The sharp voice of Colonel Skempton broke into his mood of self loathing, dispelling it for the moment.
“Doctor, the Kelgian hospital ship is here. And an Illensan freighter. Locks Five and Seventeen in ten minutes.”
“Right,” said Conway. He left the office at a near run, heading for Reception.
All three control desks were occupied when he arrived, two by Nidians and the other by a Corps Lieutenant on stand-by. Conway positioned himself between and behind the Nidians where he could study both sets of repeater screens and began hoping very hard that he could deal with the things which would inevitably go wrong.
The Kelgian vessel already locked on at Five was a brute, one of the latest interstellar liners which had been partially converted into a hospital ship on the way out. The alterations were not quite complete, but a team of maintenance staff and robots were already boarding it together with senior ward staff who would arrange for the disposition of their patients. At the same time the occupants of the wards were being readied for the transfer and the equipment necessary for treating them was being dismantled, rapidly and with little regard for the subsequent condition of the ward walls. Some of the smaller equipment, heaped onto powered stretcher-carriers, was already on the way to the ship.
Altogether it looked like being a fairly simple operation. The atmosphere, pressure and gravity requirement of the patients were exactly those of the ship, so that no complicated protective arrangements were necessary, and the vessel was big enough to take all of the Kelgian patients with room to spare. He would be able to clear the DBLF levels completely and get rid of a few Tralthan FGLIs as well. But even though the first job was relatively uncomplicated, Conway estimated that it would take at least six hours for the ship to be loaded and away. He turned to the other control desk.
Here the picture was in many respects similar. The environment of the Illensan freighter matched perfectly that of the PVSJ wards, but the ship was smaller and, considering its purpose, did not have a large crew. The preparations for receiving patients aboard were, for this reason, not well advanced. Conway directed extra maintenance staff to the Illensan freighter, thinking that they would be lucky to get away with sixty PVSJs in the same time as it took the other ship to clear three whole levels.
He was still trying to find shortcuts in the problem when the Lieutenant’s screen lit up.
“A Tralthan ambulance ship, Doctor,” he reported. “Fully staffed and with provision for six FROBs and a Chalder as well as twenty of their own species. No preparation needed at their end, they say just load em up.
The AUGL denizens of Chalderescol, a forty-foot long, armored fishlike species were water-breathers who could not live in any other medium for more than a few seconds and live. On the other hand the FROBs were squat, immensely massive and thick-skinned beings accustomed to the crushing gravity and pressure of Hudlar. Properly speaking Hudlarians did not breathe at all, and their incredibly strong tegument allowed them to exist for long periods in conditions of zero gravity and pressure, so that the water in the AUGL section would not bother them …
Conway said quickly, “Lock Twenty-eight for the Chalder. While they’re loading it send the FROBs through the ELNT section into the main AUGL tank and out by the same Lock. Then tell them to move to Lock Five and we’ll have their other patients waiting …
Gradually the evacuation got under way. Accommodations was prepared for the first convalescent PVSJs aboard the Jllensan freighter and the slow trek of patients and staff through the noisome yellow fog of the chlorine section commenced. Simultaneously the other screen was showing a long, undulating file of Kelgians moving toward their ship, with medical and engineering staff carrying equipment charging up and down the line.
To some it might have seemed callous to evacuate the convalescent patients first, but there were very good reasons for doing so. With these walking wounded out of the way the wards and approaches to the locks would be less congested, which would allow the complicated frames and harnesses containing the more seriously ill patients to be moved more easily, as well as giving them a little more time in the optimum conditions of the wards.
“Two more Illensan ships, Doctor,” the lieutenant said suddenly. “Small jobs, capacity about twenty patients each.”
“Lock Seventeen is still tied up,” said Conway. “Tell them to orbit.”
The next arrival was a small passenger ship from the Earth-human world of Gregory, and with it came the lunch trays. There were only a few Earth-human patients at Sector General, but at a pinch the Gregorian ship could take any warm-blooded oxygen-breather below the mass of a Tralthan. Conway dealt with both arrivals at the same time, not caring if he did have to speak or even shout, with his mouth full …
Then suddenly the sweating, harassed face of Colonel Skempton flicked onto the internal screen. He said sharply, “Doctor, there are two Illensan ships hanging about in orbit. Don’t you have work for them?”
“Yes!” said Conway, irritated by the other’s tone. “But there is a ship already loading chlorine-breathers at Seventeen, and there is no other lock suitable on that level. They’ll have to wait their turn.
“That won’t do,” Skempton cut in harshly. “While they’re hanging about out there they are in danger should the enemy attack suddenly. Ether you start loading them at once or we send them away to come back later. Probably much later. Sorry.”
Conway opened his mouth and then shut it with a click over what he had been about to say. Hanging grimly onto his temper he tried to think.
He knew that the build-up of the defense fleet had been going on for days and that the astrogation officers responsible for bringing those units in would leave again as soon as possible-either on their own scout ships or with the patients leaving Sector General. The plan devised by the Monitor Corps called for no information regarding the whereabouts of the Federation being available in the minds of the defending forces or the non-combatants who remained in the hospital. The defense fleet was deployed to protect the hospital and the ships locked onto it, and the thought of two other ships swinging around loose, ships which contained fully qualified astrogators aboard, must have made the Monitor fleet commander start biting his nails.
“Very well, Colonel,” Conway said. “We’ll take the ships at Fifteen and Twenty-one. This will mean chlorine- breathers traveling through the DBLF maternity ward and a part of the AUGL section. Despite these complications we should have the patients aboard in three hours …
Complications was right …! Conway thought grimly as he gave the necessary orders. Luckily both the DBLF ward and that section of the AUGL level would be vacant by the time the chlorine-breathing Illensans in their pressure tents came through. But the ship from Gregory was at an adjoining lock taking on ELNTs who were being shepherded through the area by DBLF nurses in protective suits. Also there were some of the low-G, bird-like MSVKs being brought to the same vessel through the chlorine ward which he was hoping to clear …
There weren’t enough screens in Reception to keep properly in touch with what was going on down there, Conway decided suddenly. He had the horrible feeling that a most awful snarl-up would occur if he wasn’t careful. But he couldn’t be careful if he didn’t know what was going on. The only course was for him to go there and direct the traffic himself.
He called O’Mara, explained the situation quickly and asked for a relief.
CHAPTER 15
Dr. Mannon arrived, groaned piteously at the battery of screens and flashing lights, then smoothly took over the job of directing the evacuation. As a replacement Conway could not have hoped for anyone better. He was turning to go when Mannon pushed his face within three inches of one of the screens and said “Harrumph.”
Conway stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Mannon, without turning round. “It’s just that I’m beginning to understand why you want to go down there.”
“But I told you why!” said Conway impatiently. He stamped out, telling himself angrily that Mannon was indulging in senseless conversation at a time when unnecessary talk of any kind was criminal. Then he wondered if the aging Dr. Mannon was tired, or had a particularly confusing tape riding him, and felt suddenly ashamed. Snapping at Skempton or the receptionists hadn’t worried him unduly, but he did not want to begin biting the heads off his friends-even if he was harassed and tired and the whole place was rapidly going to Hell on horseback. Then very soon he was being kept too busy to feel ashamed.
Three hours later the state of confusion around him seemed to have doubled, although in actual fact it was
