The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 174
He remembered the second TRLH ...
It had arrived strapped to a pressure litter whose atmosphere unit had already filled it with the poison which the occupant called air. Through the twin transparencies of the litter wall and the TRLH's suit its injuries were plainly apparent—large, depressed fracture of the carapace which had cut underlying blood vessels. There was no time to take the tapes he had used during the previous TRLH case because the patient was obviously bleeding to death. Conway nodded for the litter to be clamped into the cleared area in the centre of the floor and quickly changed his suit gauntlets for litter gloves. From the beds attached to the ceiling, eyes watched his every move.
HE CHARGED the gloves and pushed his hands against the sagging, transparent fabric of the tent. Immediately the thin, tough material became rubbery and pliable without losing any of its strength. It clung to the charged gloves, if not like a second skin at least like another pair of thin gloves. Carefully so as not to strain the fabric which seperated the two mutually poisonous atmospheres, Conway removed the patient's suit with instruments clipped to the inside of the litter.
Quite complex procedures were possible while operating a flexible tent—Conway had a couple of PVSJs and a QCQL a few beds away to prove it—but they were limited by the instruments and medication available inside the tent, and the slight hampering effect of the fabric.
He had been removing the splinters of carapace from the damaged area when the crash of a missile striking nearby made the floor jump. The alarm bell which indicated a pressure drop sounded a few minutes later and Murchison and the Kelgian military doctor—the entire ward staff—had hurried to check the seals on the tents of patients who were not able to check their own. The drop was slight, probably a small leak caused by sprung plating, but to Conway's patient inside the tent it could be deadly. He had begun working with frantic speed.
But while he had striven to tie off the severed blood vessels the thin, tough fabric of the pressure litter began to swell out. It had become difficult to hold instruments, virtually impossible to guide them accurately, and his hands were actually pushed away from the operative field. The difference in pressure between the interior of the tent and the ward was only a few pounds per square inch at most, barely enough to have made Conway's ears pop, but the fabric of the litter had continued to balloon out. He had withdrawn helplessly, and half an hour later when the leak had been sealed and normal pressure restored, he had started again. By then it had been too late.
He remembered a sudden impairment of vision then, and a shock of surprise when he realised that he was crying. Tears weren't a conditioned medical reflex, he knew, because doctors just did not cry over patients. Probably it had been a combination of anger at losing the patient—who really should not have been lost—and his extreme fatigue. And when he'd seen the expressions of all the patients watching him, Conway had felt horribly embarrassed.
NOW THE events around him had taken on a jerky, erratic motion. His eyes kept closing and several seconds, or minutes, passed before he could force them open again even though to himself no time at all went by. The walking wounded—patients with injuries which allowed them to move about the ward and return quickly to their tents in the event of a puncture—were moving from bed to bed doing the small, necessary jobs, or chatting with patients who couldn't move, or hanging like ungainly shoals of fish while they talked among themselves. But Conway was always too busy with the newly-arrived patients, or too confused with a multiplicity of tapes, to chat with the older ones. Mostly, however, his eyes went to the sleeping figures of Murchison and the Kelgian who floated near the entrance to the ward.
The Kelgian hung like a great, furry question mark, now and then emitting the low moaning sound which some DBLFs made when they were asleep. Murchison floated at the end of a snaking, ten-foot safety line, turning slowly. It was odd how sleepers in the weightless condition adopted the foetal position, Conway thought tenderly as he watched his beautiful, adult, girl baby swaying at the end of an impossibly thin umbilical cord. He desperately wanted to sleep himself, but it was his spell on duty and he would not be relieved for a long time—five minutes maybe, or five hours, but an eternity in either case. He would have to keep doing something.
Without realising he had made a decision he found himself moving into the empty storeroom which housed the terminal and probable terminal cases. It was only here that Conway spared himself the time to chat, or if talking was not possible to do the essential and at the same time useless things which help to comfort the dying. With the e-ts he could only stand by and hope that the shattered, bloody wreckage of the Tralthan or Melfan or whatever would be given a tiny flash of Prilicla's empathic faculty so that they would know he was a friend and how he felt.
It was only gradually that Conway became aware that the walking wounded had followed him into the room, together with patients who had no business being outside their tents who were being towed by the others. They gathered slowly around and above him, their expression grim, determined and respectful. Major Stillman pushed his way to the front, awkwardly, because in his one good hand he carried a gun.
"The killing has got to stop, Doctor," Stillman said quietly. "We've all talked it over and that's what we decided. And it's got to be stopped right now." He reversed the weapon suddenly, offering it to Conway. "You might need this, to point at Dermod to keep him from doing anything foolish while we're telling him what has been going on ..."
Close behind Stillman hung the mummified shape of Captain Williamson and the man who had towed him in. They were talking to each other in low voices and the language was both foreign and familiar to Conway. Before he could place it the patients all began moving out again and he noticed how many of them were armed. The weapons had been part of the spacesuits they had worn, and Conway had not thought about guns when he had piled the suits into a ward storage space. Dermod, he thought, would be very annoyed with him. Then he followed the patients out to the main ward entrance, and the corridor which led to Reception.
