“…Dammit I’m offering you a job! You fit here, can’t you see that? This is a hospital, man, and you’ve cured our first patient …
Chapter 2
SECTOR GENERAL
I
Like a sprawling, misshapen Christmas tree the lights of Sector Twelve General Hospital blazed against the misty backdrop of the stars. From its view-ports shone lights that were yellow and red-orange and soft, liquid green, and others which were a searing actinic blue. There was darkness in places also. Behind these areas of opaque metal plating lay sections wherein the lighting was so viciously incandescent that the eyes of approaching ships’ pilots had to be protected from it, or compartments which were so dark and cold that not even the light which filtered in from the stars could be allowed to penetrate to their inhabitants.
To the occupants of the Telfi ship which slid out of hyper-space to hang some twenty miles from this mighty structure, the garish display of visual radiation was too dim to be detected without the use of instruments. The Telfi were energy-eaters. Their ship’s hull shone with a crawling blue glow of radioactivity and its interior was awash with a high level of hard radiation which was also in all respects normal. Only in the stern section of the tiny ship were the conditions not normal. Here the active core of a power pile lay scattered in small, sub critical and unshielded masses throughout the ship’s Planetary Engines room, and here it was too hot even for the Telfi.
The group-mind entity that was the Telfi spaceship Captain-and Crew-energized its short-range communicator and spoke in the staccato clicking and buzzing language used to converse with those benighted beings who were unable to merge into a Telfi gestalt.
“This is a Telfi hundred-unit gestalt,” it said slowly and distinctly.
“We have casualties and require assistance. Our Classification to one group is VTXM, repeat VTXM …
“Details, please, and degree of urgency,” said a voice briskly as the Telfi was about to repeat the message. It was translated into the same language used by the Captain. The Telfi gave details quickly, then waited. Around it and through it lay the hundred specialized units that were both its mind and multiple body. Some of the units were blind, deaf and perhaps even dead cells that received or recorded no sensory impressions whatever, but there were others who radiated waves of such sheer, excruciating agony that the group-mind writhed and twisted silently in sympathy. Would that voice never reply, they wondered, and if it did, would it be able to help them …?
“You must not approach the Hospital nearer than a distance of five miles,” said the voice suddenly. “Otherwise there will be danger to unshielded traffic in the vicinity, or to beings within the establishment with low radiation tolerance.”
“We understand,” said the Telfi.
“Very well,” said the voice. “You must also realize that your race is too hot for us to handle directly. Remote controlled mechanisms are already on the way to you, and it would ease the problem of evacuation if you arranged to have your casualties brought as closely as possible to the ship’s largest entry port. If this cannot be done, do not worry — we have mechanisms capable of entering your vessel and removing them.”
The voice ended by saying that while they hoped to be able to help the patients, any sort of accurate prognosis was impossible at the present time.
The Telfi gestalt thought that soon the agony that tortured its mind and wide-flung multiple body would be gone, but so also would nearly one quarter of that body …
With that feeling of happiness possible only with eight hours sleep behind, a comfortable breakfast within and an interesting job in front of one, Conway stepped out briskly for his wards. They were not really his wards, of course — if anything went seriously wrong in one of them the most he would be expected to do would be to scream for help. But considering the fact that he had been here only two months he did not mind that, or knowing that it would be a long time before he could be trusted to deal with cases requiring other than mechanical methods of treatment.
Complete knowledge of any alien physiology could be obtained within minutes by Educator tape, but the skill to use that knowledge — especially in surgery — came only with time. Conway was looking forward with conscious pride to spending his life acquiring that skill.
At an intersection Conway saw an FGLJ he knew-a Tralthan intern who was humping his elephantine body along on six spongy feet. The stubby legs seemed even more rubbery than usual and the little OTSB who lived in symbiosis with it was practically comatose. Conway said brightly, “Good morning,” and received a translated — and therefore necessarily emotionless-reply of “Drop dead.” Conway grinned.
There had been considerable activity in and about Reception last evening. Conway had not been called, but it looked as though the Tralthan had missed both his recreation and rest periods.
A few yards beyond the Tralthan he met another who was walking slowly alongside a small DBDG like himself. Not entirely like himself, though — DBDG was the one-group classification which gave the grosser physical attributes, the number of arms, heads, legs, etc., and their placement. The fact that the being had seven-fingered hands, stood only four feet tall and looked like a very cuddly teddy bear — Conway had forgotten the being’s system of origin, but remembered being told that it came from a world which had suffered a sudden bout of glaciation which had caused its highest life-form to develop intelligence and a thick red fur coat — would not have shown up unless the Classification were taken to two or three groups. The DBDG had his hands clasped behind his back and was staring with vacant intensity at the floor. His hulking companion showed similar concentration, but favored the ceiling because of the different position of his visual organs. Both wore their professional insignia on golden armbands, which meant that they were lordly Diagnosticians, no less. Conway refrained from saying good morning to them as he passed, or from making undue noise with his feet.
Possibly they were deeply immersed in some medical problem, Conway thought, or equally likely, they had just had a tiff and were pointedly ignoring each other’s existence. Diagnosticians were peculiar people. It wasn’t that they were insane to begin with, but their job forced a form of insanity onto them.
At each corridor intersection annunciators had been pouring out an alien gabble which he had only half heard in passing, but when it switched suddenly to Terran English and Conway heard his own name being called, surprise halted him dead in his tracks.
To Admittance Lock Twelve at once,” the voice was repeating monotonously. “Classification VTXM-23. Dr. Conway, please go to Admittance Lock Twelve at once. A VTXM-23 …
Conway’s first thought was that they could not possibly mean him. This looked as if he was being asked to deal with a case-a big one, too, because the “23” after the classification code referred to the number of patients to be treated. And that Classification, VTXM, was completely new to him. Conway knew what the letters stood for, of course, but he had never thought that they could exist in that combination. The nearest he could make of them was some form of telepathic species-the V prefixing the classification showed this as their most important attribute, and that mere physical equipment was secondary — who existed by the direct conversion of radiant energy, and usually as a closely cooperative group or gestalt. While he was still wondering if he was ready to cope with a case like this, his feet had turned and were taking him toward Lock Twelve.
His patients were waiting for him at the lock, in a small metal box heaped around with lead bricks and already loaded onto a power stretcher carrier. The orderly told him briefly that the beings called themselves the Telfi, that preliminary diagnosis indicated the use of the Radiation Theater, which was being readied for him, and
