Hospital Station

IV

After lunch Conway took Prilicla to the first of the wards to which they were assigned, and on the way continued to reel off more statistics and background information. The Hospital comprised three hundred and eighty-four levels and accurately reproduced the environments of the sixty-eight different forms of intelligent life currently known to the Galactic Federation. Conway was not trying to cow Prilicla with the vastness of the great hospital nor to boast, although he was intensely proud of the fact that he had gained a post in this very famous establishment. It was simply that he was uneasy about his assistant’s means of protecting itself against the conditions it would shortly meet, and this was his way of working around to the subject.

But he need not have worried, for Prilicla demonstrated how the light, almost diaphanous, suit which had saved it at Lock Six could be strengthened from inside by a scaled-down adaptation of the type of force-field used as meteorite protection of interstellar ships. When necessary its legs could be folded so as to be within the protective covering as well, instead of projecting outside it as they had done at the lock.

While they were changing prior to entering the AUGL Nursery Ward, which was their first call, Conway began filling in his assistant on the case history of the occupants.

The fully-grown physiological type AUGL was a forty foot long, oviparous, armored fish-like life-form native of Chalderescol II, but the beings now in the ward for observation had been hatched only six weeks ago and measured only three feet. Two previous hatchings by the same mother had, as had this one, been in all respects normal and with the offspring seemingly in perfect health, yet two months later they had all died. A PM performed on their home world gave the cause of death as extreme calcification of the articular cartilage in practically every joint in the body, but had been unable to shed any light on the cause of death. Now Sector General was keeping a watchful eye on the latest hatching, and Conway was hoping that it would be a case of third time lucky.

“At present I look them over every day,” Conway went on, “and on every third day take an AUGL tape and give them a thorough checkup. Now that you are assisting me this will also apply to you. But when you take this tape I’d advise you to have it erased immediately after the examination, unless you would like to wander around for the rest of the day with half of your brain convinced that you are a fish and wanting to act accordingly …”

“That would be an intriguing but no doubt confusing hybrid,” agreed Prilicla. The GLNO was now enclosed completely — with the exception of two manipulators — in the bubble of its protective suit, which it had weighted sufficiently for it not to be hampered by too much buoyancy. Seeing that Conway was also ready, it operated the lock controls, and as they entered the great tank of warm, greenish water that was the AUGL ward it added, “Are the patients responding to treatment?”

Conway shook his head. Then realizing that the gesture probably meant nothing to the GLNO he said, “We are still at the exploratory stage-treatment has not yet begun. But I’ve had a few ideas, which I can’t properly discuss with you until we both take the AUGL tape tomorrow and am fairly certain that two of our three patients will come through-in effect, one of them will have to be used as a guinea-pig in order to save the others. The symptoms appear and develop very quickly,” he continued, “which is why I want such a close watch kept on them. Now that the danger point is so close I think I’ll make it three-hourly, and we’ll work out a timetable so’s neither of us will miss too much sleep. You see, the quicker we spot the first symptoms the more time we have to act and the greater the possibility of saving all three of them. I’m very keen to do the hat-trick.”

Prilicla wouldn’t know what a hat-trick was either, Conway thought, but the being would quickly learn how to interpret his nods, gestures and figures of speech — Conway had had to do the same in his early days with e-t superiors, sometimes wondering fulminating why somebody did not make a tape on Alien Esoterics to aid junior interns in his position. But these were only surface thoughts. At the back of his mind, so steady and so sharp that it might have been painted there, was the picture of a young, almost embryonic life-form whose developing exoskeleton-the hundred or so flat, bony plates normally free to slide or move on flexible hinges of cartilage so as to allow mobility and breathing — was about to become a petrified fossil imprisoning, for a very short time, the frantic consciousness within …

“How can I assist you at the moment?” asked Prilicla, bringing Conway’s mind back from near future to present time with a rush. The GLNO was eyeing the three thin, streamlined shapes darting about the great tank and obviously wondering how it was going to stop one long enough to examine it. It added, “They’re fast, aren’t they?”

“Yes, and very fragile,” said Conway. “Also they are so young that for present purposes they can be considered mindless. They frighten easily and any attempt to approach them closely sends them into such a panic that they swim madly about until exhausted or injure themselves against the tank walls. What we have to do is lay a minefield …

Quickly Conway explained and demonstrated how to place a pattern of anesthetic bulbs which dissolved in the water and how, gently and at a distance, to maneuver their elusive patients through it. Later, while they were examining the three small, unconscious forms and Conway saw how sensitive and precise was the touch of Prilicla’s manipulators and the corresponding sharpness of the GLNQ’s mind, his hopes for all three of the infant AUGLs increased.