Stillman talked nearly all the time, telling him what had been happening. When they were almost there he said anxiously, "You don't think I'm ... I'm a traitor for doing this, Doctor?"
There were so many different emotions churning inside Conway that all he could say was "No!"
Chapter Twenty-One
HE FELT ridiculous pointing the gun at the fleet commander, but that had seemed to be the only way to do this thing. Conway had entered Reception, threaded his way through the officers around the control desk until he had reached Dermod, then he had held the gun on the fleet commander while the others came in. He had also tried to explain things, but he wasn't doing a very good job.
"... So you want me to surrender, Doctor," said Dermod wearily, not looking at the gun. His eyes went from Conway's face to those of some of the Corpsmen patients who were still floating into the room. He looked hurt and disappointed, as if a friend had done a very shameful thing.
Conway tried again.
"Not surrender, sir," he said, pointing at the man who was still guiding Williamson's stretcher. "We ... I mean, that man over there needs a communicator. He wants to order a cease fire ..."
Stammering in his eagerness to explain what had happened, Conway started with the influx of casualties after the collision between Vespasian and the enemy transport. The interiors of both ships were a shambles and, while it was known that there were enemy as well as Corpsmen injured, there had never been time or the staff available to separate them. Then later, when the less seriously injured began to move around, talking to or helping to nurse the other patients, it became plain that almost half of the casualties were from the other side. Oddly this did not seem to matter much to the patients, and the staff were too busy to notice. So the patients went on doing the simpler, necessary and not very pleasant jobs for each other, jobs which just had to be done in a ward so drastically understaffed, and talking ...
FOR THESE were Corpsmen from Vespasian, and Vespasian had been to Etla. Which meant that its crew were variously proficient in the Etlan language, and the Etlans spoke the same language as that used all over the Empire—a general purpose language similar to the Federation's Universal. They talked to each other a lot and one of the things they learned, after the initial caution and distrust had passed, was that the enemy transport had contained some very high officers. One of the ones who had survived the collision was third in line of command of the Empire forces around Sector General ...
"... And for the last few days peace talks have been going on among my patients," Conway ended breathlessly. "Unofficial, perhaps, but I think Captain Williamson and Heraltnor here have enough rank to make them binding."
Heraltnor, the enemy officer, spoke briefly and vehemently to Williamson in Etlan, then gently tilted the plaster encased figure of the Captain until he could look at the fleet commander. Heraltnor watched Dermod, too. Anxiously.
"He's no fool, sir," said Williamson painfully. "From the sound of the bombardment and the glimpses he's had of your screens he knows our defences are hammered flat. He says that his people could land now and we couldn't do a thing to stop them. That is true, sir, and we both know it. He says his chief will probably order the landing in a matter of hours, but he still wants a cease fire, sir, not a surrender.
"He doesn't want his side to win," the Captain ended weakly. "He just wants the fighting to stop. There are some things he has been told about this war and us which need straightening out, he says ..."
"He's been saying a lot," said Dermod angrily. His face had a tortured look, as if he was wanting desperately to hope but did not dare let himself do so. He went on, "And you men have been doing a lot of talking! Why didn't you let me know about it ...?"
"IT WASN'T what we said," Stillman broke in sharply, "it was what we did! They didn't believe a word we told them at first. But this place wasn't at all what they had been told to expect, it looked more like a hospital than a torture chamber. Appearances could have been deceptive, and they were a very suspicious bunch, but they saw human and e-t doctors and nurses working themselves to death over them, and they saw him. Talking didn't do anything, at least not until later. It was what we did, what he did ...!"
Conway felt his ears getting warm. He protested, "But the same thing was happening in every ward of the hospital!"
"Shut up, Doctor," Stillman said respectfully, then went on, "He never seemed to sleep. He hardly ever spoke to us once we were out of danger, but the patients in the side ward he never let up on, even though they were the hopeless cases. A couple of them he proved not to be hopeless, and moved them out to us in the main ward. It didn't matter what side they were on, he worked as hard for everybody ..."
"Stillman," said Conway sharply, "you're dramatising things ...!"
"... Even then they were wavering a bit," Stillman went on regardless. "But it was the TRLH case which clinched things. The TRLHs were enemy e-t volunteers, and normally the Empire people don't think much of e-ts and expected us to feel the same. Especially as this e-t was on the other side. But he worked just as hard on it, and when the pressure drop made it impossible for him to go on with the operation and the e-t died, they saw his reaction—"
"Stillman!" said Conway furiously.
But Stillman did not go into details. He was silent, watching Dermod anxiously. Everybody was watching Dermod. Except Conway, who was looking at Heraltnor.
The Empire officer did not look very impressive at that moment, Conway thought. He looked like a very ordinary, greying, middle-aged man with a heavy chin and worry-lines around his eyes. In comparison to Dermod's trim green uniform with its quietly impressive load of insignia the shapeless, white garment issued to DBDG patients put Heraltnor at somewhat of a disadvantage. As the silence dragged on Conway wondered whether they would salute each other or just nod.
But they did better than either, they shook hands.
