James White - Star Surgeon

A new shift was just coming on duty and to the patients it was half an hour before the first meal of the day, which made it a very unusual time for a Senior Physician to do his rounds. The mild panic he caused would, in other circumstances, have been funny. Conway greeted the intern on duty politely, felt mildly surprised to find that it was the Creppelian octopoid he had met as a trainee two months previously, then felt annoyed when the AMSL insisted on following him around at a respectful distance. This was the proper procedure for a junior intern, but at that moment Conway wanted to be alone with his patients and his thoughts.

Most strongly of all he felt the need to see and speak to the sometimes weird and always wonderful extra-terrestrial patients who were technically under his care-all the beings he had come to know before leaving for Etla having been long since discharged. He did not look at their charts, however, because he had an allergy toward the abstraction of information via the printed word at the moment. Instead he questioned them closely, almost hungrily, regarding their symptoms and condition and background. He left some of the minor cases pleased and flabbergasted by such attention from a Senior Physician, and some might have been annoyed by his prying. But Conway had to do it. While he still had patients left he wanted to be a doctor.

An e-t doctor …

Sector General was breaking up. The vast, complex structure dedicated to the relief of suffering and the advance of xenological medicine was dying, succumbing like any terminal patient to a disease too powerful for it to resist. Tomorrow or the next day these wards would begin to empty. The patients with their exotic variations of physiology, metabolism and complaints would drain away. In darkened wards the weird and wonderful fabrications which constituted the alien idea of a comfortable bed would crouch like surrealistic ghosts along the walls. And with the departure of the e-t patients and staff would go the necessity for maintaining the environments which housed them, the Translators which allowed them to communicate, the physiology tapes which made it possible for one species to treat another.

But the Galaxy’s greatest e-t hospital would not die completely, not for another few days or weeks. The Monitor Corps had no experience of interstellar wars, this being their first, but they thought they knew what to expect. Casualties among the ship’s crews would be heavy and with a very high proportion of them fatal. The still-living casualties brought in would be of three types; decompression, bone-fractures and radiation poisoning. It was expected that two or three levels would be enough to take care of them, because if the engagement was fought with nuclear weapons, and there was no reason to suppose otherwise, most of the decompression and fracture cases would be radiation-terminal also- there would be no danger of overcrowding.

Then the internal break-up began with the evacuation would continue on the structural level as the Empire forces attacked. Conway was no military tactician, but he could not see how the vast, nearly-empty hospital could be protected. It was a sitting duck, soon to be a dead one. A great, fused and battered metal graveyard …

All at once a tremendous wave of feeling washed through Conway’s mind-bitterness, sadness and a surge of sheer anger which left him shaking. As he stumbled out of the ward he didn’t know whether he wanted to cry or curse or knock somebody down. But the decision was taken away from him when he turned the corner leading to the PVSJ section and collided solidly with Murchison.

The impact was not painful, one of the colliding bodies being well endowed with shock-absorbing equipment, but it was sharp enough to jolt his mind of a very somber train of thought onto one infinitely more pleasant. Suddenly he wanted to watch and talk to Murchison as badly as he had wanted to visit his patients, and for the same reason. This might be the last time he would see her.

“I–I’m sorry,” he stammered, backing off. Then remembering their last meeting, he said, “I was a bit rushed at the lock this morning, couldn’t say much. Are you on duty?”

“Just coming off,” said Murchison in a neutral voice.

“Oh,” said Conway, then; “I wondered if … that is, would you mind …”

“I wouldn’t mind going for a swim,” she said.

“Fine,” said Conway.

They went up to the recreation level, changed and met inside on the simulated beach. While they were walking toward the water she said suddenly, “Oh, Doctor. When you were sending me those letters, did you ever think of putting them in envelopes with my name and room number on them?”

“And let everybody know I was writing to you?” Conway said. “I didn’t think you wanted that.”

Murchison gave a lady-like snort. “The system you devised was not exactly secret,” she said with a hint of anger in her tone. “Thornnastor in Pathology has three mouths and it can’t keep any of them shut. They were nice letters, but I don’t think it was fitting for you to write them on the back of sputum test reports …

“I’m sorry,” said Conway. “It won’t happen again.”

With the words the dark mood which the sight of Murchison had pushed from his mind came rushing back. It certainly wouldn’t happen again, he thought bleakly, not ever. And the hot, artificial sun did not seem to be warming his skin as he remembered it and the water was not so stingingly cold. Even in the half-G conditions the swim was wearying rather than exhilarating. It was as if some deep layer of tiredness swathed his body, dulling all sensation. After only a few minutes he returned to the shallows and waded onto the beach. Murchison followed him, looking concerned.

“You’ve got thinner,” she said when she had caught up with him.

Conway’s first impulse was to say “You haven’t,” but the intended compliment could have been taken another way, and he was lousy enough company already without running the risk of insulting her. Then he had an idea and said quickly, “I forgot that you’re just off duty and haven’t eaten yet. Will we go to the restaurant?”

“Yes, please,” said Murchison.

The restaurant was perched high on the cliff facing the diving ledges and boasted a continuous transparent wall which allowed a full view of the beach while keeping out the noise. It was the only place in the recreation level where quiet conversation was possible. But the quietness was wasted on them because they hardly spoke at all.

Until half way through the meal when Murchison said, “You aren’t eating as much, either.”

Conway said, “Have you ever owned, or navigated, a space vessel?”

“Me? Of course not!”

“Or if you were wrecked in a ship whose astrogator was injured and unconscious,” he persisted, “and the ship’s drive had been repaired, could you give the coordinates for reaching some planet within the Federation?”

“No,” said Murchison impatiently. “I’d have to stay there until the astrogator woke up. What sort of questions are these?”

“The sort I’ll be asking all my friends,” Conway replied grimly. “If you had answered ’Yes’ to one of them it would have taken a load off my mind.”

Murchison put down her knife and fork, frowning slightly. Conway thought that she looked lovely when she frowned, or laughed, or did anything. Especially when she was wearing a swimsuit. That was one thing he liked about this place, they allowed you to dine in swimsuits. And he wished that he could pull himself out of his dismal mood and be sparkling company for a couple of hours. On his present showing he doubted if Murchison would let him take her home, much less cooperate in the clinch for the two minutes, forty-eight seconds it took for the robot to arrive …