“I do not know,” the Cinrusskin said. “I have no previous experience and there are no recorded instances of the condition among my species. I am confused, friend Conway, and frightened.”
“Symptoms?” Conway asked.
“Empathic hypersensitivity,” Prilicla replied. “The emotional radiation of yourself, the rest of the medical team, and the crew is particularly strong. I can clearly detect the feelings of Lieutenant Chen in the Power Room and those of the rest of the crew in Control with little or no attenuation with distance. The expected, low-key feelings of disappointment and sorrow caused by the unsuccessful rescue bid are reaching me with shocking intensity. We have encountered these tragedies before now, friend Conway, but this emotional reaction to the condition of a being who is a complete stranger is — is—”
“We do feel bad about this one,” Conway broke in gently, “perhaps worse than we normally do, and the feelings are cumulative. And you, as an emotion-sensitive, could be expected to feel them much more strongly. This might explain your apparent hypersensitivity.”
The empath trembled with the effort needed to express disagreement. It said, “No, friend Conway. The condition and emotional radiation of the EGCL, highly unpleasant though it is, is not the problem. It is the ordinary, everyday radiation of everyone else — the minor embarrassments, the bursts of irritation, the odd emotions associated with the feeling you Earth-humans call humor and the like, are registering so strongly with me that I find difficulty in thinking clearly.”
“I see,” Conway said automatically, although he could not see at all. “Apart from the hypersensitivity, are there any other symptoms?”
“Some unlocalized discomfort in the limbs and lower thorax,” Prilicla replied. “I checked the areas with my scanner but could find no obstructions or abnormalities.”
Conway had been reaching for his own pocket scanner but thought better of it. Without taking a Cinrusskin physiology tape he would have only a vage idea of what to look for, and Prides, Prilicla was a first-class diagnostician and surgeon and if it said that there were no abnormalities then that was good enough for Conway.
“Cinrusskins are susceptible to illness only during childhood,” Prilicla went on. “The adults do occasionally suffer from nonphysical disturbances, and the onset of symptoms, as expected with psychological disorders, takes many forms, some of which resemble my present—”
“Nonsense, you’re not going insane!” Conway broke in. But he did not feel as sure as he sounded, and he was uncomfortably aware that Prilicla knew his feelings and was beginning to tremble again.
“The obvious course,” Conway said, trying to regain his clinical calm, “is to desensitize you with a hefty sedative shot. You know that as well as I. But you are too good a doctor to self-administer the indicated medication which would, we both realize, simply be treating the symptoms, without first doing something about the disease, like reporting it to me. Isn’t that so?”
“That is so, friend Conway.”
“Right, then,” Conway said briskly. “You also realize that we can’t do anything about curing the condition until we have you back in the hospital. In the meantime we’ll treat the symptoms with heavy sedation. I want you completely unconscious. You are relieved of all medical duties, naturally, until we have the answer to your little problem.”
Conway could almost feel the little empath’s objections while he was lifting it gently into a pressure litter fitted with gravity nullifiers and the incredibly soft restraints required by this uftrafragile species. Finally Prilicla spoke.
“Friend Conway,” it said weakly, “you know that I am the only medically trained empath on the staff. Our patient wiil require extensive and delicate cerebral surgery. If my condition precludes me from taking a direct part in the operation, I wish to be treated in an adjacent ward where this abnormal hyper-sensitivity will better enable me to monitor the EGCL’s unconscious emotional radiation.
“You know as well as I do,” it went on, “that brain surgery in a hitherto unknown life-form is largely exploratory and very, very risky, and my empathic faculty enables me to sense when surgical intervention in any area is right or wrong. By becoming a patient I have lost none of my abilities as a diagnostic empath, and for this reason, friend Conway, I want your promise that I will be placed as close as possible to the patient and restored to full consciousness while the operation is in progress.”
“Well—” Conway began.
“I am not a telepath, as you know,” Prilicla said, so weakly that Conway had to increase the gain on his translator to hear it. “But your feelings, if you do not intend to keep this promise, will be clear to me.”
Conway had never known the normally timid Prilicla to be so forthright in its manner. Then he thought of what the empath was asking him to do — to subject it, in its hypersensitive state, to the emotional trauma of a lengthy operation during which, because of the patient’s strange physiological classification and metabolism, the effectiveness of the anesthetics could not be guaranteed. His hard-held clinical detachment slipped for a moment and he felt like any concerned friend or relative watching a patient whose prognosis was uncertain.
Prilicla began to shake in its harness, but the sedative was taking effect, and very soon it was unconscious and untroubled by Conway’s feelings for it.
“This is Reception,” a flat, translated voice said from the Control Deck’s main speaker. “Identify yourself, please. State whether visitor, patient, or staff and give physiological classification. If unable to do so because of physical injury, mental confusion, or ignorance of the classification system, please make vision contact.”
Conway cleared his throat and said briskly, “Ambulance ship Rhabwar, Senior Physician Conway. Staff and two patients, all warm-blooded oxygen breathers. Staff classifications are Earth-human DBDG, Cinrusskin GLNO, and Kelgian DBLF. One patient is an EGCL, origin unknown, space wreck casualty in condition nine. The second patient is also staff, a GLNO in condition three. We need—”
“Prilicla?”
“Yes, Prilicla,” Conway said. “We need matching environment OR and postop intensive care facilities for the EGCL, treatment to begin on arrival, and adjacent accommodation for the GLNO whose empathic faculty may be required during the operation. Can do?”
There was silence for a few minutes, then Reception said, 'Use Entry Lock Nine into Level One Six Three, Rhabwar.
Your traffic coding is Priority Red One. ETA?”
Fletcher looked across at his astrogator, and Lieutenant Dodds said, “Two hours, seven minutes, sir.”
“Wait,” Reception said.
There was another silence, much longer this time, before the voice returned. “Diagnostician Thornnastor wishes to discuss the patient’s condition and metabolic profile with Pathologist Murchison and yourself as soon as possible. Senior Physician Edanelt has been assigned to assist Thomnastor during the operation. Both require information on the type and extent of the EGCL’s injuries and want you to transmit surface and deep-scan pictures at once. Until otherwise instructed you are assigned to the Cinrusskin patient. As soon as possible Chief Psychologist O’Mara wants to talk to you about Prilicla.”
It promised to be a very busy two hours and seven minutes.
In Rhabwar’s forward viewscreen the hospital grew from a fuzzy smear of light against the stellar background until it seemed to fill all of space like a gigantic, cylindrical Christmas tree. Its thousands of viewports blazed with light in the dazzling variety of color and intensity necessary for the visual equipment of its patients and staff.
Within a few minutes of Rhabwar docking at Lock Nine, the EGCL and Prilicla had been moved into Operating Room Three and Ward Seven respectively on Level 163. Con way was not familiar with this particular level because it had still been in the process of conversion from the old FROB, FGLI, and ELNT medics’ quarters when he had been detached for ambulance ship duty. Now the Tralthans, Hudlars, and Melfans had more spacious accommodations and their old abode had become the emergency admission and treatment level for warmblooded oxygen breathers, with its own operating theaters, intensive care units, observation and recovery wards, and a diet kitchen which could reproduce the staples of every known warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing race.
While Naydrad and Conway were transferring the EGCL casualty from the litter’s portable life-support and biosensor systems to those of the operating room, Thornnastor and Edanelt arrived.
Senior Physician Edanelt had been the natural if not the inevitable choice for this case. Not only was it one of the hospital’s top surgeons, the permanent possessor of four physiology tapes and, according to the grapevine, a
