Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice

by James White

  “No!” she said urgently. “Please stop talking!”

  “Do not be distressed, Cha Thrat,” the empath continued, mistaking the reason for the objection. “Your professional competence is not in doubt, and Pathologist Murchison and myself have studied Conway’s notes on the FOKT life-form, as have you, and we will guide you at every stage of the procedure and take complete responsibility throughout.

  “Immediate surgical intervention is required to relieve this condition,” it went on. “As soon as the last sting is capped, you will use a Number Eight scalpel to enlarge the birth opening with an incision from the pelvis up to the—What is happening?”

  There was no need to tell it what was happening because in the time taken to ask the question it already knew the answer. Khone, faced with the imminent prospect of a major surgical attack, had reacted instinctively by emitting the call for joining and was trying to sting to death the only strange, and therefore threatening, being within reach. With its legs virtually paralyzed, Khone was twisting violently from side to side and using its digital clusters to pull itself toward Cha Thrat.

  The remaining uncapped sting, long, yellow, and with tiny drops of venom already oozing from its point, was swaying and jerking closer. Frantically Cha Thrat pushed backward with the forefeet and medial limbs, launching herself toward the Gogleskan and grasping the base of the sting with three of her upper hands.

  “Stop it!” she shouted above the noise of the call. Forgetting to be impersonal, she went on. “Stop moving or you’ll injure yourself and the young one. I’m a friend, I want to help you. Naydrad, cap it! Cap it quickly!”

  “Hold it still, then,” the Kelgian snapped back, swinging the probe’s manipulator arm above Khone’s jerking head. “Hold it very still.”

  But that was not easy to do. Her upper, neck-level arms and digits had been evolved for more precise and delicate operations and lacked the heavy musculature of the medial limbs, and using them meant that Khone’s head and her own were almost touching. She strained desperately to tighten her ridiculously weak grip on the sting, sending waves of pain into her neck and upper thorax. She knew that if those fingers slipped the sting would immediately be plunged into the top of her head.

  The medical team would probably get to her quickly enough to save her life, but not those of Khone and the fetus, which was their only reason for being here. She was wondering how Murchison, the Diagnostician’s life-mate; and Prilicla, its long-term friend; and Cha Thrat herself would face Conway with the news of Khone’s death when Naydrad shouted, “Got it!”

  The last sting was covered. She could relax for a moment. But not Khone, who was still jerking and writhing on the floor and stabbing ineffectually at her with all four of its capped stings. Close up, the sound of its distress call was like a gale whistling and howling through a ruined building.

  “At least the distorters are working,” Wainright said, and added warningly, “but hurry it up, they won’t last much longer.”

  She ignored the Earth-human and grasped tufts of the Gogleskan’s hair in her upper and medial hands, trying vainly to hold it motionless. Pleadingly she said, “Stop moving. You’re wasting what little strength you’ve got. You’ll die and the baby will die. Please stop moving. I’m not an enemy, I’m your friend!”

  The call for joining was still howling out with undiminished volume, making her wonder how such a small creature could make so great a noise, but its physical movements were becoming noticeably less violent. Was it a symptom of sheer physical weakness, or was she getting through to the Gogleskan? Then she saw that the long, pale tendrils on its head were uncurling from the concealing hair and were standing out straight. Two of them fell slowly to lie along the top of her own head, and suddenly Cha Thrat wanted to scream.

  Being Khone’s friend was much, much worse than being its enemy.

  CHAPTER 14

  There was fear as she had never known it before—the sudden, overriding, and senseless fear of everything and everyone that was not joined tightly to her for the group defense; and a terrible, blind fury that diminished the fear; and the memories and expectation of pains past, present, and to come. And with those fearful memories there came a dreadful and confused nightmare of all the frightful and painful things that had ever happened to her—on Sommaradva and Goglesk and in Sector General. Many elements of the nightmare were utterly strange to her; the feeling of terror at the sight of Prilicla, which was ridiculous, and the sense of loss at the departure of the male Gogleskan who had fathered the child within her. But now there was no fear of the outsized, off-world animated doll who was trying to help her.

