But that was not to be.
Dr. Mannon was waiting for him in the ward when he made his second morning visit on the fifth day. Properly he requested Conway’s permission to look at the patient. Then with this polite formality over he said,
Listen, you young squirt, I’m getting fed up with you gazing abstractedly at your boots or the ceiling every time I come near you — if I hadn’t got the hide of a Tralthan I’d feel slighted. I know, of course, that newly- appointed Seniors take their responsibilities very heavily for the first few weeks, but your recent behavior has been downright rude.”
He held up his hand before Conway could speak, and went on, “I accept your apology, and now to business. I’ve been talking to Prilicla and the people up in Pathology. They tell me that the growth now completely covers the body, that it is opaque to X rays of safe intensities and that the replacement and workings of the patient’s internal organs can now only be guessed at. You can’t cut the stuff away under anesthetic because paralyzing the appendages might knock out the heart, too. Yet an operation is impossible with those limbs whipping about. At the same time the patient is weakening and will continue to do so unless given food, which can’t be done unless its mouth is freed. To complicate matters further your later specimens show that the growth is extending inward rapidly as well, and there are indications that if the operation isn’t done quickly the mouth and tail will have fused together. Is that, in a rather large nutshell, it?”
Conway nodded.
Mannon took a deep breath, then plunged on, “Suppose you amputate the limbs and remove the covering growth from head and tail, replacing the tegument with a suitable synthetic. With the patient able to take nourishment it would shortly be strong enough for the process to be repeated over the rest of its body. It is a drastic procedure, I admit. But in the circumstances it seems to be the only one which could save the patient’s life. And there is always the possibility of successful grafting or artificial members—”
“No!” said Conway violently, and he knew from the way Mannon looked at him that he had gone pale. If his theory concerning the patient was correct, then any sort of operation at this stage would prove fatal. And if not, and the patient was the type of entity which it appeared to be — vicious, warped, and implacably hostile — and its friends came looking for it …
In a quieter voice Conway said, “Suppose a friend of yours with a bad skin condition was picked up by an e-t doctor, and the only thing it could think of doing was to skin him alive and lop his arms and legs off. If or when you found him you would be annoyed. Even taking into account the fact that you are civilized, tolerant and prepared to make allowances — qualities which we cannot safely ascribe to the patient as yet — I would venture to suggest that there would be merry hell to play.”
“That’s not a true analogy and you know it!” Mannon said heatedly. “Sometimes you have to take chances. This is one of those times.”
“No,” said Conway again.
“Maybe you have a better suggestion?”
Conway was silent for a moment, then he said carefully, “I do have an idea which I’m trying out, but I don’t want to discuss it just yet. If it works out you’ll be the first to know, and if it doesn’t you’ll know anyhow. Everybody will.”
Mannon shrugged and turned away. At the door he paused to say awkwardly, “Whatever you’re doing it must be pretty hair-brained for you to be so secretive about it. But remember that if you call me in and the thing goes sour on us, the blame gets halved …
And there speaks a true friend, thought Conway. He was tempted to unburden himself completely to Mannon then. But Dr. Mannon was a nosy, kindly and very able Senior Physician who always had, and always would, take his profession as a healer very seriously, despite the cracks he often made about it. He might not be able to do what Conway would ask, or keep his mouth shut while Conway was doing it.
Regretfully, Conway shook his head.
When Mannon had gone, Conway returned to his patient. Visually it still resembled a doughnut, he thought, but a doughnut which had become wrinkled and fossilized with the passage of eons. He had to remind himself that only a week had passed since the patient had been admitted. The five pairs of limbs, all beginning to show signs of being affected by the growth, projected stiffly and at odd angles from the body, like petrified twigs on a rotten tree. Realizing that the growth would cover the breathing openings, Conway had inserted tubes to keep the respiratory passages clear. The tubes were having the desired effect, but despite this the respiration had slowed and become shallow. The stethoscope indicated that the heartbeats were fainter but had increased in frequency.
Sheer indecision made Conway sweat.
If only it was an ordinary patient, Conway thought angrily; one that could be treated openly and its treatment discussed freely. But this one was complicated by the fact that it was a member of a highly advanced and possibly inimical race, and he could not confide in anyone lest he be pulled off the case before his theory was proven. And the trouble was that the theory might be all wrong. It was quite possible that he was engaged in slowly killing his patient.
Noting the heart and respiration rates on the chart, Conway decided that it was time he increased the periodicity of his visits, and also arranged the times so that Prilicla, who was busy these days in the Nursery, could accompany him.
Kursedd was watching him intently as he left the ward, and its fur was doing peculiar things. Conway did not waste his breath telling the nurse to keep quiet about what he was doing to his patient because that would have made the being gossip even more. It was he who was being talked about already by the nursing staff, and he had begun to detect a certain coldness toward him from some of the senior nurses in this section. But with any luck, word of what he was doing would not filter up to his seniors for several days.
Three hours later he was back in 31 OB with Dr. Prilicla. He checked heart and respiration again while the GLNO probed for emotional radiation.
“It is very weak,” Prilicla reported slowly. “Life is present, but so faintly that it is not even conscious of itself. Considering the almost nonexistent respiration and weak, rapid pulse-rate …” The thought of death was particularly distressing to an empath, and the sensitive little being could not bring itself to finish the sentence.
“All these scares we gave it, trying to reassure it, didn’t help,” Conway said, half to himself. “It hadn’t been able to eat and we caused it to use up reserves of energy which it badly needed to keep. But it had to protect itself …
“But why? We were helping the patient.”
“Of course we were,” Conway said in a bitingly sarcastic tone which he knew would not carry through the other’s Translator. He was about to continue with the examination when there was a sudden interruption.
The being whose vast bulk scraped both sides and the top of the ward door on its way in was a Tralthan, physiological classification FGLI. To Conway the natives of Traltha were as hard to tell apart as sheep, but he knew this one. This was no less than Thornnastor, Diagnostician-in Charge of Pathology.
The Diagnostician curled two of its eyes in Prilicla’s direction and boomed, “Get out of here, please. You too, Nurse.” Then it turned all four of them on Conway.
“I am speaking to you alone,” Thornnastor said when they had gone,
“because some of my remarks have bearing on your professional conduct during this case, and I have no wish to increase your discomfort by public censure. However, I will begin by giving you the good news that we have produced a specific against this growth. Not only does it inhibit the condition spreading but it softens up the areas already affected and regenerates the tissues and blood-supply network involved.”
Oh, blast! thought Conway. Aloud he said, “A splendid accomplishment.” Because it really was.
“It would not have been possible had we not sent out a doctor to the wreck with instructions to send us anything which might throw light on the patient’s metabolism,” the Diagnostician continued. “Apparently you overlooked this source of data completely, Doctor, because the only specimens you furnished were those taken from the wreck during the time you were there, a very small fraction indeed of the quantity which was available.
