Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations

by James White

  There were only eighteen minutes left.

  “I remember Harrison well,” the distant Edwards replied when Conway had explained what he wanted to know. “His suit was damaged in the leg section only, so we couldn’t write it off—those things carry a full set of tools and survival gear and are expensive. And naturally we decontaminated it! The regulations expressly state that—”

  “It still may have been a carrier of some kind, Major,” Conway said quickly. “How thoroughly did you carry out this decon—”

  “Thoroughly,” said the Major, beginning to sound annoyed. “If it was carrying any kind of bug or parasite it is defunct now. The suit together with all its attachments was sterilized with high-pressure steam and irradiated—it went through the same sterilization procedure as your surgical instruments, in fact. Does that satisfy you, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” said Conway softly. “Yes indeed.”

  He now had the link-up between Meatball and the operating theater, via Harrison’s suit and the sterilization chamber. But that wasn’t all he had. He had Yehudi!

  Beside him Mannon had stopped. The surgeon’s hands were trembling as he said desperately, “I need eight pairs of hands, or instruments that can do eight different operations at once. This isn’t going well, Conway. Not well at all …”

  “Don’t do anything for a minute, Doctor,” Conway said urgently, then began calling out instructions for the nurses to file past him carrying their instrument trays. O’Mara started shouting to know what was going on, but Conway was concentrating too hard to answer him. Then one of the Kelgian nurses made a noise like a foghorn breathing in, the DBLF equivalent of a shriek of surprise, because suddenly there was a medium-sized box spanner among the forceps on her tray.

  “You won’t believe this,” said Conway joyfully as he carried the—thing—to Mannon and placed it in the surgeon’s hands, “but if you’ll just listen for a minute and then do as I tell you …”

  Mannon was back at work in less than a minute.

  Hesitantly at first, but then with growing confidence and speed, he resumed the delicate repair work. Occasionally he whistled through his teeth or swore luridly, but this was normal behavior for Mannon during a difficult op which was promising to go well. In the observation blister Conway could see the happily scowling, baffled face of the Chief Psychologist and the fragile, spidery body of the empath. Prilicla was still trembling, but very slowly. It was a type of reaction not often seen in a Cinrusskin off its native planet, indicating a nearby source of emotional radiation which was intense and altogether pleasant.

  After the operation they had all wanted to question Harrison about Meatball, but before they could do so Conway had first to explain what had happened again to the Lieutenant.

  “ … And while we still have no idea what they look like,” Conway was saying, “we do know that they are highly intelligent and in their own fashion technically advanced. By that I mean they fashion and use tools …”

  “Indeed yes,” said Mannon dryly, and the thing in his hand became a metallic sphere, a miniature bust of Beethoven and a set of Tralthan dentures. Since it had become certain that the Hudlar would be another one of Mannon’s successes rather than a failure he had begun to regain his sense of humor.

  “ … But the tool-making stage must have followed a long way after the development of the philosophical sciences,” Conway went on. “The imagination boggles at the conditions in which they evolved. These tools are not designed for manual use, the natives may not possess hands as we know them. But they have minds … !”

  Under the mental control of its owner the “tool” had cut a way into Descartes beside Harrison’s station, but during the sudden takeoff it had been unable to get back and a new source of mental control, the Lieutenant, had unwittingly taken over. It had become the foothold which Harrison had needed so badly, only to give under his weight because it had not really been part of the ship’s structure. When the attachments of Harrison’s suit had been sterilized in the same room as the surgical instruments and when a nurse had come looking for a certain instrument for the theater, it again became what was wanted.

  From then on there was confusion over instrument counts and falling scalpels which did not cut and sprayers which behaved oddly indeed, and Mannon had used a knife which had followed his mind instead of his hands, with near-fatal results for the patient. But the second time it happened Mannon knew that he was holding a small, unspecialized, all-purpose tool which was subject to mental as well as manual control, and some of the shapes he had made it take and the things he had made it do would make Conway remember that operation for the rest of his life.

  “ … This … gadget … is probably of great value to its owner,” Conway finished seriously. “By rights we should return it. But we need it here, many more of them if possible! Your people have got to make contact and set up trade relations. There’s bound to be something we have or can do that they want …”

  “I’d give my right arm for one,” said Mannon, then added, grinning, “My right leg, anyway.”

  The Lieutenant returned his smile. He said, “As I remember the place, Doctor, there was no shortage of raw meat.”

  O’Mara, who had been unusually silent until then, said very seriously, “Normally I am not a covetous man. But consider the things this hospital could do with just ten of those things, or even five. We have one and, if we were doing the right thing, we would put it back where we found it—obviously a tool like this is of enormous value. This means that we will have to buy or conduct some form of trade for them, and to do this we must first learn to communicate with their owners.”

  He looked at each of them in turn, then went on sardonically. “One hesitates to mention such sordid commercial matters to pure-minded, dedicated medical men like yourselves, but I must do so to explain why, when Descartes eventually makes contact with the beings who use the tools, I want Conway and whoever else he may select to investigate the medical situation on Meatball.

