James White: Major Operation

“They were assisting him,” said Prilicla, “and they were all wearing protective suits. I don’t see how any form of parasitic life or bacteria could have passed between them, if that is the idea which is making you feel so excited and hopeful just now. I am very sorry, friend Conway, but this echo effect, while peculiar, does not seem to me to be important.”

“It’s something they had in common,” said Conway.

“Yes,” Prilicla said, “but the something did not have self identity, it was not an individual. Just a very faint emotional echo of the feelings of the people concerned.”

“Even so,” said Conway.

Three people had made mistakes or had had accidents in this theater two days ago, all of whom had radiated an odd emotional echo which Prilicla did not consider important. The presence of an accident-prone Conway ruled out because O’Mara’s screening methods were too efficient in that respect. But suppose Prilicla was wrong and something had got in the theater or into the hospital, some form of life which was difficult to detect and outside their present experience. It was well known that when odd things happened in Sector General the reasons very often were found outside the hospital. At the moment, however, he hadn’t enough evidence to form even a vague theory and the first job should be to gather some — even though he might not recognize it if he tripped over it with both feet.

“I’m hungry and it’s high time we talked to the man himself,” said Conway suddenly. “Let’s find him and invite him to lunch.”

The dining hall for the oxygen-breathing Medical and Maintenance staff occupied one complete level, and at one time it had been sectioned off into physiological types with low dividing ropes. But this had not worked out too well because the diners very often wanted to talk shop with other species colleagues or they found that there were no vacant places in their own enclosure and space going to waste in that of another life-form. So it was no surprise when they arrived to find that they had the choice of sitting at an enormous Tralthan table with benches which were a shade too far from the table’s edge and one in the Melfan section which was cozier but whose chairs resembled surrealistic wastepaper baskets. They insinuated themselves into three of the latter and began the usual preliminaries to ordering.

“I’m just myself today,” said Prilicla in answer to Conway’s question. “The usual, if you please.”

Conway dialed for the usual, which was a triple helping of Earth type spaghetti, then looked at Mannon.

“I’ve an FROB and an MSVK beastie riding me,” the other Senior said gruffly. “Hudlars aren’t persnickity about food, but those blasted MSVKs are offended by anything which doesn’t look like birdseed! Just get me something nutritious, but don’t tell me what it is and put it in about three sandwiches so’s I won’t see what it is …”

While they were waiting for the food to arrive Mannon spoke quietly, the normality of his tone belied by the fact that his emotional radiation was making Prilicla shake like a leaf. He said, “The grapevine has it that you two are trying to get me out of this trouble I’m in. It’s nice of you, but you’re wasting your time.

“We don’t think so and neither does O’Mara,” said Conway, shading the truth considerably. “O’Mara gives you a clean bill of mental and physical health, and he said that your behavior was most uncharacteristic. There must be some explanation, some environmental influence, perhaps, or something whose presence or absence would make you behave, if only momentarily, in an uncharacteristic fashion …

Conway outlined what little they knew to date, trying to sound more hopeful than he really felt, but Mannon was no fool.

“I don’t know whether to feel grateful for your efforts or concerned for your respective mental well-beings,” Mannon said when he had finished. “These peculiar and rather vague mental effects are … are … at the risk of offending Daddy-longlegs here I would suggest that any peculiarities there are lie in your own minds-your attempts to find excuses for me are becoming ridiculous!”

“Now you’re telling me I have a peculiar mind,” said Conway.

Mannon laughed quietly, but Prilicla was trembling worse than ever. “A circumstance, person or thing,” Conway repeated, “whose presence or absence might effect your- “Ye Gods!” Mannon burst out. “You’re not thinking of the dog!” Conway had been thinking about the dog, but he was too much of

a moral coward to admit it right then. Instead he said, “Were you thinking about it during that op, Doctor?”

“No!” said Mannon.

There was a long, awkward silence after that, during which the service panels slid open and their orders rose into view. It was Mannon who spoke first.

“I liked that dog,” he said carefully, “when I was myself, that is. But for the past four years I’ve had to carry MSVK and LSVO tapes permanently in connection with my teaching duties, and recently I’ve needed the Hudlar and Melfan tapes for a project Thornnastor invited me to join. They were in permanent occupation as well. With my brain thinking that it was five different people, five very different people … Well, you know how it is …”

Conway and Prilicla knew how it was only too well.

The Hospital was equipped to treat every known form of intelligent life, but no single person could hold in his brain even a fraction of the physiological data necessary for this purpose. Surgical dexterity was a matter of ability and training, but the complete physiological knowledge of any patient was furnished by means of an Educator Tape, which was simply the brain record of some great medical genius belonging to the same or a similar species to that of the patient being treated. If an Earth human doctor had to treat a Kelgian patient he took a DBLF physiology tape until treatment was completed, after which it was erased. The sole exceptions to this rule were Senior Physicians with teaching duties and the Diagnosticians.

A Diagnostician was one of the elite, a being whose mind was considered stable enough to retain permanently six, seven or even ten physiology tapes simultaneously. To their data-crammed minds was given the job of original research in xenological medicine and the treatment of new diseases in hitherto unknown life-forms.

But the tapes did not impart only physiological data, the complete memory and personality of the entity who had possessed that knowledge was transferred as well. In effect a Diagnostician subjected himself or itself voluntarily to the most drastic form of schizophrenia. The entities apparently sharing one’s mind could be unpleasant, aggressive individuals- geniuses were rarely charming people — with all sorts of peeves and phobias. These did not become apparent only at mealtimes. The worst period was when the possessor of the tapes was relaxing prior to sleeping.

Alien nightmares were really nightmarish and alien sexual fantasies and wish-fulfillment dreams were enough to make the person concerned wish, if he were capable of wishing coherently for anything, that he was dead.

… Within the space of a few minutes,” Mannon continued, “she would change from being a ferocious, hairy beast intent on tearing out my belly feathers to a brainless bundle of fur which would get squashed by one of my six feet if it didn’t get to blazes out of the way, to a perfectly ordinary dog wanting to play. It wasn’t fair to the mutt, you know. She was a very old and confused dog toward the end, and I’m more glad than sorry that she died.

“And now let’s talk and emote about some other subject,” Mannon ended briskly. “Otherwise we will completely ruin Prilicla’s lunch …

He did just that for the remainder of the meal, discussing with apparent relish a juicy piece of gossip originating in the SNLU section of the methane wards. How anything of a scandalous nature could occur between two intelligent crystalline life-forms living at minus one hundred and fifty degrees Centigrade was something which puzzled Conway, or for that matter why their moral shortcomings were of such interest to a warm-blooded oxygen-breather. Unless this was one of the reasons why Senior Physician Mannon was so far on the way to becoming a Diagnostician himself.