“Yes, friend Conway? said Prilicla. “The level of emotional radiation is characteristic of a deeply unconscious patient.”
As Conway nodded, the picture on the big wall screen split to show two images. One was a close-up of the patient’s head and Conway’s fingers gently inserting the tube into Tunneckis’s ear cavity, while the other showed the magnified deep scanner image of the operation site.
“Rather than open the cranium and hack a path to the trouble spot through brain tissue of whose sensory functions we are entirely ignorant? Conway went on, “we will approach as closely as possible to the operative field via an existing channel, in this instance through one of the two ear openings. Aural rather than telepathic deafness may result on that side, but probably not, because we can rebuild the inner-ear structure much more easily than the job we are attempting now. Increase to six magnifications. I’m going in…
Conway’s fingers were gently moving the thin, hollow tube inside the ear, but his eyes were on the magnified image, where it seemed as if a length of heavy piping with rounded edges was being forced in a series of jerks and pauses deeper into a narrowing, fleshy tunnel.
“That’s as close as we’ll get to the site without risking serious damage? said Conway finally. “Now we’ll move in with the fine stuff”
A cluster of cables that looked fine even under the high magnification was threaded into the hollow tube and moved forward to its inner end. They included a tiny but intense light source, an allaround visual sensor, and various cutting and sampling tools whose blades and bearings verged on the microscopic. The cable strands emanated from a flat, transparent box with a pair of metallic operating gauntlets inside it. Slowly and carefully Conway moved his fingers from around the fine strands of cable and slipped his hands into the box and the gloves.
“Magnification two hundred? said Conway. “Instrument motion reduction down one-five percent.”
Even the tiny movements of his hands and fingers, rendered incredibly minute by the reduction mechanism, looked like the awkward, barely coordinated motions of a twitching convulsive.
“Motion stepdown to one-fifty? he said.
On the screen the movements of the strand with the cutting head at its tip became smoother and more assured as it burrowed a path through the inner ear membrane and into the tissue beyond. It was closely followed into the narrow, fleshy tunnel it was creating by the light source, the vision pickup, and the instruments that would gather tissue and fluid samples for analysis. The tiny tunnel was beginning to look crowded.
“There is some collateral tissue damage? said Thornnastor.
“The reduced size of the instruments has rendered it minimal, and allowable.”
“This is new territory? said Conway quietly. “We don’t know what is allowable. Ah, we’re in.
The split-screen images from the external scanner and of Conway’s hands in the reduction gaunflets was replaced by the tremendously magnified view from the internal vision pickup that was moving through what appeared to be a series of interconnecting, submerged caverns. In the strong light their convoluted walls showed pink with patches of yellow and they were covered with plantlike growths whose tight clusters of slender stems were topped by single, crystalline flowers that were pale blue or red verging on black. The majority of the stems were headless and on the few that weren t the crystals looked deformed or damaged. Pieces of crystalline debris stirred in the eddies created by the motion of the invading instruments.
“I’ll need a specimen of the fluid for analysis,” said Thornnastor. “Also samples of that floating debris, which appears to be fragmented crystalline material, and a few complete crystals if you can detach them from their stalks. I’ll need stalk samples as well, complete with their crystal flowers.”
“Right? said Conway. “Increase the magnification to two hundred.”
A tiny amount of the fluid which included the debris was withdrawn. Then the cutter and grabs, looking like gigantic earthmoving machinery under the high magnification, moved in to harvest the required stalks and crystals.
“I have enough for the analyzer, now? said Thornnastor. “But the fluid is something more than a simple saline solution. This will take a little time.”
“I feel your concern, friend Conway? Prilicla’s voice joined in, “but it is unnecessary. There is no change in the patient’s emotional status even at the subconscious level, which is the most accurate guide to anything going wrong. The invasive procedure is so delicate that I doubt that it would have felt anything even if it had been fully conscious.”
There was a faint, rustling sound that might have been Conway sighing with relief, and then he said, “Thank you for the reassurance, little friend, you must have felt I needed it. But what we’re seeing here is an organic telepathic transmitter and receiver that is damaged and inoperative. Dammit, in primary-school science class I couldn’t even build a homemade radio that worked.”
It was Thornnastor who looked up with one eye from its analyzer to break the lengthening silence.
“This is interesting? it said. “The fluid is a complex of metallic salts, predominantly copper, with a large number of other minerals in trace quantities that have yet to be identified. It seems that the crystals, which are very faintly radioactive, grow within the fluid and attach themselves to the clusters of stalks only when they are fully formed. Apart from providing cup-shaped attachment points at their tips and serving as a protective sheath for the connective nerve pathway to the central brain, they are merely the supports for their individual crystals.
“We can reproduce the fluid? it went on, “and seed it with fragments of the damaged crystals and regrow and reirradiate them. Pathologist Murchison is standing by in the lab and it tells me that the crystals form so quickly that it should be able to complete the process in just over an hour. This would give us enough time for lunch.”
“What?” said Conway.
“Friend Thornnastor is a massive and energy-hungry lifeform? said Prilicla, “but it is simply making a pleasantry aimed at reducing emotional tension.”
The image showing the site of Tunneckis’s telepathic faculty remained steady on the wall screen, but the conversation of the operating team discussing it became so densely technical that O’Mara found it difficult to follow even with both his minds. He was glad when the regrown crystals in their growth medium arrived and were injected slowly into the cerebral fluid.
It was obvious even to O’Mara that there were problems.
The newly introduced crystals refused to attach themselves to stalks. Conway stepped up the magnification several times and, sweating in his effort to make minimal movements, tried to use his microinstruments to nudge and hold them together, in vain. The emotional radiation in the room was so intense that Prilicla, trembling in every limb, was forced to land. Finally Conway shook his head, regained enough control over his feelings for the empath to stop trembling, and looked up.
“The receptor cups on the stalks appear to fit the new crystals? he said calmly, “which means that either the reproduction of the new crystals or the fluid in which they were grown was at fault, or both, so that they are either rejecting or temporarily ignoring the stalks. I’m hoping, in fact I’m being hopelessly optimistic, that it is the latter and that the joining process simply requires more time. That being the case, and unless anyone has any other ideas, I suggest we withdraw at once in the hope that the patient, as so many of them do, proceeds to heal itself?”
There was total silence in O’Mara’s office as Conway switched off the wall screen before turning to face them again.
“The rest of this is simply the op debriefing and my general instructions to the medical staff of the recuperation ward? he went on, “and frankly I dislike listening to myself making excuses. Patient Tunneckis did not recover. In addition it has become emotionally disturbed to the stage where psychiatric assistance was requested. It’s gratifying to belong to a hospital with the reputation of doing the medically impossible, but, regrettably, we can’t do it all the time. Patient Tunneckis, I’m afraid, remains as it was, telepathically deaf and dumb.”