James White - Mind Changer

By the time Priicla had finished telling them everything it knew and they had devised a plan, not for solving the problem but for finding a method of containing it in the hope that an answer might somehow be found, O’Mara was feeling more than usually irascible through lack of sleep. As it was, the partial solution was going to turn a large number of the hospital’s medical, maintenance, and security staff on their collective ear and even the new, self-assured Braithwaite could not be expected to order so many senior staff around without someone telling him exactly where to put his instructions. That was why O’Mara kept the Lieutenant at his side while he made noises like a hospital administrator to the person primarily responsible for the mess.

It was strange, he thought as the long-familiar Earth-human face appeared on his viewscreen, how many of the hospital’s past emergencies had begun by this man either trying to do or often doing the medically impossible.

“Conway,” O’Mara said sourly, “you and your telepathic patient have really landed us in it this time. Arrangements are being made as we speak to isolate Tunneckis from all contact with the medical and maintenance staff. Except for the few minutes spent with it by the bare minimum personnel needed to make its isolation as comfortable as possible, it is not to be approached by any living person. Remote-controlled monitoring and medical-treatment servos and a mobile food dispenser will be provided. Fortunately it has recovered sufficiently to use its own toilet facilities. If you have any other patients on Levels One-Ninety-Nine through Two-ZeroThree, they aren’t there anymore and you’ll probably find them on Two-Eighty-Five. But first I have orders for you which must be obeyed without argument or delay if—”

“Wait? Conway broke in. “You can’t do that. I have three patients in that area and one of them is tricky… Dammit, this isn’t a convenient time for holding a stupid evacuation drill. You should have consulted me first. So forget your bloody orders, O’Mara, and tell me what the hell is going on!”

Listening to such an angry exchange between two of the hospital’s top people was a brand-new experience for Braithwaite, and he was looking very uncomfortable. Before O’Mara could reply, the Lieutenant leaned forward so as to bring his face into visual range of O’Mara’s communicator and tried to pour a little diplomatic oil over a manner that his chief’s fatigue was making more abrasive than usual.

“Sir? he said quietly, with an apologetic glance at O’Mara beside him, “a dangerous situation has arisen which, among other things, has caused us to lose a lot of sleep and caused tempers to fray while we tracked it to its source. Rather than waste time trying to tell you about it in detail, I suggest you speak with Dr. Prilicla, who is now fully informed and who will be able to describe the emergency much better than we can. There is nothing to stop you attending your other patients once their new locations are known, and Administrator O’Mara doesn’t wish to give offense.

“Hah!” said Conway.

… but? Braithwaite continued firmly, “he must still forbid Diagnostician Thornnastor, Senior Physician Prilicla, and yourself physical contact with patient Tunneckis. Security has orders to forbid access to this patient by any sapient life-forms or any approach to within one hundred meters in any direction of its present location, although we expect this distance limit to be reviewed and extended in the light of further reports on the progress of the infection. With respect, sir, you, too, must be bound by these orders.”

“With respect, Lieutenant,” said Conway, “what bloody infection? Tunneckis isn’t infected with anything. I suppose you could best describe the case as a road traffic accident, or maybe as an act of its planetary God. It was just driving home when its ground vehicle was struck by lightning. Tunneckis wasn’t even sick.”

“It is now,” said Braithwaite very seriously. “We have incontrovertible evidence that a form of mental contagion is radiating from Tunneckis’s present location and that, according to Dr. Prilicla, who is charting the rate of expansion for us, it is spreading at an accelerating rate into the adjacent levels of the hospital and beyond. In effect, it seems to strip away the more sensitive layers of consciousness, those which we use to make friends, or to trust rather than fear strangers, and, in short, enable us to behave like civilized individuals. I mentioned earlier to you that Tunneckis might not be telepathically dumb. Now we know that it is producing a loud, incoherent, telepathic shout that is slowly destroying the minds within its increasing range. We don’t know what the final stage will be, almost certainly a condition of rampant xenophobia with possibly a descent into pre-sapience. That is why we cannot allow the hospital’s best medical minds to be affected, because we will need them to find a solution.

“If they can? he added.

“Ignore the Lieutenant’s clumsy attempt at flattery, Conway,” O’Mara joined in suddenly. “According to Prilicla, it was you agreeing to accept and treat the hospital’s first Kerma patient that got us into this mess, so you can use your fine mind to help us get out of it. Right?”

Conway frowned, then nodded.”But it isn’t a medical condition? he said. “It’s a, a state of mind in an emotionally disturbed patient who happens to be a telepath. What is Psychology Department doing about it?”

“All we can? O’Mara replied.

“Of course you are? said Conway. “I’ll talk to Prilicla at once. And Thornnastor, who’s also involved. But if this mental infection is radiating and strengthening as you say, how long before we start transferring patients to another hospital?”

“Or move Tunneckis out of this one?” said O’Mara. “But if its present condition continues to worsen, I doubt whether the Kermi or anyone else will want it. You have to find the answer to this one, Doctor, or you’ll be faced with an interesting and very urgent ethical dilemma.”

Braithwaite cleared his throat and looked back to O’Mara. “It might not be all that urgent, sir? he said. “I didn’t have the opportunity to get your approval, but I used your name freely with the engineering and medical-technology people to put them to work on a temporary solution. They are currently modifying a four-person survival pod I–I mean we-commandeered from one of the Orligian supply ships and are installing Kerma life-support, medical monitoring, and the equipment that will enable the pod to be supplied and serviced by remote-control devices sensitive enough for patient care. That will take them at least three days. They might trim a few hours off that estimate, sir, if you were to speak sternly to them in person.

O’Mara’s immediate reaction should have been to lift the skin off the Lieutenant’s back with a tongue-lashing for using his superior’s name and rank without permission. But it was a good idea that he might have thought of himself given time, and his feelings were too desensitized with fatigue to be hurt.

Instead he just nodded and said, “I’ll do that.”

“With Tunneckis in the pod outside the hospital? Braithwaite went on, turning back to Conway on the screen, “You can maintain the medical treatment necessary at long range while the department tries to provide psychotherapy over the communicator. Dr. Prilicla will tell us if and when the patient has to be moved farther out.”

Conway shook his head, in puzzlement rather than negation, and said, “Well done, Lieutenant; at least that will give us time to think. But how can a case that began as a simple vehicular casualty with suspected brain injuries turn suddenly into something that, without the patient being aware of what it’s doing, is sucking out the higher levels of intelligence and sensitivity from the people around it like some kind of mental black hole? This doesn’t make sense ~