James White - Final Diagnosis

“Probably not useful,” she agreed, “but interesting. We’ll need to give it some serious thought.”

“And I’m not a tailor,” he ended, “just an impeccably dressed company figurehead, when I’m not wearing a hospital nightshirt.”

Murchison smiled and nodded. “We were all wondering why an apparently non-urgent case like yours was referred to Sector General. Maybe one of your rich and influential clients might have had something to do with it, especially if he happened to be a highly placed medic anxious to get onto your waiting list.”

“But surely not influential enough,” said Hewlitt, “to have an ambulance ship like Rhabwar assisting with my case. Why am I considered that important?”

He knew at once from her sudden lack of expression that she was not going to answer. Instead she smiled again and said firmly, “No more questions, Patient Hewlitt. You can count sheep if you like, but go to sleep.”

She continued to watch him until he closed his eyes; then he heard her resume the quiet, intermittent tapping on her console. In the darkness behind his closed lids, the background silence of a ship in hyperflight became diluted by the soft, metallic creaking and humming noises interspersed with the distant, muffled, and barely audible voices of the crew that drifted aft along the communications well, sounds that at other times he would not have been aware of hearing. He lay for a subjective eternity, trying not to think about anything at all while wriggling to relieve the increasing discomfort of his sinfully comfortable bed until he could take it no longer.

“I’m not sleeping,” he said, opening his eyes.

“That is what your monitor has been telling me for the past two hours,” said Murchison, trying to hide her irritation behind a smile. “But it is always nice to have verbal corroboration. What am I going to do with you?”

Hewlitt recognized a rhetorical question when he heard one and remained silent.

She went on, “You are forbidden all medication, which, naturally, includes sedation. Rhabwar doesn’t have an entertainment channel to bore you to sleep because the occupants of the casualty deck are usually in no condition to be entertained. Danalta will be relieving me in an hour. Unless you want to spend the rest of the night watching it change shape, which is not a pretty sight, our closest equivalent to in-flight entertainment is the ship’s log of past operations. I can run that on the main screen if you like, with the nonmedical summary. Some of the material will provide useful background information for tomorrow’s briefing on Etla.”

“And will it bore me to sleep?” asked Hewlitt.

“I very much doubt it,” she replied. “Raise the backrest until you can see the whole screen without dislocating your neck. Okay? Here we go…

There had been time to call up the library information on Rhabwar before they had moved him on board, so he already knew that he was on a special ambulance ship whose primary purpose was the deep-space rescue, retrieval, and preliminary treatment of lifeforms in distress whose physiological classifications were hitherto unknown to the Federation. In the case of a distress call from a Federation vessel, whose flight plan, planet of origin, and crew species were known, it was simpler to dispatch a rescue vessel from the home planet with a team of same-species medics and life support on board.

With the retrieval of Rhabwar’s type of casualty, the situation was different and potentially more dangerous. In addition to being traumatized and their ability to observe and reason logically reduced by pain, shock, fear, and confusion, its casualties were more often as not thrown into a panic reaction caused by the sight of the grotesque creatures who were trying to rescue them. That was why Rhabwar’s crew had to include other-species technology experts and first-contact specialists as well as medics.

When it was not engaged on specialist rescue missions, the ship was expected to respond to the more general type of emergency ranging from large-scale space structural accidents to the coordination of medical disaster relief operations on-planet. But the majority of the missions, as well as being the most entertaining and hair-raising, were those which the log noted as requiring unique solutions.

The present mission, he had overheard Murchison tell Naydrad, would probably hold the all-time record for being both the weirdest and least dangerous they had ever been assigned.

Because his hearing was very good he had also overheard the medical team making obscure references to problems they had encountered on previous missions, to beings called the Dewatti, a pregnant Gogleskan called Khone, and the Blind Ones and their incredibly savage servants, the Protectors of the Unborn, among others. But now, as the the images of devastated ships, drifting masses of space wreckage with the dead or dying debris it contained, and the pictures of barely living organic wreckage occupying his own and the other beds around him filled the screen, those references were no longer obscure.

Murchison had been right. The pictures that were unfolding were not conducive to sleep, and so keen was he not to miss anything that he closed his eyes only to blink. He noticed neither the arrival of Danalta or the pathologist’s departure, and he grew aware of events beyond the borders of the big viewscreen only when the deck lighting came on, the screen darkened, and he felt the gentle downdraft from Prilicla’s wings as the Cinrusskin hovered above his bed.

“Good morning, friend Hewlitt,” it said. “We have emerged from hyperspace and will be landing in five hours’ time. I feel from you the emotional radiation characteristic of a high level of fatigue, although you consciously admitted its presence. It would look bad for all of us if you yawned your way through the briefing, so relax, empty your mind, and close your eyes for ten seconds and you will find yourself asleep. Trust me.”

Rabwar possessed the delta-wing configuration and flight characteristics but not the armament of a Monitor Corps light cruiser. It was the largest class of vessel in service capable of aerodynamic maneuvering within an atmosphere as well as being able to land with minimal effect on the local environment. That was not an important consideration here because, so far as Hewlitt could see, the area where he had played and strayed in his youth remained as he remembered it, a wreckage-strewn, overgrown wilderness. While the ship was descending onto a clear area midway between his former home and the clump of tall trees with the ravine runfling through them, he was able to trace with his finger on the main viewscreen the path he had taken all those years ago.

Present at the briefing, which was held on the casualty deck because it was the largest compartment in the ship, were the medical team, Captain Fletcher, Hewlitt, and, onscreen, the grey, furcovered features of Colonel Shech-Rar, commander of the local Monitor Corps base. The officer projected the image of a very busy and impatient Orligian.

“Your names and Rhabwar’s reputation precede you, Doctor,” it broke in before Prilicla had completed its friendly, informal introductions. “Let us not waste time. Sector General has requested my full cooperation during your stay here. What is the nature of your mission, how long will it take, and what facilities will you require?”

Hewlitt, who had been introduced as a nonmedical advisor, wondered whether its service career had been spent among too many Kelgians or two few Cinrusskins or if its bad manners were an inherited characteristic.

“Regretably, Colonel,” Prilicla replied, with no detectable change in its friendly manner, “I am not at liberty to divulge the precise details of our mission, other than to say that it involves the investigation of incidents which took place over twenty years ago and which may have an important bearing on a present medical research project. It is not a matter of Federation security, a Galactic Secret, or anything of a sensitive or important nature for which, I am sure, you would have full clearance. At present the information is restricted because of simple patient confidentiality. As soon as the investigation has been completed and evaluated, I have no doubt that you will be informed of the results.”