Code Blue Emergency

CHAPTER 5

ChaThrat was not sure whether the AUGL ward’s duty roster had been drawn up by Charge Nurse Hredlichli or a seriously deranged computer overlooked by the Maintenance staff, and she could not ask without calling into question someone’s level of mental compe-tence. It was unbalanced, she thought, whether “it” referred to the roster, some anonymous Maintenance entity, or Hredlichli itself. After six days and two and a half nights darting about like an overworked minnow among her outsized Chalders, she had been given two whole days in which she could do whatever she liked— provided that part of the free time was spent at her studies.

The proportion suggested by their noxious Nidian tutor, Cresk-Sar, was ninety-nine percent.

Sector General’s corridors held fewer terrors for her now, and she was trying to decide whether to go exploring or continue studying when her door signal sounded.

“Tarsedth?” she called. “Come in.”

“I hope that question refers to my purpose in calling,” the Kelgian trainee said as it undulated into the room, “and not another expression of doubt regarding my ideality. You should know me by new!”

Cha Thrat also knew that no reply was often the best reply.

The DBLF came to a halt in front of the viewscreen and went on. “What’s that, an ELNT lower mandible? You’re lucky, Cha Thrat. You’ve gotten the hang of this physiological classification business a lot faster than the rest of us, or is it just that you study every waking minute? When Cresk-Sar pulled that three-second visual on us and you identified it as a blow-up of an FGLI large metatarsal and phalange before the picture was off the screen—”

“You’re right, I was lucky,” Cha Thrat broke in. “We had Diagnostician Thornnastor in the ward two days earlier. There was a small misunderstanding, a piece of clumsiness on my part, while we were presenting the patient for examination. For a few moments I had a veryclose look at a Tralthan large toe while the foot was trying not to step on me.”

“And I suppose Hredlichli jumped on you with all five of those squishy things it uses for feet?”

“It told me …” Cha Thrat began, but Tarsedth’s mouth and fur had not stopped moving.

“I’m sorry for you,” it went on. “That is one tough chlorine-breather. It was Charge Nurse on my PVSJ ward before it applied for other-species duty with the Chalders, and I’ve been told all about it, including something that happened between it and a PVSJ Senior Physician on Level Fifty-three. I wish I knew what did happen. They tried to explain it to me but who knows what is right, wrong, normal, or utterly scandalous behavior where chlorine-breathers are concerned? Some of the people in this hospital are strange.”

Cha Thrat stared for a moment at the thirty-limbed, silvery body that sat like a furry question mark in front of the viewscreen. “I agree,” she said.

Returning to the original question, Tarsedth said, “Are you in trouble with Hredlichli? About your clumsiness when a Diagnostician was in the ward, I mean? Will it report you to Cresk-Sar?”

“I don’t know,” Cha Thrat replied. “After we’d finished the evening surgical round, it said that I should take myself out of its sight for the next two days, and no doubt I would enjoy that as much as it would. Did I tell you that it allows me to change some of the surgical dressings now? Under its supervision, of course, and the wounds concerned are almost healed.”

“Well,” Tarsedth said, “your trouble can’t be too serious if it’s having you back again. What are you going to do with your two days? Study?”

“Not all the time,” she replied. “I want to explore the hospital, the areas where my protective suit will take me,that is. Cresk-Sar’s high-speed tour and lecture sessions don’t give me enough time to stop and ask questions.”

The Kelgian dropped another three or four sets of limbs to the floor, a clear indication that it was about to leave.

“You’ll be living dangerously, Cha Thrat,” it said. “I’m content to learn about this medical madhouse a little at a time; that way I’m less likely to end up as one of the casualties. But I’ve been told that the recreation level is well worth a visit. You could start your explorations from there. Coming?”

“Yes,” she said. “There at least the heavies will be relaxing and at rest, and not charging along the corridors like mobile disasters waiting to happen to us.”

Later, Cha Thrat was to wonder how she could have been so wrong.

The signs over the entrance read: recreation level, species DBDG, DBLF, DBPK, DCNF, EGCL, ELNT, FGLI, & FROB. species GKMN & GLNO at own risk.

For members of the staff whose written languages were not represented, the same information was repeated endlessly via translator.

“DCNF,” Tarsedth said. “They’ve got your classification up there already. Probably a routine updating by Personnel.”

“Probably,” Cha Thrat said. But she felt very pleased and, for the first time,important.

After days spent in crowded hospital corridors, her tiny room, and the even more cramped confines of the suit she had to wear in the tepid, green depths of the AUGL ward, the sheer size of the place made her feel insecure and unsteady. But the spaciousness, the opensky, and the long distances were apparent rather than real, she soon realized, and the initial shock diminished quickly to become a feeling of pleased surprise.

Trick lighting and some inspired landscaping had given the recreation level its illusion of tremendous spaciousness. The overall effect was of a small tropical beach enclosed on two sides by cliffs and open to a sea that stretched out to a horizon rendered indistinct by heat haze. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the water of the bay was deep blue shading to turquoise where the waves ran onto the bright, golden sand of the beach.

