James White - The Galactic Gourmet

A great hissing and clanking juggernaut that was nearly half the width of the corridor was bearing down on them. It was the mobile protective armor used by SNLU medics, who normally breathed superheated steam, and whose pressure and gravity requirements were many times greater than that of the — to them, lethal — environment of the oxygen-breathing levels. In a situation like this, Timmins said with a brief show of teeth, it was better to ignore differences in rank, allow the instinct for self-preservation to take over, and get out of the way fast.

“You are adapting to the situation here very well, sir,” the Lieutenant went on. “I have known first-time visitors to the hospital who went into a panic reaction, they ran and hid themselves or froze into fear paralysis, when confronted with so many different life-forms in such a short space of time. I think you will do well.”

“Thank you,” said Gurronsevas. Normally he would not have volunteered personal information to another person on first acquaintance, but the Earth-human and its compliment had pleased him. He went on, “But the experience is not entirely strange to me, Lieutenant. It is similar to the situation during a multi-species convention, although there the delegates were not usually so well-mannered.”

“Really?” said Timmins, and laughed. “But if I were you I would reserve judgment on their manners, at least until after you are issued with your multi-channel translator. You don’t know what some of them have been calling you. We’re within a few minutes of the Psychology Department now.”

On this level, Gurronsevas noted, the corridors were much less crowded but, strangely, their progress was less rapid. For some reason the Earth-human was slowing his previously fast walking pace.

“Before you go in,” said Timmins suddenly, in the manner of one who has come to a decision, “it might be a good idea if you knew something about the entity you are about to meet, Major O’Mara.”

“It might prove helpful,” Gurronsevas agreed.

“He is the hospital’s Chief Psychologist,” Timmins went on. “What I believe your species calls a Healer of the Mind. As such he is responsible for the smooth and efficient operation of the ten-thousand-odd, sometimes very odd, members of the medical and maintenance staff …”

Taking into consideration the very high levels of species toleration and professional respect among its personnel, the Lieutenant explained, and in spite of the careful psychological screening they all had to undergo before being accepted for service in a multi-environment hospital, there were still situations when serious inter-species and interpersonal friction could occur. Potentially dangerous situations could occur through simple ignorance or misunderstanding or, more seriously, an entity could develop a xenophobic neurosis towards a patient or colleague which might affect its professional competence or mental stability. It was O’Mara and his department’s duty to detect and eradicate such problems or, as a last resort, to remove the potentially troublesome individual from the hospital. There were times when this constant watch for signs of wrong, unhealthy or intolerant thinking, which the Major and his staff performed with such dedication, made them the most disliked beings in the hospital.

“… For administrative reasons,” Timmins continued, “O’Mara bears the rank of Major in the Monitor Corps. There are many officers and medical staff here who are nominally his senior, but keeping so many different and potentially antagonistic life-forms working together in harmony is a big job whose limits, like those of O’Mara’s authority, are difficult to define.”

“I have long understood,” said Gurronsevas, “the difference between rank and authority.”

“That’s good,” said Timmins, pointing at the large door they were approaching. “This is the Department of Other-Species Psychology. After you, sir.”

He found himself in a large outer office containing four desk consoles ranged on each side of a broad, clear stretch of floor leading to an inner door. Only three of the desks were occupied — by a Tarlan, a Sommaradvan, and another Monitor Corps officer of the same rank and species as Timmins. The Tarlan and Sommaradvan remained bent over their work, but each curled an eye inquisitively in his direction, and the other officer looked at him Earth-human fashion with both its eyes. Placing his six feet as gently as possible against the floor so as to minimize undue noise and vibration, a politeness he practiced among lower-gravity entities in confined surroundings, he moved further into the room.

He remained silent because in these circumstances he did not consider it proper to speak to any subordinate person until he had first spoken to their superior.

Timmins said briskly, “Gurronsevas, newly arrived on Tennochlan, to see the Major.”

The other officer smiled and said, “He is waiting for you, Gurronsevas. Please go in. Alone.”

The inner door slid open and Timmins said quietly, “Good luck, sir.”

The inner office of the Chief Psychologist was larger than the outer one, Gurronsevas saw, and if anything it resembled a well-appointed torture chamber from his native Traltha’s pre-civilized past. Ranged around the walls and encroaching towards the center of the floor, and in two cases hanging from the ceiling, was a weird and wonderful assortment of furniture that was designed to enable the different species with business in the office to sit, lie, curl up, or hang at ease. As a member of a species who preferred to work, eat, sleep and do everything else standing on its six feet (except on occasions when eye-level other-species social intercourse was necessary), Gurronsevas found these office accessories of marginal interest. That was why he moved without hesitation to stand in the clear area of floor before the rotatable desk console at which sat this entity of indeterminate authority, O’Mara.

Gurronsevas directed all of his eyes towards O’Mara but remained silent. The Major knew who he was so it was unnecessary to introduce himself, and he wanted it to be established from the beginning, at the risk of committing a minor act of insubordination or impoliteness, that he was a person of strong will who would not be forced into making unnecessary conversation.

The Major appeared to be old (as Earth-humans counted their years), although the head-fur and hairy crescents shading its eyes were grey rather than white. Its facial features and the two hands resting on top of the desk remained motionless while it was returning his gaze. The silence lengthened until suddenly it nodded its head. When it spoke it did not use either his name or its own.

There had been a brief and silent contest of wills, but Gurronsevas was not sure who had won it.

“I must begin by welcoming you to Sector General,” said O’Mara, and not once did he allow the flaps of skin that protected and lubricated its eyes to drop. “We both realize that these words are nothing more than a polite formality because your presence here was not requested by the hospital, nor is it as the result of unusually high medical or technical aptitude. You are here because someone in Federation Medical Administration had a rush of brains to the head and sent you, leaving us to discover whether or not the idea is viable. Is that a fair summation of the situation?”

“No,” said Gurronsevas. “I was not sent, I volunteered.”

“A technicality,” said O’Mara, “and possibly an aberration on your part. Why did you want to come here? And please don’t repeat the material in your original submission. It is long, detailed, most impressive, and probably accurate; but very often the facts contained in documents of this kind are shaded in favor of the applicant. Not that I am suggesting that deliberate falsification has taken place, just that an element of fiction is present. You have no previous hospital experience?”