They left the warm and to Conway rather pleasant environment of the AUGLs for the “hot” ward of their section. This time the checking of the occupants was done with the aid of remote-controlled mechanisms from behind twenty feet of shielding. There was nothing of an urgent nature in this ward, and before leaving Conway pointed out the complicated masses of plumbing surrounding it. The maintenance division he explained, used the “hot” ward as a stand — by power pile to light and heat the hospital.

Constantly in the background the wall annunciators kept droning out the progress of the search for the SRTT visitor. It had not been found yet, and cases of mistaken identity and of beings seeing things were mounting steadily. Conway had not thought much about the SRTT since leaving O’Mara, but now he was beginning to feel a little anxious at the thought of what the runaway visitor might do in this section especially — not to mention what some of the infant patients might do to it. If only he knew more about it, had some idea of its militations. He decided to call O’Mara.

In reply to Conway’s request the Chief Psychologist said, “Our latest information is that the SRTT life-form evolved on a planet with an eccentric orbit around its primary. Geologic, climatic and temperature changes were such that a high degree of adaptability was necessary for survival. Before they attained a civilization their means of defense was either to assume as frightening an aspect as possible or to copy the physical form of their attackers in the hope that they would escape detection in this way-protective mimicry being the favorite method of avoiding danger, and so often used that the process had become almost involuntary. There are some other items regarding mass and dimensions at different ages. They are a very long-lived species — and this not particularly helpful collection of data, which was digested from the report of the survey ship which discovered the planet, ends by saying that all the foregoing is for our information only and that these beings do not take sick.”

O’Mara paused briefly, then added, “Hah!”

“I agree,” said Conway.

“One item we have which might explain its panicking on arrival,” O’Mara went on, “is that it is their custom for the very youngest to be present at the death of a parent rather than the eldest — there is an unusually strong emotional bond between parent and last-born. Estimates of mass place our runaway as being very young. Not a baby, of course, but definitely nowhere near maturity.”

Conway was still digesting this when the Major continued, “As to its limitations, I’d say that the Methane section is too cold for it and the radioactive wards too hot-also that glorified turkish bath on level Eighteen where they breathe super — heated steam. Apart from those, your guess is as good as mine where it may turn up.

“It might help a little if I could see this SRTT’s parent,” Conway said. “Is that possible?”

There was a lengthy pause, then: “Just barely,” said O’Mara dryly. “The immediate vicinity of that patient is literally crawling with Diagnosticians and other high-powered talent … But come up after you’ve finished your rounds and I’ll try to fix it.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Conway and broke the circuit.

He still felt a vague uneasiness about the SRTT visitor, a dark premonition that he had not yet finished with this e-t juvenile delinquent who was the ultimate in quick-change artists. Maybe, he thought sourly, his current duties had brought out the mother in him, but at the thought of the havoc which that SRTT could cause — the damage to equipment and fittings, the interruption of important and closely-timed courses of treatment and the physical injury, perhaps even death, to the more fragile life-forms through its ignorant blundering about — Conway felt himself go a little sick.

For the failure to capture the runaway had made plain one very disquieting fact, and that was that the SRTT was not too young and immature not to know how to work the intersection locks …

Half angrily, Conway pushed these useless anxieties to the back of his mind and began explaining to Prilicla about the patients in the ward they were going to visit next, and the protective measures and examinative procedures necessary when handling them.

This ward contained twenty-eight infants of the FROB classification — low, squat, immensely strong beings with a horny covering that was like flexible armor plate. Adults of the species with their increased mass tended to be slow and ponderous, but the infants could move surprisingly fast despite the condition of four times Earth-normal gravity and pressure in which they lived. Heavy-duty suits were called for in these conditions and the floor level of the ward was never used by visiting physicians or nursing staff except in cases of the gravest emergency. Patients for examination were raised from the floor by a grab and lifting apparatus to the cupola set in the ceiling for this purpose, where they were anesthetized before the grab was released. This was done with a long, extremely strong needle which was inserted at the point where the inner side of the foreleg joined the trunk — one of the very few soft spots on the FROB’s body.