Only the light from the artificial sun, which was too reddish for Cha Thrat’s taste, and the alien greenery fringing the beach and cliffs kept it from looking like a tropical bay anywhere on Sommaradva.

But then, space was at a premium in Sector General, she had been told before her first visit to the dining hall, and the people who worked together had to eat together. Now it seemed that they were expected to play togetheras well.

“Realistic cloud effects are difficult to reproduce,” Tarsedth volunteered, “so rather than risk them looking artificial, they don’t bother trying. The Maintenance person who suggested I come here told me that. It also said that the best thing about the place was that the gravity was maintained at half Earth-normal, which is close enough to half Kelgia- and Sommaradva-normal. The people who like to rest actively can be more active, and the others find the sand softer to lie on — Watch out!”

Three Tralthans on a total of eighteen massive feet went thundering past them and plowed into the shallows, scattering sand and spray over a wide area. The half-G conditions that allowed the normally slow and ponderous FGLIs to jump about like bipeds also kept the sand theyhad disturbed airborne for a long time before it settled back to the beach. Some of it had not settled because Cha Thrat was still trying to blink it out of her eyes.

“Over there,” Tarsedth said. “We can shelter between the FROB and the two ELNTs. They don’t look as if they are very active resters.”

But Chat Thrat did not feel like lying still and doing nothing but absorb artificial sunlight. She had too much on her mind, too many questions of the kind that could not be asked without the risk of giving serious offense, and she had found in the past that strenuous physical activity rested the mind — sometimes.

She watched a steep, low-gravity wave roll in and break on the beach. Not all of the turbulence in the bay was artificial — it varied in proportion to the number, size, and enthusiasm of the swimmers. The most favored sport, especially among the heaviest and least streamlined life-forms, was jumping into the bay from one of the springboards set into the cliff face. The boards, which seemed to her to be dangerously high until she remembered the reduced gravity, could be reached through tunnels concealed within the cliff. One board, the highest of them’all, was solidly braced and without flexibility, probably to avoid the risk of an overenthu-siastic diver fracturing its cranium on the artificial sky.

“Would you like to swim?” she asked suddenly. “That is, I mean, if DBLFs can.”

“We can, but I won’t,” the Kelgian said, deepening the sandy trench it had already dug for itself. “It would leave my fur plastered flat and unable to move for the rest of the day. If another DBLF came by I wouldn’t be able to talk to it properly. Lie down. Relax.”

Cha Thrat folded her two rear legs and gently collapsed into a horizontal position, but it must have beenobvious even to her other-species friend that she was not relaxed.

“Are you worried about something?” Tarsedth asked, its fur rippling and tufting in concern. “Cresk-Sar? Hred-lichli? Your ward?”

Cha Thrat was silent for a moment, wondering how a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon could explain the problem to a member of a species whose cultural background was completely different, and who might even be a servile. But until she was sure of Tarsedth’s exact status, she would consider the Kelgian her professional equal, and speak.

“I do not wish to offend,” she said carefully, “but it seems to me that, in spite of the wide-ranging knowledge we are expected to acquire, the strange and varied creatures we care for, and the wonderful devices we use to do it, our work is repetitious, undignified, without personal responsibility, invariably performed under direction, and well, servile. We should be doing something more important with our time, or such a large proportion of it, than conveying body wastes from the patients to the disposal facility.”

“So that’s what’s bothering you,” Tarsedth said, twisting its conical head in her direction. “A deep, incised wound to the pride.”

Cha Thrat did not reply, and it went on. “Before I left Kelgia I was a nursing superintendent responsible for the nursing services on eight wards. Same-species patients, of course, but at lettst I had come up through nursing. Some of the other trainees, yourself included, were doctors, so I can imagine how they — and you — feel. But the servile condition is temporary. It will be relieved when or if we complete our training to Cresk-Sar’s satisfaction. Try not to worry about it. You are learning other-speciesmedicine, if you excuse the expression, from the bottom up.

“Try taking more interest in the other end of the patient,” Tarsedth added, “instead of concerning yourself with the plumbing all the time. Talk to them and try to understand how their minds work.”

Cha Thrat wondered how she could explain to the Kelgian, who was a member of what seemed to be an advanced but utterly disorganized and classless civilization, that there were things that a warrior-surgeon should and should not do. Even though the medical fraternity on Sommaradva could not have cared less what happened to her, in Sector General she had been forced by circumstances into behavior that was wrong, in both the negative and positive sense, for someone of her professional status. She was acting above and below her level of competence, and it worried her.

“I do talk to them,” she said. “One especially, and it says that it likes talking to me. I try not to favor any particular patient, but this one is more distressed than the others. I shouldn’t be talking to it as I’m not qualified to treat it, but nobody else can or will do anything for the patient.”

