“So now we’re faced with doing a bowel repair and we still haven’t found the appendix yet? said the Melfan surgeon angrily. “This, this is not going well. This minor operation is fast becoming a major disaster.”
It used a phrase that its translator, which had probably been programmed by people with less colorful Melfan vocabularies, refused to accept. Then it looked up directly into the vision recorder.
“Enough? it said, “I’m withdrawing from this one before we end up killing the patient. Same-species standby team, take over!”
Within seconds the OR door hissed open to admit three Earth-humans, already masked and gowned, and a floater bearing a tray of ergonomically suited instruments. Quickly the Melfan, Tralthan, and Kelgian medics withdrew from the table. Their places were taken by the new arrivals, who immediately went to work.
As the original team were filing quietly out of the room, the big wall screen in Craythorne’s office went dark as Councillor Davantry ended the playback and swung around to face them.
Davantry was a small, aging, soft-spoken Earth-human whose expression was grave and without the smallest trace of condescension-the kind of person who, like O’Mara’s chief, had the ability to make an order sound as if he were requesting a favor. He did not look at all like a god but, as he was a senior member of the Galactic Federation’s Central Medical Council, Craythorne had suggested that it would be a good idea to treat him as if he were. So far the major had not dared ask the purpose of the equipment in the opened, well-padded container in the center of the office floor.
O’Mara had the uneasy feeling that he was a god about to ask a favor that they could not refuse.
The councillor sighed and said, “You have just viewed one of several multi-species surgical experiments. It was also a horror story. Fortunately, none of the patients concerned terminated, although several came very close to it. There are many more such horror stories, if you want to view them. But they all make the same point, that practicing medicine and surgery-especially surgery-across the species divide is dangerous and, well, is a problem almost impossible of solution.”
O’Mara nodded and waited for a moment to give Craythorne the chance to respond; then he said, “I note the qualifier, sir. Does it mean that you have found one?”
“It means that there are two possible solutions, Lieutenant,” said Davantry, “Neither of which I particularly like. One is straightforward and probably unworkable, the other is simpler but, well, psychologically tricky. But first let us consider the reason for this hospital’s existence, which is to receive and treat the sick and injured of the sixty-odd intelligent species that compose the Galactic Federation. In the light of the experiment you have just seen, and discounting the few species who don’t travel in space, this would mean staffing the hospital with complete teams of physicians, surgeons, and medical and technical support staff of virtually every known life-form, on the off chance that a member of any one of those species would arrive needing treatment. It would be the same as providing sixty different one-species hospitals inside one structure. Sector General is big but not that big. It could be done but, to do it that way, the proportion of patients to staff would be ridiculously low and criminally wasteful of medical personnel, the majority of whom would have nothing to do but hang around waiting for a same-species patient to arrive. Inter-species conflicts could arise through sheer boredom.”
“More likely,” said Craythorne with feeling, “another interstellar war. But you have another solution, sir?”
“Or perhaps, Major” said Davantry, pointing at the opened crate, “I have more horror stories for you. They involve, or will involve, cross-species memory transfer.”
Craythorne leaned forward in his chair, looking excited. “There’s been a lot about it in the literature recently” he said. “Very interesting stuff, sir. It would be the ideal solution, but I thought the procedure was still experimental. Has the technique been perfected?”
“Not quite” Davantry replied with a small smile. “We were hoping that would be done at Sector General.”
“0h” said Craythorne. O’Mara said the same but under his breath. Davantry smiled again, and divided his attention between them as he spoke.
“This hospital,” he said in a very serious voice, “will be equipped to treat every known form of intelligent life. But we have just proved beyond doubt that no single individual can hold in his, her, or its brain even a fraction of the vast amount of physiological data necessary for this purpose. Surgical dexterity is a matter of ability and training but, we have discovered, the complete knowledge of an other-species patient’s physiology and metabolism can only be furnished by means of a complete memory transfer of the mind of a leading medical authority in the relevant field of the patient’s own species into the brain of the physician-in-charge, who can belong to any other species provided it has hands and eyes and has the required surgical training. With the help of what, because the original name is polysyllabic and cumbersome, we are calling an Educator tape, any medically trained being can treat any patient regardless of species.
“The Educator-tape application system’ he went on with a nod toward the opened container, “can impress a mind recording on the recipient’s brain within a few minutes, and be erased just as easily when the indicated treatment for the patient has been completed. The equipment and procedure has been thoroughly tested and the user is completely safe in that there is no physical trauma. But there is another problem.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said O’Mara. He thought he had been speaking under his breath, but Craythorne looked at him warningly while Councillor Davantry pretended not to hear and continued speaking.
“It is this,” he went on. “The tapes do not impart only physiological knowledge; the entire memory, personal and professional experience, and personality of the entity who donated the tape are transferred as well, and we know that all too often the top specialists in the medical or any other field can be aggressive, selfopinionated, and generally obnoxious people, because that is how most of them rose to eminence. Geniuses are rarely charming people. So in effect the tape’s would-be recipient must subject himself voluntarily to a drastic but temporary form of schizophrenia because another personality, an authoritive, forceful, and completely alien personality, is apparently sharing his mind. If the recipient’s mind is not also strong-willed and well integrated, especially if the tape is in place for several days, it will feel as if the donor mind is fighting for and perhaps threatening to gain control over it.”
Davantry looked steadily at Craythorne and O’Mara for a moment, raised his hands slightly, then let them fall again onto his lap.
“With the tape donor’s complete personalityP he went on, “are included all its pet peeves, bad habits, and major or minor phobias. For the long-term recipient, the different food preferences can be a difficulty and, during periods of sleep, alien dreams, nightmares, and particularly other-species sexual fantasies can be a real problem, although none of the previous subjects suffered lasting mental damage. But before your department administers a mindtransfer tape all this must be explained to the would-be recipient, especially to the first volunteer.”
There was a long silence. O’Mara stared at Craythorne, who stared back at him for a moment before looking back to Davantry. The major’s expression remained calm, composed, and quietly attentive, but when he spoke his face had lightened a shade.