Patiently Cha Thrat said again, “I’m not qualified.”
Tarsedth’s fur was moving in a manner that denoted impatience. “I still don’t understand you. Talk, don’t talk to it. Do whatever you want to do.”
“I have talked to it,” Cha Thrat said, “and that’s what worries me— Is something wrong?”
“Can’t it leave me alone!” said Tarsedth, its fur tufting into angry spikes. “I’m sure that’s Cresk-Sar coming this way, and it’s seen our trainee badges. The first question it will ask is why we aren’t studying. Can’t we ever escape from its infuriating ‘I have questions for you’ routine?”
The Senior Physician detached itself from a group of two other Nidians and a Melfan who had been movingtoward the water’s edge and stopped, looking down at them.
“I have questions for both of you,” it said inevitably, but unexpectedly went on. “Are you able to relax in this place? Does it enable you to forget all about your work? Your Charge Nurses? Me?”
“How can we forget about you,” Tarsedth said, “when you’re here, and ready to ask us why we’re here?”
The Kelgian’s seeming rudeness was unavoidable, Cha Thrat knew, but her reply would have to be more diplomatic.
“The answer to all four questions is, not entirely,” she said. “We were relaxing but were discussing problems relating to our work.”
“Good,” Cresk-Sar said. “I would not want you to forget your work, or me, entirely. Have you a particular problem or question that I can answer for you before I rejoin my friends?”
Tarsedth was burrowing deeper into the artificial sand and pointedly ignoring their tutor who, now that it was off duty, seemed to Cha Thrat to be a much less obnoxious Nidian. Cresk-Sar deserved a polite response, even though the recent topic of discussion, the psychological and emotional problems associated with the removal of other-species body wastes, was not an area in which a Senior Physician would have firsthand experience. Perhaps she could ask a general question that would satisfy both the social requirements of the situation and her own curiosity.
“As trainees,” Cha Thrat said, “we are assigned to the less pleasant, nonmedical ward duties, in particular those involving organic wastes. These are an unpleasant but necessary by-product common to all species whose food is ingested, digested, and eliminated. However,there must be wide differences in the chemical composition of other-species wastes. Since the hospital was designed so far as was possible to be a closed ecological system, what becomes of all this material?”
Cresk-Sar seemed to be having difficulty with its breathing for a moment, then it replied, “The system is not completely closed. We do not synthesize all our food or medication and, 1 am pleased to tell you, there are no intelligent life-forms known to us who can exist on their own or any other species’ wastes. As for your question, I don’t know the answer, Cha Thrat. Until now the question has never come up.”
It turned away quickly and went back to its Melfan and Nidian friends. Shortly afterward the ELNT started to make clicking sounds with its mandibles while the furry DBDGs barked, or perhaps laughed, loudly. Cha Thrat could not find anything humorous in the question. To the contrary, she found the subject actively unpleasant. But the loud, untranslatable noises coming from the group showed no sign of stopping — until they were drowned out by the sharp, insistent,and even louder sounds coming from the public address system.
“Emergency,” it blared across the recreation level and from her translator. “Code Blue, AUGL ward. All named personnel acknowledge on nearest communicator and go immediately to the AUGL ward. Chief Psychologist O’Mara, Charge Nurse Hredlichli, Trainee Cha Thrat. Code Blue. Acknowledge and go at once to—”
She missed the rest of it because Cresk-Sar had come back and was glaring down at her. It was neither barking nor laughing.
“Move yourself!” it said harshly. “I’ll acknowledge the message and go with you. As your tutor I am responsible for your medical misdeeds. Hurry.”
As they were leaving the recreation level it went on, “A Code Blue is an emergency involving extreme danger to both patients and medical staff, the kind of trouble during which untrained personnel are ordered to stay clear. But they have paged you, a trainee, and, of all people, Chief Psychologist O’Mara. “What have you done!
CHAPTER 6
Cha Thrat and the Senior Physician arrived at the AUGL ward minutes before O’Mara and Charge Nurse Hredlichli, and joined the other three nurses on duty — two Kelgian DBLFs and a Melfan ELNT — who had abandoned their patients to take shelter in the Nurses’ Station.
This normally reprehensible behavior was not being considered as a dereliction of medical duty, the tutor explained, because it was the first time in the hospital’s wide experience in staff-patient relations that a Chalder had become violently antisocial.
In the green dimness at the other end of the ward a long, dark shadow drifted slowly from one side-wall to the other, as Cha Thrat had seen many of the mobile, bored, and restless Chalders doing while she had been on duty. Except for a few pieces of decorative greenery detached and drifting untidily between the supports, the ward looked peaceful and normal.
“What about the other patients, Charge Nurse?”
Cresk-Sar asked. As the Senior Physician present it had overall medical responsibility. “Is anyone hurt?”
Hredlichli swam along the line of monitors and said, “Disturbed and frightened, but they have sustained no injuries, nor has their food and medication delivery system been damaged. They’ve been very lucky.”
“Or the patient is being selective in its violence—” O’Mara began, then broke off.
The long shadow at the other end of the ward had foreshortened and was enlarging rapidly as it rushed toward them. Cha Thrat had a glimpse of fins blurred by rapid motion, ribbon tentacles streaming backward, and the serried ranks of gleaming teeth edging the enormous, gaping mouth before it crashed against the transparent wall of the Nurses’ Station. The wall bulged inward alarmingly but did not collapse.
It was too large for the dooriess entrance, she saw, but it changed position and moved three of its tentacles inside. They were not long enough or strong enough to pull anyone outside to the mouth, although one of the Kelgian nurses had a few anxious moments. Disappointed, the Chalder turned and swam away, with detached vegetation eddying its wake.
O’Mara made a sound that did not translate, then said, “Who is the patient, and why was trainee Cha Thrat called?”
“It is the long-stay patient, AUGL-One Sixteen,” the Melfan nurse replied. “Just before it became violent it was calling for the new nurse, Cha Thrat. When I told the patient that the Sommaradvan would be absent for a few days, it stopped communicating and has not spoken to us since, even though its translator is still in position and working. That is why the trainee’s name was included when I called in the Code Blue.”
“Interesting,” the Earth-human said, turning its atten-lion to Cha Thrat. “Why did it want you especially, and why should it start taking the ward apart when you weren’t available? Have you established a special relationship with AUGL-One Sixteen?”
Before she could reply, the Nidian said urgently, “Can the psychological ramifications wait, Major? My immediate concern is for the safety of the ward patients and staff. Pathology will give us a fast-acting anesthetic and a dart gun to pacify the patient, and then — you can—”
“A dart gun!” one of the Kelgians said, its fur rippling in scorn. “Senior Physician, you are forgetting that your dart has to travel through water, which will slow it down, and then penetrate that organic suit of armor One Sixteen wears! The only sure way of placing the dart effectively would be to shoot it into the soft tissues of the inner mouth. To place it accurately, the person using the gun would have to be very close and might find itself following the dart into the open mouth, with immediately fatal results. 1 am not volunteering!”