doing to you, and will be expecting you to arrive back bruised and bleeding.”
The idea of Prilicla inflicting any kind of injury on anyone was so ridiculous that even a Gogleskan as well as a Sommaradvan and Earth-human considered it funny. Cha Thrat laughed out loud as, with the down-draft from the empath’s wings stirring her hair, they followed the others back to the lander.
“You realize, friend Cha,” the empath said, its trembling limbs a visible apology for the words that would diminish her pleasure, “that O’Mara will have to be told.”
CHAPTER 15
By the time they had been transfered from the lander to the special FOKT accommodation of Rhab-war’s casualty deck, both patients were fully conscious and making loud hissing noises. The sounds that the younger one was making did not translate, but Khone’s were divided into repeated expressions of gratitude for its survival and weak but very insistent reassurances about its clinical condition. The healer’s self-diagnosis was supported by the biosensors and confirmed by the less tangible but even more accurate findings of the emotion-sensitive Prilicla. And now that it was separated from its friendly off-world monsters, and its subconscious fears thereby allayed, by a thick transparent partition, Khone was quite happy to speak to anyone at anytime.
That included the nonmedical crew members who, with Captain Fletcher’s permission, left their positions in Control and the Power Room briefly to congratulate the patient and tell complimentary lies about the obvious intelligence, parental resemblance, and great beauty of the new arrival, a male child of greater than average weight. In spite of Prilicla’s urgings that it should rest and refrain from overexcitement, the atmosphere around Khone’s accommodation more closely resembled a birthday party than the casualty deck of an ambulance ship.
When Captain Fletcher arrived, they did not need an emphatic faculty to feel the atmosphere change. To Khone the Earth-human made a perfunctory inquiry about its health, then turned quickly to Prilicla.
“I need a decision, Senior Physician,” it went on, “one that only you people can make. The hospital signaled us a few minutes ago, saying that an emergency beacon had been detected in this sector. The distressed ship is about five hours subspace flight away; the distress beacon was not one of the types used by the Federation, so the casualties might be a species new to us. That makes it difficult to estimate the time needed for the rescue. It could take a couple of days rather than hours.
“The question is,” it ended, “do your patients require hospitalization before or after we respond to this distress call?”
It was not an easy decision to make because their patients, although stable and not in need of urgent treatment, belonged to a life-form about which little was known clinically, so that unexpected complications might arise at any time. Surprisingly the discussion, which was animated but necessarily brief, was ended by Khone itself.
“Please, friends,” it said during one of the rare lulls, “Gogleskan females recover quickly once the birth trauma is over. I can assure you, both as a healer and a parent, that such a delay will not endanger either of us. Besides, here we are receiving much better attention than would be possible anywhere on Goglesk.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Murchison said quietly. “We may be going into a disaster situation possibly involving a life-form completely new to us. It is conceivable that they might horrify or scare even us,much less a Gogleskan leaving its planet for the nrsttime.”
“They might,” Khone replied, “but they would almostcertainly be in a worse condition than I am.”
“Very well,” Prilicla said, turning back to the Captain. “It seems that friend Khone has reminded us of the priorities and of our duty as healers. Tell the hospital that Rhabwar will respond.”
Fletcher disappeared in the direction of Control, and the Cinrusskin went on. “We should now eat and sleep, since there might not be an opportunity to do either for some time. The patients’ biosensors will be monitored automatically and any change in condition signaled to me at once. They need rest, too, and they wouldn’t get it if I left a team member on duty. Come along, everyone. Sleep well, friend Khone.”
It flew gracefully into the gravity-free central well and up toward the dining and recreation deck, followed in more orthodox fashion by Naydrad, Danalta, Murchison, and Cha Thrat. But just before they began their weightless climb, Murchison gripped the ladder with one hand and placed the other on one of her mediallimbs.
“Wait, please,” it said. “I would like to speak to you.” Cha Thrat stopped but did not speak. The sensation of alien digits gently enclosing her arm and the sight of the flabby, pink Earth-human face looking up at her were giving rise to feelings that no Sommaradvan, much less a female one, had any business harboring. Slowly, so as not to give offense, she disengaged the limb from the other’s grip and sought for emotionalcontrol.
“I’m worried about this ship rescue, Cha Thrat,” it said, “and the effect on you of the casualties we may have to treat. Disaster injuries can be pretty bad, colli-sion fractures and explosive decompressions for the most part, and as a rule there are very few survivors. You don’t seem to be able to keep your Sommaradvan nose out of the medical area, but this time you must try, try really hard, not to get involved with our casualties.”
Before Cha Thrat could reply, it went on. “You did some very nice work with Khone, even though I’m still not sure what exactly was going on, but you were very lucky. If Khone or the infant or both of them had died, how would you have felt? More important, what would you have done to yourself?”
“Nothing,” Cha Thrat said, trying hard to tell herself that the expression on the pink face below her was one of friendly concern for an other-species subordinate and not something more personal. Quickly she went on. “I would have felt very bad, but I would not have injured myself again. The code of ethics of a warrior-surgeon is strict, and even on Sommaradva there were colleagues who did not observe it as I have done, and who envied and disliked me for my own strict observance. To me the code remains valid, but in Sector General and on Gog- lesk there are other and equally valid codes. My viewpoints have changed …”
She stopped herself, afraid that she had said too much, but the other had not noticed that she had used the plural.
“We call that broadening the mind,” Murchison said, “and I’m relieved and pleased for you, Cha Thrat. It’s a pity that … Well, I meant what I said about you being the Maintenance Department’s gain and our loss. Your superiors find you a bit hard to take at times, and after the Chalder and Hudlar incidents I can’t imagine you being accepted for ward training by anyone. But maybe if you waited until the fuss died down, and didn’t doanything else to get yourself noticed, I could speak to a few people about having you transfered back to the medical staff. How do you feel about that?”
“I feel grateful,” she replied, trying desperately to find a way of ending this conversation with a being who was not only sympathetic and understanding as a person, but whose physical aspect was arousing in her other feelings of the kindusually associated with the urge to procreate. Most definitely, she thought, this was a problem that could only be resolved by one of O’Mara’s spells. Quickly she added, “I also feel very hungry.”
“Hungry!” Murchison said. As the Earth-human turned to resume climbing to the dining area, it laughed suddenly and said, “You know, Cha Thrat, sometimes you remind me of my life-mate.”
She was able to rest after the meal but not sleep and, after three hours of trying, she made the excuse to herself that Rhone’s life-support and synthetic food delivery systems needed checking. She found the Gogleskan awake, as well, and they talked quietly while it fed the infant. Soon afterward they were both asleep and she was left to stare silently at the complex shapes of the casualty deck equipment, which looked like weird, mechanical phantasms in the night-level lighting, until the arrival of Prilicla.
“Have you been able to speak with friend Khone?” the Cinrusskin asked, hovering over the two Gogles- kans.
“Yes,” Cha Thrat replied. “It will do as you suggested, to avoid embarrassing us.”
“Thank you, friend Cha,” Prilicla said. “I feel the others awake and about to join us. We should be arrivingat any—”
It was interrupted by a double chime that announced their emergence into normal space, followed a few min-utes later by the voice of Lieutenant Haslam speaking! from Control.
“We have long-range sensor contact with a large] ship,” the communications officer said. “There are noj indications of abnormal radiation levels, no expanding cloud of debris, no sign of any catastrophic malfunction.! The vessel is rotating around its longtitudinal axis as well I as spinning slowly end over end. We are locking the