  Even with the confusion of fear, pain, and alien experiences dulling her capacity to think, the conclusion was inescapable. Khone had invaded her mind.

  Now she knew what it was like to be a Gogleskan; at a time like this the choice was simple. Friends joined and enemies—everyone and everything that was not part of the group—were attacked and destroyed. She wanted to break everything in the room, the furniture, instruments, decorations, and then tear down the flimsy walls, and she wanted to drag Khone around with her to help her do it. Desperately she tried to control the blind and utterly alien fury that was building up in her.

  Amid the storm of Gogleskan impressions a tiny part of her own mind surfaced for a moment, observing that the tight grip she retained on Khone’s fur must have fooled its subconscious into believing that she had joined with it, and was therefore a friend worthy of mindsharing.

  I am Cha Thrat, she told herself fiercely, once a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon and now a trainee maintenance technician of Sector General. I am not Khone of Goglesk and I am not here to join and destroy …

  But this was a joining, and memories of a larger, more destructive joining came crowding into her mind.

  She seemed to be standing on top of a land vehicle stopped on high ground overlooking the town, watching the joining as it happened. The Earth-human Wainright was beside her, warning her that the Gogleskans were dangerously close, that they should leave, that there was nothing she could do and, for some strange reason, while it was saying these things it sometimes called “Doctor” but more often “sir.” She felt very bad because she knew that the joining had been her fault, that it had happened because she had tried to help, and had touched, an industrial accident casualty. Below her she could clearly see Khone attaching itself to the other Gogleskans without being able to understand the reason, and at the same time she was Khone and knew the reason.

  With individual Gogleskans hurrying to join it from nearby buildings, moored ships, and surrounding tree dwellings, the group-entity became a great, mobile, stinging carpet that crawled around large buildings and engulfed small ones as if it did not know or care what it was doing. In its wake it left a trail of smashed equipment, vehicles, dead animals, and a capsized ship. The group-entity moved inland to continue its self-destructive defense against an enemy out of prehistory.

  In spite of the terrible fear of that nonexistent enemy in Khone’s mind, which was now her mind, Cha Thrat tried to make herself think logically about what had happened to her. She thought of the wizard O’Mara and how it had said that Educator tapes would never be for her, and remembered the reasons it had given. Now she knew what it was like to have a completely alien entity occupying her mind, and she wondered if her sanity would be affected. Perhaps the fact that Khone, like herself, was a female might make a difference.

  But there was a growing realization that it was not only Khone’s mind and memories that she had to contend with. The memory and viewpoint from the top of the land vehicle was not from the Gogleskan’s mind, nor her own. There were memories of the ambulance ship and the exploits of its medical team that were definitely not her own, and some vivid and—to her—fearful and wonderful recollections of events in Sector General that were totally outside her experience. Had O’Mara been right? Were factual recollections and insane fantasies intermingling, and she was no longer sane?

  Bu
t she did not think she was insane. Madness was supposed to be an escape from a too-painful reality to a condition that was more bearable. There was too much pain here and the memories or fantasies were too painfully sharp. And one of them was of Lieutenant Wainright standing beside her, its head on a level with hers, and calling her “sir.”

  With a sudden shiver of fear and wonder she realized what was happening. She was sharing Khone’s mind, and Khone had earlier shared it with someone else.

  Conway!

  For some time Cha Thrat had been aware of Prilicla’s voice in her earpiece, but the words were just sounds without meaning to her already overloaded mind. Then she felt its warmth and sympathy and reassurance all around her, and the pain and confusion receded a little so that the meaning came through.

  “Cha Thrat, my friend,” the empath was saying, “please respond. You have been holding onto the patient’s fur for the past few minutes, not doing anything and not answering us. I am on the roof directly above you, and your emotional radiation distresses me. Please, what is wrong? Have you been stung?”

