“All we can? O’Mara replied.
“Of course you are? said Conway. “I’ll talk to Prilicla at once. And Thornnastor, who’s also involved. But if this mental infection is radiating and strengthening as you say, how long before we start transferring patients to another hospital?”
“Or move Tunneckis out of this one?” said O’Mara. “But if its present condition continues to worsen, I doubt whether the Kermi or anyone else will want it. You have to find the answer to this one, Doctor, or you’ll be faced with an interesting and very urgent ethical dilemma.”
Braithwaite cleared his throat and looked back to O’Mara. “It might not be all that urgent, sir? he said. “I didn’t have the opportunity to get your approval, but I used your name freely with the engineering and medical-technology people to put them to work on a temporary solution. They are currently modifying a four-person survival pod I–I mean we-commandeered from one of the Orligian supply ships and are installing Kerma life-support, medical monitoring, and the equipment that will enable the pod to be supplied and serviced by remote-control devices sensitive enough for patient care. That will take them at least three days. They might trim a few hours off that estimate, sir, if you were to speak sternly to them in person.
O’Mara’s immediate reaction should have been to lift the skin off the Lieutenant’s back with a tongue-lashing for using his superior’s name and rank without permission. But it was a good idea that he might have thought of himself given time, and his feelings were too desensitized with fatigue to be hurt.
Instead he just nodded and said, “I’ll do that.”
“With Tunneckis in the pod outside the hospital? Braithwaite went on, turning back to Conway on the screen, “You can maintain the medical treatment necessary at long range while the department tries to provide psychotherapy over the communicator. Dr. Prilicla will tell us if and when the patient has to be moved farther out.”
Conway shook his head, in puzzlement rather than negation, and said, “Well done, Lieutenant; at least that will give us time to think. But how can a case that began as a simple vehicular casualty with suspected brain injuries turn suddenly into something that, without the patient being aware of what it’s doing, is sucking out the higher levels of intelligence and sensitivity from the people around it like some kind of mental black hole? This doesn’t make sense ~
“With respect, sir,” said Braithwaite, “what was the exact nature of its injuries?”
“Apart from minor scorching of the body surface, which was healing well before it was admitted,” said Conway, apparently taking no offense at a mere lieutenant daring to question a senior diagnostician, “I couldn’t find anything serious enough to treat. The problem was an impairment of its telepathic faculty, which we couldn’t cure, accompanied by a major psychological component to the case which we passed to Psychology to see if you people could help.”
“Then the condition may have been present before Tunneckis arrived here,” said Braithwaite, still saying all the things O’Mara was too tired to say, “and you just inherited the problem without knowing it was there.”
“A comforting thought? said Conway, dividing his attention between them, “but as the physician-in-charge I’m looking for answers, not excuses for my negative behavior. First I’m going to contact the Monitor base on Kerm for more details on Tunneckis’s accident, and to find out if anything like this has ever happened there in the past and what, if anything, the Kermi were able to do about it. Even with a triple-A medical-emergency coding, that will take several hours. In the meantime I’ll talk to Priicla and the medical and engineering teams to get a detailed assessment of the extent of this nonmedical contagion and its rate of progression, then call a meeting with the senior staff concerned for this time tomorrow in the administrator’s conference room. That will impress them with the importance we’re placing on this job. Sorry for making free with your offices, sir, but as you know, in an emergency of this kind it is the medic in charge who has the rank?
He smiled faintly and went on, “I wouldn’t presume to give you an order, Administrator O’Mara, but my present medical advice is to stop working and even thinking and catch up on your sleep while you can. For the next few days we’re going to need your fresh, rested, devious, and nasty mind. Yours, too, Lieutenant. Off.”
In the event, O’Mara thought, his stale, partially rested, devious, and nasty mind had very little to contribute during the first two hectic hours of that meeting, and Braithwaite, who always looked fresh and rested, did nothing but listen attentively to the sometimes heated exchanges between the senior engineering and medical staff.
Major Okambi of Engineering reported good progress with the installation of the Kerma VBGM’s life-support and medical monitoring because it was a simple, warm-blooded oxygenbreather, but its small body mass meant that the long-stay furnishings, communicator, and facilities had to be modified to fit its tiny digits, and the fact that it could be approached only by a variety of remotely controlled devices meant that the pod’s entry lock had to be completely rebuilt. Okambi said that his people were doing their best, but the original three-day estimate had been a trifle optimistic and the pod would not be operational for at least five days.
Prilicla, its limbs trembling with the effort of saying something that would cause unpleasant emotional radiation, said, “At its present rate of propagation, friend Okambi, in five days we will have to evacuate eight levels above and below friend Tunneckis’s present location. The inconvenience to patients and staff during the transfer of treatment and catering facilities will be immense, because the levels to be vacated will also include the main dining hall. If the hospital personnel are not to risk their minds as well as their digestive processes, the food-service operation will have to be made from the ward kitchens or to the staff living quarters. Should your estimate overrun by a single day, the hospital’s entire kitchen and food-storage level would have to be evacuated as well. That would add considerably to the already serious disruption.”
The empath’s trembling increased as its words caused an upsurge of unpleasant emotional radiation in the room. Most of it, O’Mara thought as he looked at the faces whose expressions he could read, must be the dark negation of barely controlled fear for the personal safety of themselves and the thousands of beings who were their direct responsibility. It was Okambi who spoke first.
“I know we’re supposed to care for our patients, Doctor.” he said angrily, “but this one is causing trouble out of all proportion to its individual importance. Why don’t you just chalk it up as one of the few failures and send it home?”
“Sir,” said Braithwaite before the other could reply, “you’re forgetting the nature of the patient’s disease. By the time the ship got back to Kerm, the crew might not have enough of their minds left to land it. And if they did, we would be returning a being that is capable of destroying Kerma minds over a presently unknown but large radius, perhaps even their entire civilization.” Turning to Prilida, he said, “Doctor, is there any possible way to contain this nonmaterial contagion other than by sheer distance? By enclosing it in a modified hush field, perhaps, that deadens mental rather than sound radiation?”
“That was the first thing we tried, Lieutenant,” said Okambi impatiently. “Telepathy uses a delicate, organic transmitter and receiver whose radiation cannot so far be reproduced, much less shielded.” He looked at O’Mara. “You’ve had several sessions by communicator with Dr. Cerdal, the first and so far worst-affected victim, as well as Tunneckis itself. Is there any possibility of a psychiatric solution?”
O’Mara shook his head. “Unfortunately, Dr. Cerdal is a clear case of mind being ruled by emotion rather than reason, and the emotions are those of a frightened child being plagued by the most horrible nightmares, the other-species nightmares all around it who are trying to help. Its xenophobia is extreme. My staff talked to the others who had shorter exposure to Tunneckis. They exhibit the same symptoms in lesser degree depending on their distance and total time of exposure, which appears to be cumulative. Tunneckis itself is emotionally disturbed, completely and utterly despairing as a result of the accident that left it telepathically deaf and dumb. For several minutes at a time it is coherent and communicative, but is so far unresponsive to my attempts at providing therapy. It is totally unaware of the mental havoc it is causing. Unless I can think of a strong therapeutic reason for telling it, I intend not to do so because, well, it feels bad enough already.”