The Genocidal Healer

CHAPTER 7

NEVER in all his long years as a student on Tarla and during his advanced training at Sector General had Lioren been given such a woolly-minded and imprecise set of instructions.

Surely Major O’Mara, who was reputed to possess one of the finest and most analytical minds in the hospital, should not be capable of issuing such instructions. Not for the first time Lioren wondered if the Chief Psychologist, charged as it was with the heavy responsibility of maintaining the mental health of close on ten thousand medical and maintenance staff belonging to sixty-odd different species, had been affected by one of the non- physical maladies it was expected to treat. Or was it simply that Lioren, as the department’s most recent and least knowledgeable recruit, had misunderstood the other’s words?

“For my own mental clarification and to reduce the possibility of misunderstanding,” Lioren said carefully, “may I repeat my instructions aloud?”

“If you think it necessary,” the Chief Psychologist replied. From Lioren’s growing experience of reading Earth-human voice sounds and the expressions on their flabby, yellow-pink faces, he knew that O’Mara was losing patience.

Ignoring the nonverbal content of the response, Lioren said, “I am to observe Senior Physician Seldal, for as long and as often as the subject’s duty schedule and my other work allows, without drawing attention to the fact that it is under observation. I am to look for evidence of abnormal or uncharacteristic behavior even though you are aware that, to a Tarlan BRLH like myself, normal and characteristic behavior in a Nallajim of physiological classification LSVO would appear equally strange to me. I am to do this without any prior indication of what it is that I am to look for or, indeed, if there is anything to look for in the first place. If I am able to detect such behavior, I should try, covertly, to discover the reason for it, and my report should include suggestions for remedial treatment.

“But what,” he went on when it was clear that the other was not going to speak, “if I cannot detect any abnormality?”

“Negative evidence,” O’Mara said, “can also be valuable.”

“Is it your intention that I proceed in complete ignorance,” Lioren asked, anger making him forget for a moment the deference due to a nominal superior, “or will I be allowed to study the subject’s psych file?”

“You may study it to your heart’s content,” O’Mara said. “And if you have no further questions, Charge Nurse Kursen-neth is waiting.”

“I have an observation and a question,” Lioren said quickly. “This seems to me to be a particularly imprecise method of briefing a trainee on his first case. Surely I should be given some indication of what is wrong with Seldal. I mean, what did the Senior Physician do to arouse your suspicions in the first place?

O’Mara exhaled noisily. “You have been assigned the Seldal case, and you have not been told what to do because I don’t know what to do with it, either.”

Lioren made a surprised sound which did not translate and said, “Does the possibility exist that the most experienced other-species psychologist in the hospital is faced with a case that it is incapable of solving?”

“Other possibilities you might consider,” O’Mara said, leaning back into its chair, “is that the problem does not exist. Or that it is a minor one and so unimportant that no serious harm will result if it was to be mishandled by a trainee. It is also possible that more urgent problems are claiming my attention and this is the reason why you have been given this small and nonurgent one.

“For the first time you are being given access to the psych file of a Senior Physician,” it went on before Lioren could reply. “It might also be that, as a trainee, you are expected to discover for yourself what it was that aroused my suspicions, and in the light of your subsequent investigation to decide whether or not they were justified.”

Embarrassed, Lioren allowed his four medial limbs to go limp so that the fingertips touched the floor, the sign that he was defenseless before the just criticism of a superior. O’Mara would understand the significance of the gesture, but the Earth-human chose to ignore it and went on, “The most important part of our work here is to be constantly on the lookout for abnormal or uncharacteristic behavior in each and every member of the staff, whatever the species or circumstances, and ultimately to develop an instinct for detecting the cause of such trouble before it can seriously affect the being concerned, other staff members or patients. Are your objections based on an unwillingness to speak at length, rather than the necessarily brief conversations held in the dining hall, because the subject of your past misdeeds would be sure to come up and this would cause you severe emotional distress?”

“No,” Lioren said firmly. “Any such discomfort would be as nothing compared with the punishment I deserve.”

O’Mara shook its head. “That is not a good response, Lioren, but for now I shall accept it. Send in Kursenneth as you leave.”

The Kelgian Charge Nurse undulated rapidly into the inner office, its silvery fur rippling with impatience, as Lioren closed the door behind him and dropped into his work position with enough force to make the support structure protest audibly. The only other person in the outer office was Braithwaite, whose attention was focused on its visual display. Muttering angrily, he bent over the console to key in his personal ID and departmental authorization with the request for the Seldal material, optioning for the printed rather than the Tarlan audio translation.

“Are you addressing me or yourself?” Braithwaite asked, looking up suddenly from its work and displaying its teeth. “Either speak a little louder so I can hear you, or more quietly so I can’t.”

“I am not addressing anyone,” Lioren said. “I am thinking aloud about O’Mara and its unreasonable expectations of me. Mistakenly I assumed that I was speaking in an undertone, and I apologize for distracting you from your work.”