  “N-no,” she replied shakily, “there is no physical damage. I feel badly confused and frightened, and the patient is—”

  “I can read your feelings, Cha Thrat,” Prilicla said gently, “but not the reason for them. There is nothing to be ashamed of, you’ve already done more than could be reasonably expected of you, and it was unfair of us to let you volunteer for this operation in the first place. We are in danger of losing the patient. Please withdraw and let me perform the surgery—”

  “No,” Cha Thrat said, feeling Khone’s body twitch in her hands. The long, silvery tendrils that were the organic conductors for the uniquely Gogleskan form of telepathy-by-wire were still lying across her head, and anything Cha Thrat felt or heard or thought was immediately available to Khone, who did not like the idea of an alien monster operating on it, for reasons that were both personal and medical. Cha Thrat added, “Please give me a moment. I’m beginning to regain control of my mind.”

  “You are,” Prilicla said, “but hurry.”

  Incredibly, it was her mind-partner who was doing most to aid the process. In common with the rest of its long-suffering and nightmareridden species, it had learned how to control and compartmentalize its thinking, feelings, and natural urges so that the enforced loneliness necessary to avoid a joining was not only bearable but, at times, happy. And now the Conway-memories of Sector General and some of its monstrous patients were surging into the forefront of her mind.

  Be selective, Khone was telling her. Use only what is useful.

  All the memories and experience of a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon, a Gogleskan healer, and half an Earth-human lifetime spent in Sector General were hers, and with that vast quantity of other-species medical and physiological expertise available she could not believe that, even at this late stage, the Khone case was hopeless. Then from somewhere in that vast and incredibly varied store of knowledge, the glimmerings of an idea began to take shape.

  “I no longer feel that surgical intervention is the answer,” she said firmly, “even as a last resort. It is unlikely that the patient would survive.”

  “Who the blazes does it think it is?” Murchison said angrily. “Who’s in charge of this op, anyway? Prilicla, pin its ears back!”

  Cha Thrat could have answered both questions, but did not. She knew that her words and tone had been wrong for someone in her lowly position—she sounded much too self-assured and authoritative. But there was no time for either long explanations or pretensions of humility, and it would be better if the true explanation was never given. With any luck Pathologist Murchison would believe, and go on believing, that Cha Thrat was a self-opinionated maintenance technician and one-time trainee nurse with delusions of grandeur and, for the time being at least, the team leader was leaving her ears unpinned.

  “Explain,” Prilicla said.

  Quickly Cha Thrat reviewed the current clinical picture, gravely worsened now by the extreme debilitation that, even in a healthy Gogleskan, followed a joining. When she said that Khone lacked the strength and physical resources to withstand major surgery—it would have to be a cesarean procedure rather than a simple enlargement of the birth opening—she spoke with absolute certainty because she had the patient-healer’s viewpoint of the case as well as her own. But she did not mention that, saying instead that Khone’s emotional radiation would confirm her observations.

  “It does,” the empath said.

  She went on quickly. “The FOKT classification is one of the few life-forms capable of resting in the upright position, although they can also lie down. Since their ancestors emerged from the oceans, their bodies and internal organs have been acted on by vertical G forces, as are those of the Hudlars and Tralthans and Rhenithi. I am reminded of a case in Tralthan Maternity a few years ago that was broadly similar to this one and required—”

  “You didn’t learn that from Cresk-Sar,” Murchison broke in suddenly. “Trainee nurses aren’t told about the near-failures, at least not in first year.”

  “I liked to study odd cases outside the syllabus,” Cha Thrat lied smoothly, “and I still do, when I’m not engrossed in a maintenance manual.”

  Her emotional radiation would tell the Cinrusskin that she was lying, but it could only guess at what she was lying about. All it said was “Describe your procedure.”

