James White - Code Blue Emergency

Only the light from the artificial sun, which was too reddish for Cha Thrat’s taste, and the alien greenery fringing the beach and cliffs kept it from looking like a tropical bay anywhere on Sommaradva.

But then, space was at a premium in Sector General, she had been told before her first visit to the dining hall, and the people who worked together had to eat together. Now it seemed that they were expected to play togetheras well.

“Realistic cloud effects are difficult to reproduce,” Tarsedth volunteered, “so rather than risk them looking artificial, they don’t bother trying. The Maintenance person who suggested I come here told me that. It also said that the best thing about the place was that the gravity was maintained at half Earth-normal, which is close enough to half Kelgia- and Sommaradva-normal. The people who like to rest actively can be more active, and the others find the sand softer to lie on — Watch out!”

Three Tralthans on a total of eighteen massive feet went thundering past them and plowed into the shallows, scattering sand and spray over a wide area. The half-G conditions that allowed the normally slow and ponderous FGLIs to jump about like bipeds also kept the sand theyhad disturbed airborne for a long time before it settled back to the beach. Some of it had not settled because Cha Thrat was still trying to blink it out of her eyes.

“Over there,” Tarsedth said. “We can shelter between the FROB and the two ELNTs. They don’t look as if they are very active resters.”

But Chat Thrat did not feel like lying still and doing nothing but absorb artificial sunlight. She had too much on her mind, too many questions of the kind that could not be asked without the risk of giving serious offense, and she had found in the past that strenuous physical activity rested the mind — sometimes.

She watched a steep, low-gravity wave roll in and break on the beach. Not all of the turbulence in the bay was artificial — it varied in proportion to the number, size, and enthusiasm of the swimmers. The most favored sport, especially among the heaviest and least streamlined life-forms, was jumping into the bay from one of the springboards set into the cliff face. The boards, which seemed to her to be dangerously high until she remembered the reduced gravity, could be reached through tunnels concealed within the cliff. One board, the highest of them’all, was solidly braced and without flexibility, probably to avoid the risk of an overenthu-siastic diver fracturing its cranium on the artificial sky.

“Would you like to swim?” she asked suddenly. “That is, I mean, if DBLFs can.”

“We can, but I won’t,” the Kelgian said, deepening the sandy trench it had already dug for itself. “It would leave my fur plastered flat and unable to move for the rest of the day. If another DBLF came by I wouldn’t be able to talk to it properly. Lie down. Relax.”

Cha Thrat folded her two rear legs and gently collapsed into a horizontal position, but it must have beenobvious even to her other-species friend that she was not relaxed.

“Are you worried about something?” Tarsedth asked, its fur rippling and tufting in concern. “Cresk-Sar? Hred-lichli? Your ward?”

Cha Thrat was silent for a moment, wondering how a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon could explain the problem to a member of a species whose cultural background was completely different, and who might even be a servile. But until she was sure of Tarsedth’s exact status, she would consider the Kelgian her professional equal, and speak.

“I do not wish to offend,” she said carefully, “but it seems to me that, in spite of the wide-ranging knowledge we are expected to acquire, the strange and varied creatures we care for, and the wonderful devices we use to do it, our work is repetitious, undignified, without personal responsibility, invariably performed under direction, and well, servile. We should be doing something more important with our time, or such a large proportion of it, than conveying body wastes from the patients to the disposal facility.”

“So that’s what’s bothering you,” Tarsedth said, twisting its conical head in her direction. “A deep, incised wound to the pride.”

Cha Thrat did not reply, and it went on. “Before I left Kelgia I was a nursing superintendent responsible for the nursing services on eight wards. Same-species patients, of course, but at lettst I had come up through nursing. Some of the other trainees, yourself included, were doctors, so I can imagine how they — and you — feel. But the servile condition is temporary. It will be relieved when or if we complete our training to Cresk-Sar’s satisfaction. Try not to worry about it. You are learning other-speciesmedicine, if you excuse the expression, from the bottom up.

“Try taking more interest in the other end of the patient,” Tarsedth added, “instead of concerning yourself with the plumbing all the time. Talk to them and try to understand how their minds work.”

Cha Thrat wondered how she could explain to the Kelgian, who was a member of what seemed to be an advanced but utterly disorganized and classless civilization, that there were things that a warrior-surgeon should and should not do. Even though the medical fraternity on Sommaradva could not have cared less what happened to her, in Sector General she had been forced by circumstances into behavior that was wrong, in both the negative and positive sense, for someone of her professional status. She was acting above and below her level of competence, and it worried her.

“I do talk to them,” she said. “One especially, and it says that it likes talking to me. I try not to favor any particular patient, but this one is more distressed than the others. I shouldn’t be talking to it as I’m not qualified to treat it, but nobody else can or will do anything for the patient.”

Tarsedth’s fur rippled with concern. “Is it terminal?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Cha Thrat replied. “It’s been a ward patient for a very long time. Seniors examine it sometimes with advanced trainees present, and Thornnastor spoke to it when the Diagnostician was in the ward with another patient, but not to ask about its condition. I haven’t access to its case history, but I’m pretty sure that the medication prescribed for it is palliative rather than curative. It is not neglected or ill treated so much as politely ignored. I’m the only one who will listen to its symptoms, so it talks to me at every opportu-nity. I shouldn’t talk to it, not until I know what’s wrong with it, because I’m not qualified.”

The movement of Tarsedth’s fur settled down to a more even rhythm as it said, “Nonsense! Everybody is qualified to talk, and a bit of verbal sympathy and encouragement can’t harm your patient. But if its condition is incurable, your ward water would be teeming with Diagnosticians and Seniors intent on proving otherwise. That’s the way things work here; nobody gives up on anybody. And your patient’s problem will give you something to think about while you do the less attractive jobs. Or don’t you want to talk to it?”

“Yes,” Cha Thrat said, “I’m very sorry for the great, suffering brute, and I want to help it. But I’m beginning to wonder if it is a ruler, in which case I should not be talking to it.”

“Whatever it is, or was, on Chalderescol,” Tarsedth said, “has no bearing, or shouldn’t have, on its treatment as a patient. What harm can a little nonmedical sympathy and encouragement do either of you? Frankly, I don’t see your difficulty.”

Patiently Cha Thrat said again, “I’m not qualified.”

Tarsedth’s fur was moving in a manner that denoted impatience. “I still don’t understand you. Talk, don’t talk to it. Do whatever you want to do.”