that owing to the portability of his patients he could save time by calling with them to the Educator room and leaving them outside while he took his Telfi physiology tape.
Conway nodded thanks, hopped onto the carrier and set it moving, trying to give the impression that he did this sort of thing every day.
In Conway’s pleasurable but busy life with the high unusual establishment that was Sector General there was only one sour note, and he met it again when he entered the Educator room: there was a Monitor in charge. Conway disliked Monitors. The presence of one affected him rather like the close proximity of a carrier of a contagious disease. And while Conway was proud of the fact that as a sane, civilized and ethical being he could never bring himself actually to hate anybody or anything, he disliked Monitors intensely. He knew, of course, that there were people who went off the beam sometimes, and that there had to be somebody who could take the action necessary to preserve the peace. But with his abhorrence of violence in any form, Conway could not like the men who took that action.
And what were Monitors doing in a hospital anyway?
The figure in neat, dark green coveralls seated before the Educator control console turned quickly at his entrance and Conway got another shock. As well as a Major’s insignia on his shoulder, the Monitor wore the Staff and Serpents emblem of a Doctor!
“My name is O’Mara,” said the Major in a pleasant voice. “I’m the Chief Psychologist of this madhouse. You, I take it, are Dr. Conway.” He smiled.
Conway made himself smile in return, knowing that it looked forced, and that the other knew it also.
“You want the Telfi tape,” O’Mara said, a trifle less warmly. “Well, Doctor, you’ve picked a real weirdie this time. Be sure you get it erased as soon as possible after the job is done-believe me, this isn’t one you’ll want to keep. Thumb-print this and sit over there.”
While the Educator head-band and electrodes were being fitted, Conway tried to keep his face neutral, and keep from flinching away from the Major’s hard, capable hands. O’Mara’s hair was a dull, metallic gray in color, cut short, and his eyes also had the piercing qualities of metal. Those eyes had observed his reactions, Conway knew, and now an equally sharp mind was forming conclusions regarding them.
“Well, that’s it,” said O’Mara when finally it was all over. “But before you go, Doctor, I think you and I should have a little chat; a re-orientation talk, let’s call it. Not now, though, you’ve got a case — but very soon.
Conway felt the eyes boring into his back as he left.
He should have been trying to make his mind a blank as he had been told to do, so the knowledge newly impressed there could bed down comfortably, but all Conway could think about was the fact that a Monitor was a high member of the hospital’s permanent staff-and a doctor, to boot. How could the two professions mix? Conway thought of the armband he wore which bore the Tralthan Black and Red Circle, the Flaming Sun of the chlorine- breathing Illensa and intertwining Serpents and Staff of Earth — all the honored symbols of Medicine of the three chief races of the Galactic Union. And here was this Dr. O’Mara whose collar said he was a healer and whose shoulder tabs said he was something else entirely.
One thing was now sure: Conway would never feel really content here again until he discovered why the Chief Psychologist of the hospital was a Monitor.
II
This was Conway’s first experience of an alien physiology tape, and he noted with interest the mental double vision which had increasingly begun to affect his mind — a sure sign that the tape had “taken.” By the time he had reached the Radiation Theater, he felt himself to be two people — an Earth-human called Conway and the great, five-hundred unit Telfi gestalt which had been formed to prepare a mental record of all that was known regarding the physiology of that race. That was the only disadvantage — if it was a disadvantage — of the Educator Tape system. Not only was knowledge impressed on the mind undergoing “tuition,” the personalities of the entities who had possessed that knowledge was transferred as well. Small wonder then that the Diagnosticians, who held in their mind sometimes as many as ten different tapes, were a little bit queer.
A Diagnostician had the most important job in the hospital, Conway thought, as he donned radiation armor and readied his patients for the preliminary examination. He had sometimes thought in his more self-confident moments of becoming one himself. Their chief purpose was to perform original work in xenological medicine and surgery, using their tape-stuffed brains as a jumping-off ground, and to rally round, when a case arrived for which there was no physiology tape available, to diagnose and prescribe treatment.
Not for them were the simple, mundane injuries and diseases. For a Diagnostician to look at a patient that patient had to be unique, hopeless and at least three-quarters dead. When one did take charge of a case though, the patient was as good as cured — they achieved miracles with monotonous regularity.
With the lower orders of doctor there was always the temptation, Conway knew, to keep the contents of a tape rather than have it erased, in the hope of making some original discovery that would bring them fame. In practical, level — headed men like himself, however, it remained just that, a temptation.
Conway did not see his tiny patients even though he examined them individually. He couldn’t unless he went to a lot of unnecessary trouble with shielding and mirrors to do so. But he knew what they were like, both inside and out, because the tape had practically made him one of them. That knowledge, taken together with the results of his examinations and the case history supplied him, told Conway everything he wanted to know to begin treatment.
His patients had been part of a Telfi gestalt engaged in operating an interstellar cruiser when there had been an accident in one of the power piles. The small, beetle-like and — individually — very stupid beings were radiation eaters, but that flare-up had been too much even for them. Their trouble could be classed as an extremely severe case of over-eating coupled with prolonged over-stimulation of their sensory equipment, especially of the pain centers. If he simply kept them in a shielded container and starved them of radiation-a course of treatment impossible on their highly radioactive ship — about seventy percent of them could be expected to cure themselves in a few hours. They would be the lucky ones, and Conway could even tell which of them came into that category. Those remaining would be a tragedy because if they did not suffer actual physical death their fate would be very much worse: they would lose the ability to join minds, and that in a Telfi was tantamount to being a hopeless cripple.
Only someone who shared the mind, personality and instincts of a Telfi, could appreciate the tragedy it was.
It was a great pity, especially as the case history showed that it was these individuals who had forced themselves to adapt and remain operative during that sudden flare of radiation for the few seconds necessary to scatter the pile and so save their ship from complete destruction. Now their metabolism had found a precarious balance based on three times the Telfi normal energy intake. If this intake of energy was interrupted for any lengthy period of time, say a few more hours, the communications centers of their brains would suffer. They would be left like so many dismembered hands and feet, with just enough intelligence to know that they had been cut off. On the other hand, if their upped energy-intake was continued they would literally burn themselves out within a week.
But there was a line of treatment indicated for these unfortunates, the only one, in fact. As Conway prepared his servos for the work ahead he felt that it was a highly unsatisfactory line — a matter of calculated risks, of cold, medical statistics which nothing he could do would influence. He felt himself to be little more than a mechanic.
Working quickly, he ascertained that sixteen of his patients were suffering from the Telfi equivalent of acute indigestion. These he separated into shielded, absorbent bottles so that re-radiation from their still “hot” bodies would not slow the “starving” process. The bottles he placed in a small pile furnace set to radiate at Telfi normal, with a detector in each which would cause the shielding to fall away from them as soon as their excess radioactivity had gone. The remaining seven would require special treatment. He had placed them in another pile,
