently a male. My first thought, based on observation of what I mistakenly assumed to be cosmetic paint on its body, was that it was female.”

  The Hudlar’s speaking membrane began to vibrate, but Cresk-Sar held its hand up for silence and said, “What are your second thoughts?”

  Confused, she stared at the hairy little creature, wondering what she was expected to say.

  “Come, come,” Cresk-Sar barked. “Tell us what other thoughts, observations, assumptions, mistaken or otherwise, have been going through your Sommaradvan mind regarding this life-form. Think and speak clearly.”

  Cha Thrat turned all her eyes on it in a way that, had it been a Sommaradvan, would have elicited an immediate verbal and physical response. She said, “My first thoughts were as described. My second was that it might be Hudlar males rather than females, or perhaps both, who wear decorative paint. Then I observed that the being’s movements were careful, as if it was afraid of injuring nearby people and equipment, the movements of a gentle being of immense physical strength. That taken in conjunction with the low, squat form of the body, with six rather than two or four limbs, suggested that it was a native of a dense, heavy-gravity world with comparable atmospheric pressure, where an accidental fall would be damaging. The very hard but flexible skin, which is unbroken by any permanent body orifices for the intake or elimination of food, suggested that the paint which I had observed the Hudlar spraying onto itself might be a nutrient solution.”

  The eyes of Cresk-Sar, and the variegated visual sensors of the other trainees, were watching her steadily. Nobody spoke.

  Hesitantly she added, “Another thought, wonderful and exciting but, I expect, pure supposition, is that if this heavy-gravity, high-pressure creature can live unprotected in the hospital surroundings, its body must be capable of containing its own very high internal pressures, and an even lower pressure environment should not inconvenience it.

  “It might be possible,” she went on, expecting a storm of ridicule from the Nidian Senior, “for it to work unprotected in space. This would mean that—”

  “At any moment,” Cresk-Sar said, holding its hand up, “you will give me its physiological classification coding, even though we haven’t covered that yet. Is this the first time you’ve seen a Hudlar?”

  “I saw two of them in the dining hall,” she replied, “but at the time I was too confused to know what I was seeing.”

  “May your confusion continue to diminish, Cha Thrat,” Cresk-Sar said. Turning its head toward the others, it went on, “This trainee has displayed the qualities of observation and deduction that, when trained and refined, will enable you to live among, understand, and treat your other-species colleagues and patients. However, I would advise you not to think of a particular life-form as a Nidian, a Hudlar, a Kelgian, a Melfan, or a Sommaradvan, that is, by their planets of origin, but by their physiological classifications, DBDG, FROB, DBLF, ELNT, or DCNF. That way you will always be reminded of their pressure, gravity, and atmosphere requirements, basic metabolism and other physiological needs, and know immediately when there is a potential environmental threat to them or to yourselves.”

  It continued, “Should a PVSJ, a chlorine-breathing native of Illensa, accidentally rupture its pressure envelope, the risk to the being concerned and to any oxygen-breathing D, E, and F prefixes in the vicinity would be extreme. And, if you are ever called to a space rescue situation, there may be times when an urgent and accurate identification of the casualty’s physiological classification, and therefore its life-support requirements, may depend on a single limb or small area of body surface glimpsed under shifting wreckage.

  “You must train yourselves to be aware, instinctively, of all the differences of the people around you,” Cresk-Sar went on, giving a low laugh-bark, “if only to know whom it is safe to jostle in the corridors. And now I will take you to the wards for your initial patient experience before my next class in—”

  “What about the classification system?” said the silver-furred Kelgian—the DBLF, Cha Thrat corrected herself—beside her. “If it is as important as you say it is, surely you are lacking in the qualities of a teacher not to have explained it to us.”

  Cresk-Sar walked slowly toward the speaker, and she wondered if she could possibly reduce the verbal violence to come by asking the Senior Physician another and more politely worded question. But for some reason the Nidian completely ignored the DBLF and spoke instead to Cha Thrat.

  “You will already have observed,” it said, “that these Kelgian DBLF life-forms are outspoken, ill-mannered, rude, and completely lacking in tact …”

  You should talk, Cha Thrat thought.

  “ … But there are good psychophysiological reasons for this,” it went on. “Because of inadequacies in the Kelgian speech organs, their spoken language lacks modulation, inflection, and all emotional expression. But they are compensated by their highly mobile fur that acts, so far as another Kelgian is concerned, as a perfect but uncontrollable mirror to the speaker’s emotional state. As a result the concept of lying, of being diplomatic, tactful, or even polite is completely alien to them. A DBLF says exactly what i
t means or feels, because the fur reveals its feelings from moment to moment and to do otherwise would be sheer stupidity. The opposite also holds true, because politeness and the verbal circumlocution used by many species confuses and irritates them.

  “You will find some of the personalities here as alien as the persons,” it continued. “Considering the fact that you have met only one other-species being before your arrival here, your behavior today makes me sure that you will have not trouble in adapting to—”

  “Teacher’s pet,” the DBLF said, its fur tufting into spikes. “I was the one who asked the question, remember?”

  “That you did,” Cresk-Sar replied, looking at the wall chronometer. “Tapes covering the life-form physiological classification system will be sent to your quarters sometime today. You must study the visual material they contain, carefully and repeatedly, and use your translators on the spoken commentary. But now I have time only to outline the basics of the system.”

  It turned suddenly and resumed its place facing them. Plainly the answer to the question was being directed toward everyone.

  “Unless you have already been attached to one of the smaller, multi-environment hospitals,” Cresk-Sar said, “you will normally have encountered off-world patients one species at a time, probably on a short-term basis as a result of a ship accident, and you would refer to them by their planets of origin. But I must stress once again, the rapid and accurate identification of incoming patients is vital, because all too often they are in no condition to furnish the necessary physiological data themselves. Here we have evolved a basic, four-letter physiological classification system that enables us to provide the required life-support and initial treatment pending a more detailed investigation, if that should be necessary, by Pathology. It works like this.