  “Before I do,” she went on quickly, “please remove the canopy from the litter and reposition the gravity grids to act laterally in opposite directions. Set the body restraints to the size and weight of the patient under anything up to an alternating plus and minus three Gs. Move the probe into the passageway, so I can step from it onto the roof. Hurry, please. I’m bringing out the patient now and will explain on the way …”

  Cradling the barely conscious Khone in two medial arms and with all of her free hands gripping its fur tightly to make it feel that it was still joined to a friend, she climbed awkwardly onto the roof and sidled back the way she had come. Prilicla hovered anxiously above her all the way, Naydrad complained bitterly that its litter would never be the same again, and Murchison reminded it that they had a maintenance technician, or something, with them.

  She continued to grip the Gogleskan’s fur while Naydrad expertly fitted the restraints and Murchison attached an oxygen supply to all breathing orifices. With her head touching Khone’s and the long, silvery tendrils still making contact, she checked that the other had a clear view of the scanner display, which she in her present awkward position did not, then braced herself and gave the signal to begin.

  Cha Thrat felt her head and upper limbs being pulled sideways as Naydrad fed power to the gravity grid positioned above the patient’s head. It was difficult to keep her balance because her lower body and legs were out side the influence of the artificial gravity field. But so far as Khone was concerned, it was tied upside-down to the litter under double, increasing to treble and Gogleskan standard gravity pull.

  “Heart rate irregular,” Prilicla reported quietly. “Blood pressure increasing in the upper body and head, respiration labored, minor displacement of thoracic organs, but the fetus hasn’t moved.”

  “Shall I increase the pull to four Gs?” Naydrad asked, looking at Prilicla. But it was Cha Thrat who replied.

  “No,” she said. “Give it two Gs alternating as rapidly as possible between normal and reverse pull. You’ve got to try to shake Junior loose.”

  Now she was being knocked from side to side, as if by the soft, invisible paws of some great beast, while the patient was suffering the same maltreatment in the vertical plane. She managed to keep her head and the hands gripping Khone’s fur steady, but she was feeling a growing nausea that reminded her of childhood bouts of travel sickness.

  “Friend Cha Thrat, are you all right?” Prilicla asked. “Do you wish to stop?”

  “Can we spare the time?”

  “No,” the empath replied, then: “The fetus is moving! It is—”


  “Reverse, two Gs steady,” Cha Thrat said quickly, effectively standing Khone on its head again.

  “—now pressing against the upper womb,” Prilicla continued. “The umbilical is no longer being compressed, and pressure on the blood vessels and nerve linkages in the area has been relieved. The muscles are beginning rapid, involuntary contractions …”

  “Enough to expel the fetus?” she broke in.

  “No,” it replied. “They are too weak to complete the birth process. In any case the fetus is still not in the optimum position.”

  Cha Thrat used a swear word that was definitely not Sommaradvan, and said, “Can we reposition and refocus the gravity grids so as to pull the fetus into the proper position for—”

  “I would need time to—” Naydrad began.

  “There isn’t any time,” said Prilicla. “I’m surprised friend Khone is still with us.”

  This was not going nearly as well as the remembered case in the Tralthan maternity ward had gone, and there was no consolation in telling herself that, in this instance, the life-form was strange and the operating facilities virtually non-existent. Khone’s mind was no longer sending or receiving impressions, so that she could not even make the Last Apology to it for her failure.

  “Please do not distress yourself, friend Cha,” the Cinrusskin went on, beginning to tremble violently. “No blame can be attached to you for attempting a task that, because of the peculiar circumstances, none of us were able to do. Your present emotional radiation is worrying me. Remember, you aren’t even a member of the medical team, you have no authority, and the responsibility for allowing you to try this procedure is not yours … You have just thought of something?”

  “We both know,” Cha Thrat said, so quietly that her voice reached only Prilicla, “that I have made it my responsibility. And yes, I’ve thought of something.”