been with us for a long time, although not, of course, for as many thousands of years as those of your Gogleskan friends. As a would-be Diagnostician you also have the responsibility for deciding which case or cases should be given priority. After due consideration, of course.”
Conway nodded. His vocal chords seemed to have severed communications with his brain while it tried to absorb all the implications of a multiple assignment the individual sections of which were just this side of impossible. He knew of some of those problems and the Diagnosticians who had worked on them, and the hospital grapevine had carried some bloodcurdling accounts of some of the failures. And now, for the period of assessment as acting Diagnostician, the problems were his.
“Don’t sit there gaping at me,” O’Mara said. “I’m sure you can find something else to do.”
CHAPTER 10
It was an unusual meeting for Conway in that he was the only medic present-the others were exclusively Monitor Corps officers charged with the responsibilities for various aspects of hospital maintenance and supply, and Major Fletcher, the Captain of the Rhabwar. It was doubly unusual in that Conway, wearing his goldedged acting Diagnostician’s armband with a nonchalance he did not feel, was solely and completely himself.
There were no Educator tapes which could help him with this problem, only the experience of Major Fletcher and himself.
“The initial requirement,” he began formally, “is for accommodation, food supply, and treatment facilities for a gravid FSOJ life-form better known to some of us as one of the Protectors of the Unborn. It is an extremely dangerous being, nonintelligent in the adult stage, which on its home planet is continuously under attack from the time it is born until it dies, usually at the tentacles and teeth of its last-born. Captain, if you please.
Fletcher tapped buttons on his console, and the briefing screen lit with the picture of an adult Protector taken during one of Rhabwar’s rescue missions, followed by material on other FSOJs collected on their home world. But it was the way that the Protector’s snapping teeth and flailing tentacles warped and dented the ambulance ship’s internal plating which caused the watchers to grunt in disbelief.
“As you can see, Conway resumed, “the FSOJ is a large, immensely strong, oxygen-breathing life-form with a slitted carapace from which protrude those four heavy tentacles and a tail and head. The tentacles and tail have large, osseous terminations resembling organic spiked clubs, and the principal features of the head are the recessed and heavily protected eyes, and the jaws. You will also note that the four stubby legs which project from the underside of the carapace possess bony spurs which make these limbs additional weapons of offense. On their planet of origin all of these weapons are needed.
“Their young remain in the womb until physical development is sufficiently advanced for them to survive birth into their incredibly savage environment, and during the embryo stage they are telepathic. But this aspect of the problem is not in your area.
“Constant and savage conflict is such a vital part of their lives,” Conway went on, “that they sicken and die without it. For that reason the preparation of accommodation for this life-form will be much more difficult than any you have been asked to provide hitherto. The compartment will have to be structurally robust. Captain Fletcher, here, will be able to give you information on the beastie’s physical strength and degree of mobility, and if he sounds as if he is exaggerating, believe me, he is not. The cargo chamber on Rhabwar had to be completely rebuilt after the FSOJ had been confined in it during an eleven-hour trip to the hospital.”
“My tibia needed repairing, too,” Fletcher said dryly.
Before Conway could go on there was another interruption. Colonel Hardin, who was the hospital’s Dietician- in-Chief, said, “I get the impression that your FSOJ fights and eats its food, Doctor. Now, you must be aware of the rule here that live food is never provided, only synthesized animal tissue or imported vegetation if the synthesizers can’t handle it. Some of the food animals used in the Federation bear a close resemblance to other sentient Galactic citizens, many of whom find the eating of nonvegetable matter repugnant and—”
“No problem, Colonel,” Conway broke in. “The FSOJ will eat anything. Your biggest headache will be the accommodation, which is going to resemble more closely a medieval torture chamber than a hospital ward.”
“Are we to be given information regarding the purpose of this project?” asked an officer whom Conway had not seen before. He wore the yellow tabs of a maintenance specialist and the insignia of a major. He smiled as he went on. “It would help guide us in the initial design work, as well as satisfying our curiosity.”
“The work is not secret,” Conway replied, “and the only reason I would not like it to be discussed widely is that we may fall short of our expectations. This, considering the fact that I have been given charge of the project, could cause personal embarrassment, no more than that.
“Continuous conception takes place within every member of this species,” he went on briskly, “and the intention is to closely study this process with the ultimate aim of inhibiting the effects of the mechanism which destroys the sentient and telepathic portion of the embryo’s brain prior to its birth. If a newly born Protector retained its sentience and telepathic faculty, it could in time communicate with its own Unborn and, hopefully, establish a bond which would make it impossible for them to harm each other. We will also be trying to gradually reduce the violence of the environmental beating they take and stimulate, medically rather than physically, the release of the complex secretions which are triggered by this activity. That way they should gradually get out of the habit of trying to kill and eat everything they see. Also, the answers we find must enable the FSOJs to continue to survive on their frightful planet, and help them escape from the evolutionary trap which has rendered impossible any chance of the species’ developing a civilized culture.”
They have a lot in common with the Gogleskans, he thought. Smiling, he added, “But this is one of my problems. Another is making sure that you fully understand yours.”
There followed a long and at times overheated discussion at the end of which they understood all of the problems-including the need for urgency. Their captive Protector could not be held indefinitely in the old Tralthan Observation Ward on Level 202 with a couple of FROB maintenance engineers taking turns at beating it with metal bars. The two Hudlars, despite their immense strength and fearsome aspect, were kindly souls, and the work-in spite of constant reassurances that the activity was necessary for the Protector’s well-being-was causing them serious psychological discomfort.
Everybody had problems, Conway thought. But his own most immediate one, hunger, was easily solved.
He had timed his visit to the dining hall to coincide with the meal schedule of Rhabwar’s medical team, primarily to see Murchison, and he found Prilicla, Naydrad, and Danalta with her at a table designed for Melfan ELNTs. The pathologist did not speak until he had finished tapping out his food selection, an enormous steak with double the usual accessories.
“Obviously you are still yourself,” she said, looking enviously at his plate, “or your alter egos are nonvegetarian. Synthetics are still fattening, you know. Why is it you don’t grow an abdomen like a pregnant Crepellian?”
“It’s my psychological approach to eating which is responsible,” Conway said with a grin as he initiated major surgery on the steak. “Food is simply a fuel which has to be burned up. It must be obvious to you all that I am not enjoying this.”
Naydrad made an untranslatable Kelgian noise and continued eating. Prilicla maintained its stable hover above the table without comment, and Danalta was in the process of growing a pair of Melfan manipulators while the rest of its body resembled a lumpy green pyramid with a single eye on top.
“I’m still myself,” he said to Murchison, “with just a shade of Gogleskan FOKT. I’ve been given the Protector case, among others, and that is what I wanted to talk to you about. Temporarily I’m an acting Diagnostician, with full responsibility and authority regarding treatment, and may call on any assistance I require. I do need help, badly, but I don’t know exactly what kind as yet. Neither do I want to pester other Diagnosticians, even politely, and certainly not the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology. So I shall have to be devious and approach Thornnastor through you, its chief assistant, to get the sort of advice I need.”
Murchison watched his refueling operation for a moment without speaking, then she said seriously, “You don’t have to be circumspect with Thornnastor, you know. It badly wants to be involved in the Protector case, and would have been placed in charge if it hadn’t been for the fact that you were the Senior with firsthand experience of the beastie, and you were already being considered for Diagnostician status. Thorny will be happy to assist you in
