"Even with surgical enlargement of the wound," he said carefully, "access to the operative field will be restricted."

            "Naturally," Hossantir replied. Conway tried a more direct approach.

            "No more than two surgeons will be able to operate at any given time," he went on, "so there will be a high degree of team redundancy."

            "Of course," Hossantir said.

            "Senior Physician Edanelt," Conway said firmly, "needs help."

            Two of Hossantir’s eyes curled around to regard the preparations going on around Edanelt’s frame, then it quickly detailed his two Orligian and the Tralthan medics to help the other Senior with instructions to call on whatever nursing support as and when needed.

            "That was unforgivably selfish and thoughtless of me," Hossantir went on to Conway. "I thank you for the tactful way in which you reminded me of the transgression in the presence of my subordinates. But please be more direct in future. I carry permanently a Kelgian Educator tape and will not take offense over any seeming infringement of my authority. Frankly, I am greatly reassured by your presence, Conway, since my experience of deep Hudlar surgery is not extensive."

            If I were to detail my own experience of Hudlar surgery, Conway thought wryly, you might not frel reassured at all.

            Then he smiled suddenly, remembered how O’Mara had sardonically described the function of a Diagnostician in an operating theater as being largely psychological-the being was there principally to worry and accept the responsibilities its subordinates might not be able to carry.

            As he moved between the three patients, Conway recalled his first few years after promotion to Senior Physician and of how he had accepted, and at times jealously guarded, his responsibilities. While working under supervision he had attempted to show that the Diagnostician concerned was redundant. In time he had been successful, because the supervision had become minimal and at times nonexistent. But there had also been a few times when Thornnastor or one of the other Diagnosticians who had been breathing down his neck and causing an irritating distraction during surgery had stepped in and saved a patient’s life as well as the professional career of a very new Senior Physician whose enthusiasm verged on the irresponsible.

            How those Diagnosticians had been able to watch without intervening, or suggesting alternative procedures, or giving step-bystep instructions at every stage, Conway did not know, because he himself was finding it just barely possible to do so.

            He managed to continue doing the near-impossible while the hours slid past, dividing his attention between the operating stations of Yarrence, Edanelt, and Hossantir as well as the activity around the deceased Eighteen, where the surgery required to withdraw the donor organs and limbs was as painstaking and precise as that being performed on the recipients. There were several aspects of the work he could have commented upon, although not in overly critical terms, so he remained silent and gave advice only when it was requested. But while the three Seniors were doing very well and he was careful to divide his time equally among them, the one he watched most carefully was Hossantir. If any of the patients were going to cause problems, it would be FROB-Forty-three.

            It happened in the fifth hour of the operations. The depressed cranial fracture and arterial repair on Three had gone well, and the less critical work of limb replacement was proceeding in satisfactory fashion. On FROB-Ten the absorption organ replacement work was completed and the decompression damage had been repaired so that it, too, had only the time-consuming microsurgical work on the limbs to undergo. It was natural, therefore, for Conway to hook himself to Forty-three’s frame to watch Hossantir performing the highly delicate initial stages of reconnecting the replacement heart.

            There was a sudden, silent explosion of Hudlar blood.

 

CHAPTER 15

 

Hossantir made a sound which did not translate, and its manipulators holding the long-handled instruments moved with incredible slowness as they felt about in the totally obscured operative field. Its assistant, also moving with a lack of urgency which could only have been subjective to Conway’s racing mind, introduced a clamp but could not find the vessel which was hemorrhaging. Trained as he was to react quickly and positively to such emergencies, Conway did not move slowly.

            He could not move at all.

            His hands, his stupid five-fingered, Earth-human, and utterly alien hands, trembled uncontrollably while his multiple mind tried desperately to decide what to do with them.

            He knew that this kind of thing could happen to medics who were carrying too many tapes, but that it should not happen too often if the Doctor concerned hoped to make it as a Diagnostician. Frantically, he tried to impose order on the warring factions within his mind by calling up the memory of O’Mara, who was totally unsympathetic where disorderly thinkers were concerned-in particular, the memory of the Chief Psychologist telling him what the Educator tapes were and, more importantly, what they were not.

            No matter how he felt subjectively, his mind was not being taken over by the alien personalities who were apparently sharing it-his Earth-human mind had simply been given a large quantity of extraterrestrial knowledge on which it could draw. But it was very difficult to convince himself of that when the other-species material in his mind belonged to medical people with their own individual ideas on how he should react to this emergency.

