“Naturally, the maintenance aspect does not concern you,” it said, and barked softly, “although recently you have been the cause of quite a lot of structural repairs being carried out. You have a list of your requirements?”
“Thank you, yes,” Gurronsevas stammered. “The principal items have been committed to memory. But will what you are doing for me cause you to smell as badly to Skempton as I do, or otherwise affect your chances of career advancement? And are you sure all this can be hidden from the Colonel?”
“To answer you in order,” said Creon-Emesh impatiently, “no, no and no. We cannot hide anything from the Colonel, the system we use precludes it. Skempton will be able to see everything we do but, as it has been said many times, life is too short to waste time checking every requisition order which, on average, number several thousand per day. He leaves that to trusted but obviously untrustworthy subordinates like myself. So long as the identification codes, routing instructions and quantities ordered are not abnormal they will be accepted without question. If any of the items are likely to arouse Supply Department’s suspicions, I’ll tell you to think again.
“And remember,” it went on, “ordering in quantity is preferable to periodic reordering of small amounts, which would increase the chances of what you are doing being detected. What are your principal needs?”
He tried to thank it again, but the other seemed to be interested only in his needs which, because of the little Nidian’s continued lack of objection, were becoming more ambitious and daring by the moment. But Gurronsevas’s enthusiasm was checked when Creon-Emesh barked suddenly and held up both of its tiny hands.
“No,” it said firmly. “You cannot have morning-gathered Orligian crelgi leaves. Gurronsevas, be reasonable.”
“I am reasonable,” he replied. “The leaves have a subtle taste-enhancing effect which has crossed the species barrier, and are widely used by cooks of many warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing races. I am also disappointed.”
“You are also forgetful,” said the Nidian. “They would arrive here three days minimum after picking, because that is the fastest they could be hyper-jumped here. Our Orligian procurement office would have no trouble supplying them, but a jump like that is ordered only for urgently-required medication or to carry a critically ill patient. An emergency jump from Orligian to Sector General with a crate of herbal plants would most certainly attract the Colonel’s attention, so it must be no to that one. Accept the leaves dry-frozen by normal freight delivery and I’ll say yes.”
Gurronsevas thought for a moment, then said, “There is an alternative called, on Earth, nutmeg. The taste difference is too subtle to be detected by anything but the most educated of palates, and it travels well. I have added it to the edible mud shell of the magma-flashed Corellian struul dishes to enhance the otherwise bland taste of the fish. And on Nidia the sauce I used with your braised criggleyut contained a sprinkling of nutmeg seasoning to bring out the—”
“You intend to add criggleyut to our menu?” Creon-Emesh broke in excitedly. “It has been a favorite of mine since my adult fur grew.”
“At the earliest opportunity,” Gurronsevas replied, and added, “About fifty pounds of it would be adequate for my Nidian and other-species’ requirements.”
Creon-Emesh shook its head. “You haven’t been listening to me, Gurronsevas. Without mentioning it to you I have been trebling and quadrupling the amounts you have been ordering because you are not asking for enough. Small quantities attract attention. The unloading bay personnel might think that anything that small must be urgently required medication wrongly coded, rather than food, and open it to check, which would bring you to Skempton’s attention. With a taste-enhancer that has so much other-species popularity and a long shelf life, I suggest a minimum order of five tons.”
“But it is used in minute quantities,” he protested. “Five tons of nutmeg would last us a hundred years!”
“In a hundred years,” said Creon-Emesh, “the hospital will still be here, I expect, and its inhabitants will still be stuffing their eating orifices with food. Is there anything else? I want time for a game before you go.”
CHAPTER 14
Visiting the hospital’s Pathology Department reminded Gurronsevas of Nidia and his daily trips to the multi-species butcher’s to buy fresh meat for the Cromingan-Shesk’s carnivore-omnivore menu. Here he was not allowed to serve the whole or partially dismembered carcasses on show because they had once harbored intelligence and the hospital’s regulations on that point were strict. No real meat, fresh or unfrozen, must ever be used.
Thornnastor, the multiply absent-minded Diagnostician-in-Charge, rarely spoke to him but the words of Pathologist Murchison and the rest of the department’s staff were helpful, friendly, and, as now, even complimentary.
“Good morning,” said Murchison, looking up from its scanner examination of an organic something which he could not identify. “You surprised us yet again. My hus …I mean, Diagnostician Conway says thanks for whatever you did to the synthi-steaks, as do I and, I’m sure, a great many other Earth-humans. Very nice work, Gurronsevas.”
As Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery, Conway was second only to Thornnastor among the medical hierarchy, and it was also Murchison’s life-mate. In his present situation the gratitude of important beings could only be helpful.
Greatly pleased, Gurronsevas said self-deprecatingly, “The changes were minor and mostly of presentation, a small matter of culinary psychology, nothing more.”
“Your Diagnostician’s Alternative menu,” said Thornnastor, turning an eye towards him and speaking directly to Gurronsevas for the first time in three days, “is not a small matter.”
Gurronsevas agreed. To his mind all of the hospital’s Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians with other-species teaching duties had been little more than culinary cripples who were handicapped to a greater or lesser degree by the alien Educator tape donors who shared their minds, often imposing on them their own alien viewpoints, emotional responses and, inevitably, food preferences.
The Educator tape system was necessary to the hospital’s operation, Gurronsevas had learned, because no doctor, no matter how brilliant or able, could hold in its mind all of the physiological and pathological data necessary for the treatment of such a large number of other-species patients. With the tapes, however, the impossible became a matter of simple if sometimes unpleasant routine. A doctor with an other-species patient to treat was impressed with the mind-recording of a medical authority of that species until treatment was completed, after which the tape was erased. The reason for this was that the entire mentality of the donor entities were transferred and, even though they had no actual presence, and the host doctor knew this to be so, a non-material personality who had been tops in its field did not easily assume a subordinate position, and often gave the impression that it was the donor rather than the host who was in charge. Only Seniors and Diagnosticians of proven mental stability, and engaged in permanent teaching duties or ongoing research projects, were allowed to retain their tapes over long periods, but there was a price to pay.
Psychological problems were none of Gurronsevas’s concern, even though he might have solved one of them. He was slowly extending his Diagnostician’s Alternative menu and soon he would be able to cater for every life-form on the senior medical staff. Beings like Thornnastor, who possessed the appetite for food normal to a Tralthan of its body-mass, would no longer be seen seated at their dining benches, with eyes averted from the platter, in a vain attempt to conceal the contents from its other-species alter ego, whose revulsion would be communicated to the host mind. Now a tape-ridden diner could simply indicate the dish it required and request a visual presentation that would keep the donor entity happy, and the incidence of senior medical personnel going into periods of involuntary starvation would soon be a thing of the past. Even the acid-tongued Chief Psychologist O’Mara, Gurronsevas had been told, had been faintly complimentary about those particular changes.