Tarsedth’s fur rippled with concern. “Is it terminal?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Cha Thrat replied. “It’s been a ward patient for a very long time. Seniors examine it sometimes with advanced trainees present, and Thornnastor spoke to it when the Diagnostician was in the ward with another patient, but not to ask about its condition. I haven’t access to its case history, but I’m pretty sure that the medication prescribed for it is palliative rather than curative. It is not neglected or ill treated so much as politely ignored. I’m the only one who will listen to its symptoms, so it talks to me at every opportu-nity. I shouldn’t talk to it, not until I know what’s wrong with it, because I’m not qualified.”

The movement of Tarsedth’s fur settled down to a more even rhythm as it said, “Nonsense! Everybody is qualified to talk, and a bit of verbal sympathy and encouragement can’t harm your patient. But if its condition is incurable, your ward water would be teeming with Diagnosticians and Seniors intent on proving otherwise. That’s the way things work here; nobody gives up on anybody. And your patient’s problem will give you something to think about while you do the less attractive jobs. Or don’t you want to talk to it?”

“Yes,” Cha Thrat said, “I’m very sorry for the great, suffering brute, and I want to help it. But I’m beginning to wonder if it is a ruler, in which case I should not be talking to it.”

“Whatever it is, or was, on Chalderescol,” Tarsedth said, “has no bearing, or shouldn’t have, on its treatment as a patient. What harm can a little nonmedical sympathy and encouragement do either of you? Frankly, I don’t see your difficulty.”

Patiently Cha Thrat said again, “I’m not qualified.”

Tarsedth’s fur was moving in a manner that denoted impatience. “I still don’t understand you. Talk, don’t talk to it. Do whatever you want to do.”

“I have talked to it,” Cha Thrat said, “and that’s what worries me— Is something wrong?”

“Can’t it leave me alone!” said Tarsedth, its fur tufting into angry spikes. “I’m sure that’s Cresk-Sar coming this way, and it’s seen our trainee badges. The first question it will ask is why we aren’t studying. Can’t we ever escape from its infuriating ‘I have questions for you’ routine?”

The Senior Physician detached itself from a group of two other Nidians and a Melfan who had been movingtoward the water’s edge and stopped, looking down at them.

“I have questions for both of you,” it said inevitably, but unexpectedly went on. “Are you able to relax in this place? Does it enable you to forget all about your work? Your Charge Nurses? Me?”

“How can we forget about you,” Tarsedth said, “when you’re here, and ready to ask us why we’re here?”

The Kelgian’s seeming rudeness was unavoidable, Cha Thrat knew, but her reply would have to be more diplomatic.

“The answer to all four questions is, not entirely,” she said. “We were relaxing but were discussing problems relating to our work.”

“Good,” Cresk-Sar said. “I would not want you to forget your work, or me, entirely. Have you a particular problem or question that I can answer for you before I rejoin my friends?”

Tarsedth was burrowing deeper into the artificial sand and pointedly ignoring their tutor who, now that it was off duty, seemed to Cha Thrat to be a much less obnoxious Nidian. Cresk-Sar deserved a polite response, even though the recent topic of discussion, the psychological and emotional problems associated with the removal of other-species body wastes, was not an area in which a Senior Physician would have firsthand experience. Perhaps she could ask a general question that would satisfy both the social requirements of the situation and her own curiosity.

“As trainees,” Cha Thrat said, “we are assigned to the less pleasant, nonmedical ward duties, in particular those involving organic wastes. These are an unpleasant but necessary by-product common to all species whose food is ingested, digested, and eliminated. However,there must be wide differences in the chemical composition of other-species wastes. Since the hospital was designed so far as was possible to be a closed ecological system, what becomes of all this material?”

Cresk-Sar seemed to be having difficulty with its breathing for a moment, then it replied, “The system is not completely closed. We do not synthesize all our food or medication and, 1 am pleased to tell you, there are no intelligent life-forms known to us who can exist on their own or any other species’ wastes. As for your question, I don’t know the answer, Cha Thrat. Until now the question has never come up.”

It turned away quickly and went back to its Melfan and Nidian friends. Shortly afterward the ELNT started to make clicking sounds with its mandibles while the furry DBDGs barked, or perhaps laughed, loudly. Cha Thrat could not find anything humorous in the question. To the contrary, she found the subject actively unpleasant. But the loud, untranslatable noises coming from the group showed no sign of stopping — until they were drowned out by the sharp, insistent,and even louder sounds coming from the public address system.

“Emergency,” it blared across the recreation level and from her translator. “Code Blue, AUGL ward. All named personnel acknowledge on nearest communicator and go immediately to the AUGL ward. Chief Psychologist O’Mara, Charge Nurse Hredlichli, Trainee Cha Thrat. Code Blue. Acknowledge and go at once to—”

She missed the rest of it because Cresk-Sar had come back and was glaring down at her. It was neither barking nor laughing.

“Move yourself!” it said harshly. “I’ll acknowledge the message and go with you. As your tutor I am responsible for your medical misdeeds. Hurry.”

As they were leaving the recreation level it went on, “A Code Blue is an emergency involving extreme danger to both patients and medical staff, the kind of trouble during which untrained personnel are ordered to stay clear. But they have paged you, a trainee, and, of all people, Chief Psychologist O’Mara. “What have you done!