  “Our interest will not be entirely commercial, however,” he added quickly, “but it seems to me that if we have to go in for the practice of barter and exchange, the only thing we have to trade is our medical knowledge and facilities.”

  VERTIGO

  It was perhaps inevitable that when the long-awaited indication of intelligent life at last appeared the majority of the ship’s observers were looking somewhere else, that it did not appear in the batteries of telescopes that were being trained on the surface or on the still and cine films being taken by Descartes’ planetary probes, but on the vessel’s close-approach radar screens.

  In Descartes’ control room the Captain jabbed a button on his console and said sharply, “Communications … ?”

  “We have it, sir,” came the reply. “A telescope locked onto the radar bearing—the image is on your repeater screen Five. It is a two- or three-stage chemically fueled vehicle with the second stage still firing. This means we will be able to reconstruct its flight path and pinpoint the launch area with fair accuracy. It is emitting complex patterns of radio-frequency radiation indicative of high-speed telemetry channels. The second stage has just cut out and is falling away. The third stage, if it is a third stage, has not ignited … It’s in trouble!”

  The alien spacecraft, a slim, shining cylinder pointed at one end and thickened and blunt at the other, had begun to tumble. Slowly at first but with steadily increasing speed it swung and whirled end over end.

  “Ordnance?” asked the Captain.

  “Apart from the tumbling action,” said a slower, more precise voice, “the vessel seems to have been inserted into a very neat circular orbit. It is most unlikely that this orbit was taken up by accident. The lack of sophistication—relative, that is—in the vehicle’s design and the fact that its nearest approach to us will be a little under two hundred miles all point to the conclusion that it is either an artificial satellite or a manned orbiting vehicle rather than a missile directed at this ship.

 
; “If it is manned,” the voice added with more feeling, “the crew must be in serious trouble …”

  “Yes,” said the Captain, who treated words like nuggets of some rare and precious metal. He went on, “Astrogation, prepare intersecting and matching orbits, please. Power Room, stand by.”

  As the tremendous bulk of Descartes closed with the tiny alien craft it became apparent that, as well as tumbling dizzily end over end, the other vessel was leaking. The rapid spin made it impossible to say with certainty whether it was a fuel leak from the unfired third stage or air escaping from the command module if it was, in fact, a manned vehicle.

  The obvious procedure was to check the spin with tractor beams as gently as possible so as to avoid straining the hull structure, then defuel the unfired third stage to remove the fire hazard before bringing the craft alongside. If the vessel was manned and the leak was of air rather than fuel, it could then be taken into Descartes’ cargo hold where rescue and first contact proceedings would be possible—at leisure since Meatball’s air was suited to human beings and the reverse, presumably, also held true.

  It was expected to be a fairly simple rescue operation, at first …

  “Tractor stations Six and Seven, sir. The alien spacecraft won’t stay put. We’ve slowed it to a stop three times and each time it applies steering thrust and recommences spinning. For some reason it is deliberately fighting our efforts to bring it to rest. The speed and quality of the reaction suggests direction by an on-the-spot intelligence. We can apply more force, but only at the risk of damaging the vessel’s hull—it is incredibly fragile by present-day standards, sir.”

  “I suggest using all necessary force to immediately check the spin, opening its tanks and jettisoning all fuel into space then whisking it into the cargo hold. With normal air pressure around it again there will be no danger to the crew and we will have time to …”

  “Astrogation, here. Negative to that, I’m afraid, sir. Our computation shows that the vessel took off from the sea—more accurately, from beneath the sea, because there is no visible evidence of floating gantries or other launch facilities in the area. We can reproduce Meatball air because it is virtually the same as our own, but not that animal and vegetable soup they use for water, and all the indications point toward the crew being water breathers.”

  For a few seconds the Captain did not reply. He was thinking about the alien crew member or members and their reasons for behaving as they were doing. Whether the reason was technical, physiological, psychological or simply alien was, however, of secondary importance. The main thing was to render assistance as quickly as possible.

  If his own ship could not aid the other vessel directly it could, in a matter of days, take it to a place which possessed all the necessary facilities for doing so. Transportation itself posed only a minor problem—the spinning vehicle could be towed without checking its spin by attaching a magnetic grapple to its center of rotation, and with the shipside attachment point also rotating so that the line would not twist-shorten and bring the alien craft crashing into Descartes’ side. During the trip the larger ship’s hyper-drive field could be expanded to enclose both vessels.

  His chief concern was over the leak and his complete ignorance of how long a period the alien spacecraft had intended to stay in orbit. He had also, if he wanted to establish friendly relations with the people on Meatball, to make the correct decision quickly.

  He knew that in the early days of human space flight leakage was a quite normal occurrence, for there had been many occasions when it had been preferable to carry extra air supplies rather than pay the severe weight penalty of making the craft completely airtight. On the other hand the leak and spinning were more likely to be emergency conditions with the time available for their correction strictly limited. Since the alien astronaut or astronauts would not, for some odd reason, let him immobilize their ship to make a more thorough investigation of its condition and because he could not reproduce their environment anyway, his duty was plain. Probably his hesitancy was due to misplaced professional pride because he was passing responsibility for a particularly sticky one to others.