Braithwaite sat back in its chair, looked at the closely printed sheets that were piling up on Lioren’s desktop and said, “So he gave you the Seldal case. But there is no need to agitate yourself. If you can produce a result at all, you would not be expected to do so overnight. And if you should tire of delving into the not very murky recesses of a Nallajim Senior’s mind, the latest batch of trainee progress reports from Cresk-Sar are on your desk. I would like you to update the relevant personnel files before the end of next shift.”

“Of course,” Lioren said. Braithwaite showed its teeth again and returned to its work.

Senior Physician Cresk-Sar had been his clinical tutor during his first year at the hospital and it was still a person totally impossible to please. Reading its characteristically pessimistic report on the apparent lack of progress of the current intake of student nurses, Lioren wondered for a moment whether he should give priority to the deadly dull but important material from the Senior Tutor or to the more interesting but probably less productive psych file on Seldal. Dutifully, as befitted the most junior member of the department, he decided on the former.

A few moments later, while he was reading the clinical competence appraisal and promotion options for a Kelgian student nurse whose name was familiar to him, he abruptly changed his mind and called up the Seldal file. He began studying it so closely that he scarcely noticed the departure of Kursenneth and the arrival of a Tralthan intern who lumbered into the inner office on its six massive feet. But the noise had caused Braithwaite to look up, and Lioren made a polite, untranslatable sound designed to attract the lieutenant’s attention.

“This is interesting,” he said, “but the only parts that I fully understand are the LSVO physiological and environmental data. I don’t know enough about Nallajim interpersonal behavior in general and Seldal in particular to be able to detect any abnormality. It would be better if I was to observe Seldal directly for a period, and talk to it if this can be done without arousing its suspicions, so that I will have a clearer idea of the entity I am investigating.”

“It’s your case,” Braithwaite said.

“Then that is what I shall do,” Lioren said, securing the Seldal and Cresk-Sar material and preparing to leave.

“And I agree,” the lieutenant said, returning to its work, “that doing anything else is preferable to wading through Cresk-Sar’s god-awful boring progress reports …”

A quick reference to the senior staff duty roster told Lioren that Seldal would be in the Melfan OR on the seventy-eighth level. Allowing for traffic density in the intervening corridors and a delay while changing into a protective envelope before taking the shortcut through the level of the chlorine-breathing Illensan PVSJs, he should be able to see the Senior Physician before it left for its midday meal.

As yet Lioren had no clear idea of what he would do or say when he was confronted with his first nonsurgical case, and on the way there was no opportunity to think of anything other than avoiding embarrassment or injury by tripping over or colliding violently with staff members.

Theoretically the entities possessing the greater medical seniority had the right of way, but not for the first time he saw a Senior belonging to one of the smaller physiological classifications take hasty evasive action when a six-limbed Hudlarian FROB Charge Nurse with eight times the body mass and an urgent task to perform bore down on it. In such cases it was reassuring to see that the instinct for survival took precedence over rank, although the ensuing contact was verbally rather than physically violent.

With Lioren, however, there was no problem. His trainee’s armband indicated that he had no rank at all and should get out of everyone’s way.

Two crablike Melfan ELNTs and a chlorine-breathing Illen san PVSJ chittered and hissed their displeasure at him as he dodged between them at an intersection; then he jumped aside as a multiply absentminded Tralthan Diagnostician lumbered heavily toward him, and in so doing accidentally jostled a tiny, red-furred Nidian intern, who barked in reproof.

Even though their physiological classifications varied enormously, the majority of the staff were warm-blooded oxygen-breathers like himself. A much greater hazard to navigation were the entities traversing what was to them a foreign level in protective armor. The local protection needed by a TLTU doctor, who breathed superheated steam and whose pressure and gravity requirements were many times greater than the environment of the oxygen levels, was a great, clanking juggernaut which had to be avoided at all costs.

In the PVSJ transfer lock he donned a lightweight envelope and let himself into the yellow, foggy world of the chlorine-breathers. There the corridors were less crowded, and it was the spiny, membranous, and unadorned denizens of Illensa who were in the majority while the Tralthans, Kelgians, and a single Tarlan, himself, wore or in some cases drove protective armor.

The greatly reduced volume of pedestrian traffic gave Lioren a chance to think again about his strangely imprecise assignment, his department, and the work that he had been sentenced to perform.

Even if he was able to prove that O’Mara’s suspicions were unfounded, investigating Seldal would be a unique experience for him. He would take the case very seriously indeed, regardless of its probable minor nature, and if his observations showed that Seldal really had a problem …

Lioren raised his four eyes briefly to offer up a prayer to his light-years-distant God of Tarla, in whose existence he no longer believed, pleading for guidance as to what was or was not abnormal behavior in one of the highly intelligent, three-legged, nonflying birdlike natives of Nallaji. He lowered his eyes in time to flatten himself against the wall as the mobile refrigerated pressure envelope belonging to an ultra-low-temperature SNLU rolled silently toward him from a side corridor. Irritated at his momentary lapse of attention, Lioren resumed his journey.

Until now the only abnormal and dangerous behavior he had identified, and it was a type all too prevalent in the hospital, was careless driving.