THERE WAS an initial period of suspicion and mistrust, of course. The Empire commander-in-chief was convinced that Heraltnor had been hypnotised at first, but when the investigating party of Empire officers landed on Sector General after the cease fire the distrust diminished rapidly to zero. For Conway the only thing which diminished was his worries regarding wards being opened to space. There was still too much for his staff and himself to do, even though engineers and medical officers from the Empire fleet were doing all they could to put Sector General together again. While they worked the first trickle of the evacuated staff began to return, both medical and maintenance, and the Translator computer went back into operation. Then five weeks and six days after the cease fire the Empire fleet left the vicinity of the hospital. They left their wounded behind them, the reasons being that they were getting the best possible treatment where they were, and that the fleet might have more fighting to do.
In one of the daily meetings with the hospital authorities—which still consisted of O'Mara and Conway since nobody more senior to them had come with the recent arrivals—Dermod tried to put a complex situation into very simple terms.
"... Now that the Imperial citizens know the truth about Etla among other things," he said seriously, "the Emperor and his administration are virtually extinct. But things are still very confused in some sectors and a show of force will help stabilise things. I'd like it to be just a show of force, which is why I talked their commander into taking some of our cultural contact and sociology people with him. We want to get rid of the Emperor, but not at the price of a civil war.
"Heraltnor wanted you to go along, too, Doctor. But I told him that ..."
Beside him O'Mara groaned. "Besides saving hundreds of lives," the Chief Psychologist said, "and averting a galaxy-wide war, our miracle-working, brilliant young doctor is being called on to—"
"Stop needling him, O'Mara!" Dermod said sharply. "Those things are literally true, or very nearly so. If he hadn't ..."
"Just force of habit, sir," said O'Mara blandly. "As a head-shrinker I consider it my bounden duty to keep his from swelling ..."
AT THAT moment the main screen behind Dermod's desk, manned by a Nidian Receptionist now instead of a Monitor officer, lit with a picture of a furry Kelgian head. It appeared that there was a large DBLF transport coming in with FGLI and ELNT staff aboard in addition to the Kelgians, eighteen of which were Senior Physicians. Bearing in mind the damaged state of the hospital and the fact that just three locks were in operable condition, the Kelgian on the screen wanted to discuss quarters and assignments with the Diagnostician-in-Charge before landing.
"Thornnastor's still unfit and there are no other ..." Conway began to say when O'Mara reached across to touch his arm.
"Seven tapes, remember," he said gruffly. "Let us not quibble, Doctor."
Conway gave O'Mara a long, steady look, a look which went deeper than the blunt, scowling features and the sarcastic hectoring voice. Conway was not a Diagnostician—what he had done two months ago had been forced on him, and it had nearly killed him. But what O'Mara was saying—with the touch of his hand and the expression in his eyes, not the scowl on his face and the tone of his voice—was that it would be just a matter of time.
Colouring with pleasure, which Dermod probably put down to embarrassment at O'Mara's ribbing, he dealt quickly with the quartering and duties of the staff on the Kelgian transport, then excused himself. He was supposed to meet Murchison at the recreation level in ten minutes, and she had asked him ...
As he was leaving he heard O'Mara saying morosely, "... And in addition to saving countless billions from the horrors of war, I bet he gets the girl, too ..."
The End
Second Ending
Ace Books – 1963
Chapter One
FOR ROSS, the process of awakening was a slow thaw. Gradually there was growing within his mind a spot of warmth, melting and clearing the long-unused channels of memory and perception. For a time he knew only that he was somebody and that it was very cold, and then he began to remember other cold awakenings and the nightmares which followed them. He tried to tell himself that this was all wrong, that nightmares preceded awakening and not the other way around, but his memory insisted otherwise. It insisted so strongly that Ross, had such a reaction been physically possible, would have broken into a sweat of fear. Eventually sound and vision came to him, the icy fog of Deep Sleep cleared and he saw Beethoven.
Someone had given Beethoven's hair a coat of black enamel, painted the face with a realistic flesh tint and touched in the eyes with blue, but it was still the same bust which had occupied a place of honor in Pellew's consulting room. That someone, Ross knew, was in for trouble, because Dr. Pellew was not a man who took kindly to practical jokes. All at once that line of thought became a very comforting one for Ross, because it opened up the possibility that the nightmares had been practical jokes also. He seemed to remember that there had been quite a few jokers in this place, especially on the Thirty-First level. But why such a needlessly cruel trick, and why had they picked him? Who, exactly, were they? What was this place, what was he doing here, who was Pellew ...?
Ross didn't know, exactly. His mental processes were quickening, but he was demanding answers from a memory which was still woefully incomplete. He sighed audibly, and suddenly Beethoven was talking to him.
"When the patient has recovered consciousness," Beethoven said in a dry, lecturing voice which was remarkably like that of Dr. Pellew, "it is important that he make no sudden movements, which at this stage could result in severe muscular damage. He, or she, must be urged to move gently. The patient should also be assured, as often as seems necessary, considering his emotional state, that he has been cured he has been cured he has been cured he has been cured ..."
