James White - Major Operation

When the dead SRJH arrived Conway quickly slid it from the litter onto the office floor and waved O’Mara and Prilicla back. The two living SRJHs were already moving purposefully toward the cadaver. They touched it, flowed around and over it and for about ten minutes were very busy. When they had finished there was nothing left.

“No detectable change in emotional radiation, no evidence of grief,” said Prilicla. It was trembling but its own feelings of surprise were probably responsible for that.

“You don’t look surprised, Conway,” said O’Mara accusingly.

Conway grinned and said, “No, sir. I’m still disappointed at not making contact with a Drambon doctor, but these beasties are a very good second best. They kill the strata beast’s enemies, heal and protect its friends and tidy up the debris. Doesn’t that suggest something to you? They aren’t doctors, of course, just glorified leucocytes. But there must be millions of them, and they’re all on our side …

“Glad you’re satisfied, Doctor,” said the Chief Psychologist, looking pointedly at his watch.

“But I’m not satisfied,” said Conway. “I still need a senior pathologist trained in and with the ability to use the hospital’s facilities-one particular pathologist. I need to maintain a close liaison with—”

“The closest possible liaison,” said O’Mara, grinning suddenly. “I quite understand, Doctor, and I shall urge it with Thornnastor just as soon as you’ve closed the door …

On the whole weird and wonderful planet there were only thirty-seven patients requiring treatment, and they varied widely both in size and in their degree of physical distress. Naturally it was the patient who was in the greatest distress who was being treated first, even though it was also the largest-so large that at their scout ship’s sub orbital velocity of six thousand plus miles per hour it took just over nine minutes to travel from one side of the patient to the other.

“It’s a large problem,” said Conway seriously, “and even altitude doesn’t make it look smaller. Neither does the shortage of skilled help.”

Pathologist Murchison, who was sharing the tiny observation blister with him, sounded cool and a little on the defensive as she replied, “I have been studying all the Drambon material long before and since my arrival two months ago, but I agree that seeing it like this for the first time really does bring the problem home to one. As for the shortage of help, you must realize, Doctor, that you can’t strip the hospital of its staff and facilities for just one patient even if it is the size of a subcontinent — there are thousands of smaller and more easily curable patients with equal demands on us.

“And if you are still suggesting that I, personally, took my time in getting here,” she ended hotly, “I came just as soon as my chief decided that you really did need me, as a pathologist.”

“I’ve been telling Thornnastor for six months that I needed a top pathologist here,” said Conway gently. Murchison looked beautiful when she was angry, but even better when she was not. “I thought everybody in the hospital knew why I wanted you, which is one reason why we are sharing this cramped observation blister, looking at a view we have both seen many times on tape and arguing when we could be enjoying some unprofessional behavior—”

“Pilot here,” said a tinny voice in the blister’s ’speaker. “We are losing height and circling back now and will land about five miles east of the terminator. The reaction of the eye plants to sunrise is worth seeing.”

“Thank you,” said Conway. To Murchison he added, “I had not planned on looking out the window.”

“I had,” she said, punching him with one softly clenched fist on the jaw. “You I can see anytime.”

She pointed suddenly and said, “Someone is drawing yellow triangles on your patient.”

Conway laughed. “I forgot, you haven’t been involved with our communications problems so far. Most of the surface vegetation is light sensitive and, some of us thought, might act as the creature’s eyes. We produce geometrical and other figures by directing a narrow, intense beam of light from orbit into a dark or twilight area and moving it about quickly. The effect is something like that of drawing with a high persistency spot on a vision screen. So far, there has been no detectable reaction.

“Probably,” he went on, “the creature can’t react even if it wanted to, because eyes are sensory receptors and not transmitters. After all, we can’t send messages with our eyes.

“Speak for yourself,” she said.

“Seriously,” Conway said, “I’m beginning to wonder if the strata creature itself is highly intelligent …

They landed shortly afterward and stepped carefully onto the springy ground, crushing several of the vegetable eyes with every few yards of progress. The fact that the patient had countless millions of other eyes did not make them feel any better about the damage inflicted by their feet.

When they were about fifty yards from the ship, she said suddenly, “If these plants are eyes-and it is a natural assumption, since they are sensitive to light-why should it have so many in an area where danger threatens so seldom? Peripheral vision to coordinate the activity of its feeding mouths would be much more useful.”

Conway nodded. They knelt carefully among the plants, their long shadows filled with the yellow of tightly closed leaves. He indicated their tracks from the entry lock of the ship, which were also bright yellow, and moved his arms about so as to partly obscure some of the plants from the light. Leaves partially in shade or suffering even minor damage reacted exactly as those completely cut off from the light. They rolled up tight to display their yellow undersides.

“The roots are thin and go on forever,” he said, excavating gently with his fingers to show a whitish root which narrowed to the diameter of thin string before disappearing from sight. “Even with mining equipment or during exploratories with diggers we haven’t been able to find the other end of one. Have you learned anything new from the internals?”

He covered the exposed root with soil, but kept the palms of both hands pressed lightly against the ground.

Watching him, she said, “Not very much. Light and darkness, as well as causing the leaves to open out or roll up tight, causes electrochemical changes in the sap, which is so heavily loaded with mineral salts that it makes a very good conductor. Electrical pulses produced by these changes could travel very quickly from the plant to the other end of the root. Er, what are you doing, dear, taking its pulse?”

Conway shook his head without speaking, and she went on. “The eye plants are evenly distributed over the patient’s top surface, including those areas containing dense growths of the air-renewal and waste-elimination types, so that a shadow or light stimulus received anywhere on its surface is transmitted quickly-almost instantaneously, in fact-to the central nervous system via this mineral-rich sap. But the thing which bothers me is what possible reason could the creature have for evolving an eyeball several hundred miles across?”

“Close your eyes,” said Conway, smiling. “I’m going to touch you. As accurately as you can, try to tell me where.”

“You’ve been too long in the company of men and e-ts, Doctor,” she began, then broke off, looking thoughtful.

Conway began by touching her lightly on the face, then he rested three fingers on top of her shoulder and went on from there.

“Left cheek about an inch from the left side of my mouth,” she said. “Now you’ve rested your hand on my shoulder. You seem to be rubbing an X onto my left bicep. Now you have a thumb and two, maybe three, fingers at the back of my neck just on the hairline … Are you enjoying this? I am.”