James White - Star Surgeon

Then suddenly the shot took effect. Except for a slight tingling sensation in his feet and a blotchiness which only Murchison could see in his face Conway felt as clear-eyed, alert and physically refreshed as if he had just come out of a shower after ten hours sleep.

“How’s the other one?” he asked suddenly. He had been so tired he had forgotten the Kelgian he had left with Murchison in the lock.

“Artificial respiration brought it round,” she replied, then with more enthusiasm, “but it was still in shock. I sent it up to the Tralthan section, they still have a few senior staff there …

“Good,” said Conway warmly. He wanted to say more, to be more personally complimentary, but he knew that there was no time to stand and chat. He ended, “Let’s begin, shall we …

Except for the thin-walled, narrow casing which housed the brain the DBLF species had no honey structure. Their bodies were composed of an outer cylinder of musculature which, in addition to being its primary means of locomotion, served to protect the vital organs within it. To the mind of a being more generously reinforced with bones this protection was far from adequate. Another severe disadvantage in the event of injury was its complex and extremely vulnerable circulatory system; the blood supply network which had to feed the tremendous bands of muscle encircling its body ran close under the skin. The thick fur of the pelt gave some protection here, but not against chunks of jagged-edged, flying metal.

An injury which many other species would consider superficial could cause a DBLF to bleed to death in minutes.

Conway worked slowly and carefully, dissolving away the coagulant so hastily applied by Murchison, repairing or partially replacing damaged major blood vessels and sealing off the minor branches which were too fine for him to do anything else. This part of the operation worried him- not because it endangered the life of the patient but because he knew that the beautiful silvery fur would never grow properly in these areas again, that if it grew at all it would be yellowed and visually repulsive to a male Kelgian. The injured nurse was a remarkably handsome young female and such a disfiguration could be a real tragedy. Conway hoped she wouldn’t be too proud to keep the area covered with surrogate fur. Admittedly it did not have the rich, deep luster of living fur and would be immediately recognizable for what it was, but neither would it be so visually distressing …

An hour ago this would have been just another caterpillar, Conway thought dryly, an “it” about whom he felt only clinical concern. Now he had reached the stage of worrying about the patient’s marriage prospects. A physiology tape certainly made one feel for one’s e-t patients.

When he had finished Conway called Reception, described the patient’s condition and urged that it should be evacuated as quickly as possible. Mannon told him that there was half a dozen small vessels loading at the moment, most of them with provision for taking oxy-breathers, and gave him a choice of two Locks in the vicinity. Mannon added that, with the exception of a few patients on the critically ill list, all patients of classifications A through G had either gone or were on the point of going, along with staff members of the same classifications who had been ordered to go by O’Mara for security reasons.

Some of them had displayed extreme reluctance to leave. One in particular, a hoary old Tralthan Diagnostician who was unfortunate enough to own a personal space yacht-something which in normal conditions would not have been considered a misfortune! — had had to be formally charged with attempted treason, disturbing the peace and incitement to mutiny and arrested, that being the only way to get it aboard ship.

As he broke the connection Conway thought that they wouldn’t have to go to such lengths to get him to leave the hospital. He shook his head, angry and ashamed of himself, and gave Murchison instructions for transferring the patient to the ship.

The injured Kelgian had to be enclosed in a pressure tent for the initial stage of its trip through the AUGL ward, which was now open to space. There were no water-breathers left in the big tank and no water, there being more urgent things to do than repairing and refilling a section which would very likely never be used again. The sight of the great tank, empty now, with its walls vacuum dry and the lush, underwater vegetation which had been designed to make the ward seem more homelike to its occupants hanging like pieces of brittle, discolored parchment made Conway feel horribly depressed. The depression remained with him while they negotiated the three empty chlorine levels below it and came to another air-filled section.

Here they had to pause to allow a procession of TLTUs to pass. Conway was glad of the chance to stop for a while because, although the pep-shot had him still feeling full of artificial beans, Murchison was beginning to droop. As soon as their patient was aboard he thought he would order her off to bed.

Seven TLTUs filed slowly past, their protective spheres anchored to stretcher-carriers driven by sweating, tense-faced orderlies. Unlike those of the methane life-forms these spheres did not collect frost. Instead they emitted a high-pitched, shuddering whine as their generators labored to maintain the internal temperature at a comfortable, for their occupants, five hundred degrees. Each one of them passed in a wave of heat which Conway could feel six yards away.

If another warhead was to strike here and now, and one of those globes was opened … Conway didn’t think there was a worse way to die than to have the flesh boiled off his bones in a blast of super-heated steam.

By the time they had handed the patient over to the ship’s medical officer at the Lock, Conway was having difficulty focusing his eyes and his legs had a definite rubbery feel to them. Bed was indicated, he thought, or another pep-shot. He had just decided on the former course of treatment when he was collared respectfully by a Monitor officer wearing a heavy-duty suit which was still radiating the cold of space.

“The casualties are here, sir,” the officer said urgently. “We brought them in on a supply ship because Reception is tied up with the evacuation. We’re locked onto the DBLF section, but the place is empty and you’re the first doctor I’ve seen. Will you take care of them?”

Conway almost asked what casualties, but stopped himself in time. There had been an attack, he remembered suddenly, the attack had been beaten off and the ensuing casualties, whether great or small, were obviously of prime concern to this officer. If he had known that Conway had been too busy to think about the battle and its casualties.

“Where did you put them?” said Conway.

“They’re still in the ship,” the officer replied, relaxing slightly. “We thought it better for someone to look at them before they were moved. Some of them … I mean … Uh, will you follow me, sir?”

There were eighteen of them, the wreckage of men who had been fished out of the wreckage of a ship, whose suits were still cold to the touch. Only their helmets had been taken off, and that had been to ascertain whether or not they still lived. Conway counted three decompressions, the rest being fractures of varying degrees of complication one of which was quite definitely a depressed fracture of the skull. There were no radiation cases. So far it had been a clean war, if any war could have been described as clean …

Conway felt himself getting angry, but fought it back. This was no time to become emotional over broken, bleeding and asphyxiated patients or the reasons for them being in that condition. Instead he straightened and turned to Murchison.

“I’ll take another pep-shot,” he said briskly, “this will be a long session. But first I’ll have the DBLF tape erased and try to around up some help. While I’m gone you might see to getting these men out of their suits and moved to DBLF Theater Five, then you can catch up on your sleep.