  Quickly and with his usual economy of words the Captain issued the necessary orders and, less than half an hour after it had first been sighted, the alien spacecraft was on its way to Sector General.

  With quiet insistence the PA was repeating, “Will Senior Physician Conway please contact Major O’Mara …”

  Conway quickly sized up the traffic situation in the corridor, jumped across the path of a Tralthan intern who was lumbering down on him on six elephantine feet, rubbed fur briefly with a Kelgian caterpillar who was moving in the opposite direction and, while squeezing himself against the wall to avoid being run over by something in a highly refrigerated box on wheels, unracked the hand-set of the communicator.

  As soon as he had established contact the PA began insisting quietly that somebody else contact somebody else.

  “Are you doing anything important at the moment, Doctor?” asked the Chief Psychologist without preamble. “Engaged on vital research, perhaps, or in performing some life-or-death operation?” O’Mara paused, then added dryly, “You realize, of course, that these questions are purely rhetorical …”

  Conway sighed and said, “I was just going to lunch.”

  “Fine,” said O’Mara. “In that case you will be delighted to know that the natives of Meatball have put a spacecraft into orbit—judging by its looks it may well be their first. It got into difficulties—Colonel Skempton can give you the details—and Descartes is bringing it here for us to deal with. It will arrive in just under three hours and I suggest you take an ambulance ship and heavy rescue gear out to it with a view to extricating its crew. I shall also suggest that Doctors Mannon and Prilicla be detached from their normal duties to assist you, since you three are going to be our specialists in Meatball matters.”

  “I understand,” said Conway eagerly.

  “Right,” said the Major. “And I’m glad, Doctor, that you realize that there are things more important than food. A less enlightened and able psychologist than myself might wonder at this sudden hunger which develops whenever an important assignment is mentioned. I, of course, realize that this is not an outward symptom of a sense of insecurity but sheer, blasted greed!

  “You will have arrangements to make, Doctor,” he concluded pleasantly. “Off.”

  Skempton’s office was fairly close so that Conway needed just fifteen minutes—which included the time taken to don a protective suit for the two hundred yards of the journey which lay through the levels of the Illensan chlorine breathers—to reach it.

  “Good morning,” said Skempton while Conway was still opening his mouth. “Tip the stuff off that chair and sit down. O’Mara has been in touch. I’ve decided to return Descartes to Meatball as soon as it leaves the distressed spacecraft. To native observers it might appear that the vehicle was taken—one might almost say kidnaped—and Descartes should be on hand to note reactions, make contact if possible and give reassurances. I’d be obliged if you would extricate, treat and return this patient to Meatball as quickly as possible—you can imagine the boon this would be to our cultural contact people.

  “This is a copy of the report on the incident radioed from Descartes,” the Colonel went on without, apparently, even pausing for breath. “And you will need this analysis of water taken from the sea around the takeoff—the actual samples will be available as soon as Descartes arrives. Should you need further background information on Meatball or on contact procedures call on Lieutenant Harrison, who is due for discharge now and who will be glad to assist. Try not to slam the door, Doctor.”

  The Colonel began excavating deeply in the layer of paperwork covering his desk and Conway closed his mouth again and left. In the outer office he asked permission to use the communicator and got to work.

  An unoccupied ward in the Chalder section was the obvious place to house the new patient. The giant denizens of Chalderescol
II were water breathers, although the tepid, greenish water in which they lived was almost one hundred percent pure compared with the soupy environment of Meatball’s seas. The analysis would allow Dietetics and Environmental Control to synthesize the food content of the water—but not to reproduce the living organisms it contained. That would have to wait until the samples arrived and they had a chance to study and breed these organisms, just as the E.C. people could reproduce the gravity and water pressure, but would have to wait for the arrival of the spacecraft to add the finishing touches to the patient’s quarters.

  Next he arranged for an ambulance ship with heavy rescue equipment, crew and medical support to be made available prior to Descartes’ arrival. The tender should be prepared to transfer a patient of unknown physiological classification who was probably injured and decompressed and close to terminal by this time, and he wanted a rescue team experienced in the rapid emergency transfer of shipwreck survivors.

  Conway was about to make a final call, to Thornnastor, the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, when he hesitated.

  He was not quite sure whether he wanted to ask a series of specific questions—even a series of hypothetical questions—or to indulge in several minutes worrying out loud. It was vitally important that he treat and cure this patient. Quite apart from it being his and the hospital’s job to do so, successful treatment would be the ideal way of opening communications with the natives of Meatball and ultimately laying hands on more of those wonderful, thought-controlled surgical instruments.

  But what were the owners of those fabulous tools really like? Were they small and completely unspecialized with no fixed physical shape like the tools they used or, considering the mental abilities needed to develop the tools in the first place, were they little more than physically helpless brains dependent on their thought-controlled instruments to feed them, protect them and furnish all their physical needs? Conway badly wanted to know what to expect when the ship arrived. But Diagnosticians, as everyone knew, were unpredictable and even more impatient of muddy or confused thinking than was the Chief Psychologist.