Conway tried to talk. He tried to say the things that he had rehearsed to himself many times, but what came out was a disjointed hodge-podge. She was beautiful, he said, and he didn’t want to be friends and she was a stupid little fool for staying behind. He loved her and wanted her and he would have been happy spending months- not too many months, maybe-getting her in a corner where she couldn’t say anything but yes. But now there wasn’t time to do things properly. He thought about her all the time and even during the TRLH operation it had been thinking about her that let him hang on until the end. And all during the bombardment he had worried in case …
“I worried about you, too,” Murchison broke in softly. “You were all over the place and every time there was a hit … And you always knew exactly what to do and … and I was afraid you would get yourself killed.”
Her face was shadowed, her uniform clung damply. Conway felt his mouth dry.
She said warmly, “You were wonderful that day with the TRLH. It was like working with a Diagnostician. Seven tapes, O’Mara said. I … I asked him to give me one, earlier, to help you out. But he said no because …” She hesitated, and looked away. “… because he said girls are very choosy who they let take possession of them. Their minds, I mean …
“How choosy?” said Conway thickly. “Does the choice exclude … friends?”
He leaned forward involuntarily as he spoke, letting go his hold on the chair with his other hand. He drifted heavily up from the table, jarred the canopy and touched one of the floating globes with his forehead. With the surface tension broken it collapsed wetly all over his face. Spluttering he brushed it away, knocking it into a cloud of tiny, glowing marbles. Then he saw it.
It was the only harsh note in this dream world, a pile of unarmed missiles occupying a dark corner of the room. They were held to the floor by clamps and further secured with netting in case the clamps were jarred free by an explosion. There was plenty of slack in the netting. Still holding onto Murchison, he kicked himself over to it, searched until he found the edge of the net, and pulled it up from the floor.
“We can’t talk properly if we keep floating into the air,” he said quietly. “Come into my parlor … ”
Maybe the netting was too much like a spider’s web, or his tone resembled too closely that of a predatory spider. He felt her hesitate. The hand he was holding was trembling.
“I … I know how you feel,” she said quickly, not looking at him. “I like you, too. Maybe more than that. But this isn’t right. I know we don’t have any time, but sneaking down here like this and … it’s selfish. I keep thinking about all those men in the corridors, and the other casualties still to come. I know it sounds stuffy, but we’re supposed to think about other people first. That’s why—”
“Thank you,” said Conway furiously. “Thank you for reminding me of my duty.”
“Oh, please!” she cried, and suddenly she was clinging to him again, her head against his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you, or make you hate me. I didn’t think the war would be so horrible. I’m frightened. I don’t want you to be killed and leave me all alone. Oh, please, hold me tight and … and tell me what to do …
Her eyes were glittering and it was not until one of the tiny points of light floated away from them that he realized she was crying silently. He had never imagined Murchison crying, somehow. He held her tightly for a long time, then gently pushed her away from him.
Roughly, he said, “I don’t hate you, but I don’t want you to discuss my exact feelings at the moment, either. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
But he didn’t take her home. The alarm siren went a few minutes later and when it stopped a voice on the PA was asking Doctor Conway to come to the intercom.
CHAPTER 23
Once it had been Reception, with three fast-talking Nidians to handle the sometimes complex problems of getting patients out of their ambulances and into the hospital. Now it was Command Headquarters and twenty Monitor officers murmuring tensely into throat mikes, their eyes glued to screens which showed the enemy at all degrees of magnification from nil to five hundred. Two of the three main screens showed sections of the enemy fleet, the images partly obliterated by the ghostly lines and geometrical figures that was a tactical officer trying to predict what they would do next. The other screen gave a wide-angle view of the outer hull.
A missile came down like a distant shooting star, making a tiny flash and throwing up in minute fountain of wreckage. The tearing, metallic crash which reverberated through the room was out of all proportion to the image.
Dermod said, “They’ve withdrawn out of range of the heavy stuff mounted on the hospital and are sending in missiles. This is the softening up process designed to wear us down prior to the main attack. A counterattack by our remaining mobile force would result in its destruction, they are so heavily outnumbered that they can operate effectively only if backed by the defenses of the hospital. So we have no choice but to soak up this stage as best we can and save our strength for—”
“What strength?” said Conway angrily. Beside him O’Mara made a disapproving noise, and across the desk the Fleet commander looked coldly at him. When Dermod spoke it was to Conway, but he didn’t answer the question.
“We can also expect small raids by fast, maneuverable units designed to further unsettle us,” he went on. “Your casualties will come from Corpsmen engaged on hull defense, personnel from the defending ships, and perhaps enemy casualties. Which brings me to a point which I would like cleared up. You seem to be handling a lot of enemy wounded, Doctor, and you’ve told me that your facilities are already strained to the limit …
“How the blazes can you tell?” said Conway. Dermod’s expression became more frigid, but this time he answered the question.
“Because I have reports of patients lying beside each other finding that the other one is talking gibberish, patients of the same physological type, that is. What steps are you taking to—”
“None!” said Conway, so angry suddenly that he wanted to take this cold, unfeeling martinet by the throat and shake some humanity into him.
At the beginning he had liked Dermod. He had thought him a thoughtful and sensitive as well as a competent Fleet commander, but during the past few days he had become the embodiment of the blind, coldly implacable forces which had Conway and everyone else in the hospital trapped. Daily conferences between the military and medical authorities in the hospital had been ordered since the last attack had begun, and at all three of them Conway had found himself running across the fleet commander with increasing frequency.
But when Conway snapped, the Fleet commander did not snap back. Dermod merely looked at him with his eyes so bleak and distant that Conway felt that the commander wasn’t seeing him at all. And it did no good at all when O’Mara advised him quietly to hold his tongue and not be so all-fired touchy-that Dermod had a war to fight and he was doing the best he could, and that the pressures he was under excused a certain lack of charm in his personality.
“Surely,” said Dermod coldly, just as Conway had decided that he really ought to be more patient with this cold-blooded, military creature, you are not treating enemy casualties the same as our own …
“It is difficult,” said Conway, speaking so quietly that O’Mara looked suddenly worried, “to tell the difference. Subtle variations in spacesuit design mean nothing to the nursing staff and myself. And when, as frequently happens, the suit and underlying uniform is cut away the latter may be unidentifiable due to the bleeding. Between the injection of anti-pain and unconsciousness the oral noises they make are not easily translatable. And if there is any way to tell the difference between a Corpsman and one of the enemy screaming, I don’t want to know about it.
He had started quietly, but when he ended he was close to shouting. I won’t make any such distinction between casualties and neither
will my staff! This is a hospital, damn you! Well isn’t it?”
“Take it easy, son. It’s still a hospital,” said O’Mara gently.
“It is also,” Dermod snapped, “a military base!”
“What I don’t understand,” O’Mara put in quickly, trying desperately to pour on the oil, “is why the hell they don’t finish us with atomic warheads …
