the Conway Project?”
“Rather than listen to my incomplete and inaccurate description,” the Hudlar replied, “it would be better for you to learn about the project from Conway itself. It is the hospital’s Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery, and it will be lecturing and demonstrating its new FROB major operative techniques here this afternoon.
“I shall be required to observe the operation,” it went on. “But we will need surgeons so badly and in such large numbers that you would only have to express an interest in the project, not actually join it, to be invited to attend. It would be reassuring to have someone beside me who is almost as ignorant as I am.”
“Other-species surgery,” Cha Thrat said, “is my principal interest. But I’ve only just arrived in the ward. Would the Charge Nurse release me from duty so soon?”
“Of course,” the FROB said as they were moving to the next patient. “Just so long as you do nothing to antagonize it.”
“I won’t,” she said, then added, “at least, not deliberately.”
There was no muffler around the third patient’s speaking membrane, and a few minutes before their arrival it had been having an animated conversation about its grandchildren with a patient across the ward. Cha Thrat spoke the ritual greeting used by the healers on Sommaradva and, it seemed, by every medic in the hospital.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Well, thank you, Nurse,” the patient replied, as she knew it would.
Plainly the being was anything but well. Although it was mentally alert and the degenerative process had notyet advanced to the stage where the pain-killing medication had no effect, the mere sight of the surface condition of the body and tentacles made her itch. But, like so many of the other patients she had treated, this one would not dream of suggesting that her ability was somehow lacking by saying that it was not well.
“When you’ve absorbed some more food,” she said while her partner was busy with its sponge, “you will feel even better.”
Fractionally better, she added silently. “I haven’t seen you before, Nurse,” the patient went on. “You’re new, aren’t you? I think you have a most interesting and visually pleasing shape.”
“The last time that was said to me,” Cha Thrat said as she turned on the spray, “it was by an overardent young Sommaradvan of the opposite sex.”
Untranslatable sounds came from the patient’s speaking membrane and the great, disease-wasted body began twitching in its cradle. Then it said, “Your sexual integrity is quite safe with me, Nurse. Regrettably, I am too old and infirm for it to be otherwise.”
A Sommaradvan memory came back to her, of seriously wounded and immobilized warrior-patients of her own species trying to flirt with her during surgical rounds, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I may need further reassurance in this matter when you become convalescent …”
It was the same with the other patients. The Hudlar nurse said very little while the patients and Cha Thrat did all the talking. She was new to the ward, a member of a species from a world about which they knew nothing, and a subject, therefore, of the most intense but polite curiosity. They did not want to discuss themselves or their distressing physical conditions, they wanted to talkabout Cha Thrat and Sommaradva, and she was pleased to satisfy their curiosity — at least about the more pleasant aspects of her life there.
The constant talking helped her to forget her growing fatigue and the fact that, in spite of the gravity compensators reducing the weight of the heavy nutrient tank to zero, the harness straps were making a painful and possibly permanent impression on her upper thorax. Then suddenly there were only three patients left to sponge and feed, and Segroth had materialized behind them.
“If you work as well as you talk, Cha Thrat,” the Charge Nurse said, “I shall have no complaints.” To the Hudlar, it added, “How is it doing, Nurse?”
“It assists me very well, Charge Nurse,” the FROB trainee replied, “and without complaint. It is pleasant and at ease with the patients.”
“Good, good,” Segroth said, its fur rippling in approval. “But Cha Thrat belongs to another one of those species that require food at least three times a day if a pleasant disposition is to be maintained, and the midday meal is overdue. Would you like to finish the rest of the patients by yourself, Nurse?”
“Of course,” the Hudlar said as Segroth was turning away.
“Charge Nurse,” Cha Thrat said quickly. “I realize that I’ve only just arrived, but could I have permission to attend the—”
“The Conway lecture,” Segroth finished for her. “Naturally, you’ll find any excuse to escape the hard work of the ward. But perhaps I do you an injustice. Judging by the conversations I have overheard on the sound sensors, you have displayed good control of your feelings while talking with the patients and, considering your surgical background, the practical aspects of the lecture should not worry you. However, if any part ofthe demonstration distresses you, leave at once and asunobtrusively as possible.
“Permission would normally be refused a newly joined trainee like yourself,” it ended, “but if you can make it to the dining hall and back inside the hour, you may attend.”
“Thank you,” Cha Thrat said to the Kelgian’s already departing back. Quickly she began loosening the nutrient tank harness.
“Before you go, Nurse,” the Hudlar trainee said, “would you mind using some of that stuff on me? I’mstarving!”
Cha Thrat was among the first to arrive and stood— Hudlars did not use chairs, so the FROB lecture theater did not provide them — as close as possible to the operating cradle while she watched the place fill up. There was a scattering of Melfan ELNTs, Kelgian DBLFs, and Tralthan FGLIs among those present, but the majority were Hudlars in various stages of training. She was hemmed in by FROBs, so much so that she did not think that she would be able to leave even if she should want to, and she assumed — she still could not tell them apart — that the one standing closest to her was her partner of the morning.
From the conversations going on around her it was obvious that Diagnostician Conway was regarded as a very important being indeed, a medical near-deity in whose mind resided, by means of a powerful spell and the instrumentation of O’Mara, the knowledge, memories, and instincts of many other-species personalities. Having seen the hapless condition of the FROB ward’s pre-op patients, she was looking forward with growing anticipation to seeing it perform.
In appearance Conway was not at all impressive. It was an Earth-human DBDG, slightly above average inheight, with head fiir that was a darker gray than the wizard O’Mara’s.
It spoke with the quiet certainty of a great ruler, and began the lecture without preamble.
“For any of you who may not be completely informed regarding the Hudlar Project, and who may be concerned with the ethical position, let me assure you that the patient on which we will be operating today, its fellows in the FROB ward, and all the other geriatric and pre-geriatric cases waiting in great distress on the home world, are all candidates for elective surgery.
“The number of cases is so great — a significant proportion of the planetary population, in fact — that we cannot possibly treat them in Sector General …”
As the Earth-human Diagnostician talked on, Cha Thrat became increasingly disheartened by the sheer magnitude of the problem. A planet that contained, at any given time, many millions of beings in the same horrifying condition as the patients she had been recently attending was an idea that her mind did not want to face. But it became clear that Conway had faced it and was working toward an eventual solution — by training large numbers of the medically untutored Hudlars, assisted by other-species volunteers, to help themselves.
Initially, Sector General would provide basic tuition in FROB physiology, pre- and postoperative nursing care, and training in just one simple surgical procedure. The successful candidates, unless they displayed such an unusually high aptitude that they were offered positions on the staff, would return home to establish their own training organizations. Within three generations there would be enough own-species specialist surgeons to make this dreadful and hitherto unavoidable scourge of the Hudlars a thing of the past.
The sheer scale and what appeared to be the utter,criminal irresponsibility of the project shocked and sickened Cha Thrat. Conway was not training surgeons, it was turning out vast numbers of conscienceless, organic machines! She had been surprised when the Hudlar trainee had mentioned the time required for qualification, and it was possible that the hospital’s tutors would be able to provide the necessary practical training during that short period. But what about the long-term indoctrination, the courses of mental and physical exercises that would
