“The fetal hearts are picking up,” Hossantir said. A few seconds later it added, “Pulse-rate optimal.”
On the sensor screen the cerebral traces were showing normal for a deeply unconscious Hudlar, indicating that there had been no brain damage as a result of the few minutes cessation of circulation, and Conway began to relax. But oddly, now that the emergency was over the other occupants of his mind were becoming uncomfortably obtrusive. It was as if they, too, were relieved and were reacting with too much enthusiasm to the situation. He shook his head irritably, telling himself once again that they were only recordings, simply stored masses of information and experience which were available to his, Conway’s, mind to use or ignore as he saw fit. But then the uncomfortable thought came to him that his own mind was simply a collection of knowledge, impressions, and experience collected over his lifetime, and what made his mind data so much more important and significant than that of the others?
He tried to ignore that suddenly frightening thought by reminding himself that he was still alive and capable of receiving new impressions and continuously modifying his total experience as a result of them, while the taped material had been frozen at the time it had been donated. In any case, the donors were long since deceased or far removed from Sector General. But Conway’s mind felt as though it was beginning to doubt its own authority, and he was suddenly afraid for his sanity.
O’Mara would be furious if he knew Conway was indulging in this kind of thinking. So far as the Chief Psychologist was concerned, a Doctor was responsible for his work and for the tools, both physical and psychological, which enabled him to do that work. If the Doctor could not perform satisfactorily, then the person concerned should seek a less demanding job.
There were few jobs more demanding than that of a Diagnostician.
His hands were beginning to feel wrong again, and the fat, pink, and strangely awkward fingers were trembling. Conway stowed away his DBDG instruments and turn — ed to Hossantir’s Melfan assistant, whose ID was still smeared with blood and only partly readable, and said, “Would you like to resume, Doctor?”
“Thank you, sir,” the ELNT said. Obviously it had been worrying in case Conway, as a result of his intervention, had thought the Melfan incapable of doing the work. Right now, he thought grimly, the opposite is true.
“It is not expected,” Hossantir said gravely, “that you should do everything yourself, Conway.”
Plainly the Tralthan knew that something was wrong with him- Hossantir’s eyes missed nothing, even when all four of them seemed to be looking in other directions. Conway watched for a few minutes until the team had closed up, then he left Forty-three to check on the progress of the other two patients. Psychologically he felt unwell.
The organ of absorption had been successfully transplanted into Ten, and Edanelt and his team were busy with the microsurgery required on the replacement limbs. The patient was out of danger, however, because the new organ had been tested with an application of nutrient paint and the sensors showed that it was performing satisfactorily. While he was complimenting the team on its work, Conway stared at the heavy staples which held the edges of the wound together-so closely sutured were they that the wound looked like an enormous zip-fastener. But nothing less would serve to hold an FROB’s hard, thick, and incredibly tough hide together, and the material of the staples was molecularly unstable so that they could be rendered flexible for withdrawal when the healing process was complete.
But an almost invisible scar, the Hudlar component of Conway’s mind insisted, would be the least of this patient’s problems.
All at once Conway wanted to run away from all this major surgery and its attendant postoperative problems, instead of having to make yet another examination of a third Hudlar patient.
Yarrence had concentrated its efforts on the cranial injury, leaving FROB-Three’s abdominal wound to the medics freed by the demise of FROB-Eighteen, while the remaining members of both teams were deployed on the limb amputation and replacement work. It was obvious after the first few minutes that they were engaged in performing a very complex but smooth-running operation.
From the talk around the frame he gathered that it was also an operation without precedent. To Conway it had seemed to be an obvious solution to FROB-Three’s problem, replacing the missing forelimbs with two from the rear. While not as precise as the originals they would be much more satisfactory in every way than the prosthetics, and there would be no rejection problems. He had read in the old medical texts of Earth-human arm amputees learning to draw, write, and even eat with their feet, and the Hudlar feet were much more adaptable than those of an Earth-human DBDG. But the admiration that simple solution had aroused among the team was making Conway feel embarrassed, because, given the present circumstances, anyone could have thought of it.
It was the circumstances which were without precedent-the Menelden disaster with its aftermath of massively injured Hudlars requiring transplant surgery together with the ready availability of spare parts. The possibility of one of the transplant cases being able to return to its home planet with the bonus of a pair of forelimbs which were almost as good as the originals was an idea which would have occurred to any moral coward like himself, who dreaded those postop conversations with patients whose transplants were from normal donors rather than from themselves.
Conway made a mental note to separate FROB-Three from Ten and Forty-three before they returned to consciousness and could begin talking together. The atmosphere between Three and its two less fortunate colleagues would be strained to say the least, and their convalescence would be difficult enough without two of the three being eaten up with envy.
Consideration of the FROB’s problems had brought his Hudlar component into prominence again, and it was difficult not to sympathize and suffer at the thought of his patient’s postoperative lifestyle. He tried to bring forward the material on the Tralthan, Melfan, and Kelgian components who, as other-species medics, should have been more clinical regarding the situation. But they, too, were overly sympathetic and their responses painful. In desperation he called up the material of Khone, the Gogleskan, who retained its sanity and intelligence by isolating itself from all close contacts with its fellows.
The Gogleskan material was not at all like that of an ordinary Educator tape. It had more texture, more immediacy, as if another person were truly sharing his mind, however reluctantly. With this degree of understanding between them, he wondered how it would feel to meet and talk to Khone again.
It was unlikely to happen in the hospital, Conway was sure, because the experience of staying in Sector General would probably drive Khone insane, and O’Mara would never allow it anyway. One of the Chief Psychologist’s strictest rules was that tape donors and carriers must never be allowed to meet because of the psychological trauma, incalculable in its intensity, which would result if two entities of widely different species, but possessing identical personalities, tried to communicate.
In the light of what had happened to Conway on Goglesk, O’Mara might have to modify that rule.
And now even the problems of the Gogleskans were clamoring for Conway’s attention, as were the Tralthan, Kelgian, Melfan, and Illensan occupants of his mind. Conway moved back to a position where he could watch the activity around all three operating frames without the team-members being able to see his distress. But the alien babel in his mind was so bad that he could scarcely speak, and it was only with a great effort that he could comment on some aspect of the work or give a word of praise to one of the medics. All at once he wanted out, and to escape from his too-demanding selves.