… I expect you to break a lot of needles before you get the hang of it,” Conway added, “but don’t worry about that, or think that you are hurting them. These little darlings are so tough that if a bomb went off beside them they would hardly blink.”

Conway was silent for a few seconds while they walked briskly toward the FROB ward-Prilicla’s six, multi-jointed and pencil-thin legs seeming to spread out all over the place, but somehow never actually getting underfoot. He no longer felt that he was walking on eggs when he was near the GLNO, or that the other would crumple up and blow away if he so much as brushed against it. Prilicla had demonstrated its ability to avoid all contacts likely to be physically harmful to it in a way which, now that Conway was becoming accustomed to it, was both dexterous and strangely graceful.

A man, he thought, could get used to working with anything.

“But to get back to our thick-skinned little friends,” Conway resumed, “physical toughness in that species — especially in the younger age groups — is not accompanied by resistance to germ or virus infections. Later they develop the necessary antibodies and as adults are disgustingly healthy, but in the infant stage..

“They catch everything,” Prilicla put in. “And as soon as a new disease is discovered they get that, too.”

Conway laughed. “I was forgetting that most e-t hospitals have their quota of FROBs and that you may already have had experience with them. You will know also that these diseases are rarely fatal to the infants, but that their cure is long, complicated, and not very rewarding, because they straightaway catch something else. None of our twenty-eight cases here are serious, and the reason that they are here rather than at a local hospital is that we are trying to produce a sort of shotgun serum which will artificially induce in them the immunity to infection which will eventually be theirs in later life and so … Stop!”

The word was sharp, low and urgent, a shouted whisper. Prilicla froze, its sucker-tipped legs gripping the corridor floor, and stared along with Conway at the being who had just appeared at the intersection ahead of them.

At first glance it looked like an Illensan. The shapeless, spiny body with the dry, rustling membrane joining upper and lower appendages belonged unmistakably to the PVSJ chlorine-breathers. But there were two eating tentacles which seemed to have been transplanted from an FGLI, a furry breast pad which was pure DBLF and it was breathing, as they were, an atmosphere rich in oxygen.

It could only be the runaway.

All the laws of physiology to the contrary Conway felt his heart battering at the back of his throat somewhere as, remembering O’Mara’s strict orders not to frighten the being, he tried to think of something friendly and reassuring to say. But the SRTT took off immediately it caught sign of them, and all Conway could find to say was, “Quick, after it!”

At a dead run they reached the intersection and turned into the corridor taken by the fleeing SRTT, Prilicla scuttling along the ceiling again to keep out of the way of Conway’s pounding feet. But the sight in front of them caused Conway to forget all about being gentle and reassuring, and he yelled, “Stop, you fool! Don’t go in there …!”

The runaway was at the entrance to the FROB ward.

They reached the entry lock just too late and watched helplessly through the port as the SRTT opened the inner seal and, gripped by the four times normal gravity pull of the ward, was flung down out of sight. The inner door closed automatically then, allowing Prilicla and Conway to enter the lock and prepare for the environment within the ward.

Conway struggled frantically into the heavy duty suit which he kept in the lock chamber and quickly set the repulsion of its anti-gravity belt to compensate for the conditions inside. Prilicla, meanwhile, was doing similar things to its own equipment. While checking the seals and fastenings of the suit, and swearing at this very necessary waste of time, Conway could see through the inner inspection window a sight which made him shudder.

The pseudo-Illensan shape of the SRTT lay plastered against the floor. It was twitching slightly, and already one of the larger FROB infants was coming pounding up to investigate this odd-looking object. One of the great, spatulate feet must have trod on the recumbent SRTT, because it jerked away and began rapidly and incredibly to change. The weak, membranous appendages of the PVSJ seemed to dissolve into the main body which became the bony, lizard-like form with the wicked, horn-tipped tentacles which they had seen first at Lock Six. This was obviously the SRTT’s most frightening manifestation.

But the infant FROB possessed nearly five times the other’s mass and so could hardly be expected to be frightened. It put down its massive head and butted, sending the SRTT crashing against the wall plating twenty feet across the ward. The FROB wanted to play.

Both doctors were out of the lock and onto the ceiling catwalk now, where the view was much clearer. The SRTT was changing again, fast. The tentacled lizard shape had not worked at all well for it in four-C conditions against these infant behemoths and it was trying something else.

The FROB had closed in on it again and was watching fascinated.