            The ideas were very good, particularly those of the Melfan and Tralthan components. But they required the use of ELNT pincers or FGLI primary manipulators, not Earth-human fingers, and he was being urged to do too many things at once with the wrong organic equipment.

            Hossantir’s Melfan assistant whose ID, like everything else in the immediate area, was obscured by the bloody spray, said urgently, "I can’t see. My visor is-"

            One of the nurses quickly cleaned the helmet in front of the eyes, not wasting time on the rest of the transparent bubble. But the fine red spray was re-covering it as Conway watched. And that was not the only problem, because, deep inside the operative field, the light sources on the instruments were likewise obscured.

            The Tralthan Senior had been closest so that only the front of its bubble helmet had been affected. One of its eyes curled back to regard Conway through the still transparent rear section.

            "We require assistance, Conway. Can you suggest a..." Hossantir began; then it noticed the trembling hands and added, "Are you indisposed?"

            Conway clenched his fists slowly-everything seemed to be happening in the slowest of slow motion-and said, "It is temporary."

            Silently he added, I hope.

            But the alien personalities who were not really there were still clamoring for attention. He tried to ignore all but one of them at a time, thinking vaguely of the principle of divide and rule, but that did not work either. All of them were offering medical or surgical advice, all of it had potential value in the present situation, and all of it called for an immediate response. The only available material which did not force itself forward was the Gogleskan data accidentally provided by Khone, and that was of little value anyway. But for some reason his mind kept returning to it, holding on to that frightened but strong-willed alien personality as if it were some kind of psychological life-raft.

            Khone’s presence was not at all like the sharp, intense, and artificially enhanced impressions produced by the Educator tapes. He found himself concentrating on the little being’s mental imprint, even though the strange and visually terrifying creatures around the operating frame threatened to throw it into a panic reaction. But the Gogleskan data also included material on Conway’s work at the hospital, transferred to its mind during the mishap on Goglesk, and this to a certain extent had prepared Khone for just this kind of experience. It was also a member of a race of individualists whose mental processes were adept at avoiding contact with, or of negating the influence of, other beings around them.

            More than any other entity in Conway’s experience, Khone knew how to ignore people.

            All at once his hands were no longer shaking and the alien babel within his mind had quieted to an insistent murmur which he could choose to ignore. He tapped the Melfan assisting Hossantir sharply on its carapace.

            "Please withdraw and leave your instruments in position," he said. To the Tralthan Senior he added, "The bleeding is obscuring everything in the operative field, including the magnifiers and light sources of the instruments and, if we approach closely, our visors. We must...

            "Suction isn’t working, Conway," Hossantir broke in, "and won’t until the flow has been checked at source. But we can’t see the source!"

            ..... Use the scanners," Conway continued quietly, enclosing the tiny, hollow-coned handles of the Melfan clamp with his Earthhuman fingers, "in conjunction with my hands and your eyes.

            Since normal vision was useless because of his helmet’s close proximity to the spray from the wound, Conway’s idea was that Hossantir use two scanners angled so as to bear on the operative field from two viewpoints as far apart as possible. This would give an accurate stereoscopic picture of what was happening which the Senior could describe for him and guide the movements of his clamp. He would be operating blind, but only long enough to find and seal off the bleeder, after which the operation would proceed in the normal way. It would be a very uncomfortable few minutes for Hossantir, two of whose four eyes would be extended laterally to the limits of its flattened, ovoid helmet. It would also have to withdraw temporarily from the operation, Conway told it apologetically, so that its scanners and helmet would not be affected by the spray.

            "This could give me a permanent squint," Hossantir said, "but no matter."

            None of his alter egos saw anything funny in the idea of a great, elephantine Tralthan with a squint in two of its widely extensible eyes. Fortunately, a smothered Earth-human laugh was not translatable.

            His hands and the instruments felt heavy and awkward, and not just because he was using Melfan clamps. The gravity nullification field surrounding him did not, of necessity, extend to the patient, so that everything at the operating site weighed four times heavier than normal. But the Tralthan used its scanners to guide him verbally to the blood vessel which had to be origin of the massive hemorrhaging, and considering the elevated blood pressure of the Hudlar life-form, he expected to feel resistance as he clamped it off.

            There was none, and the bleeding continued with undiminished force.

            One of his alter egos had encountered something like this situation during a transplant on an entirely different life-form, a diminutive Nidian whose blood pressure had been only a fraction of that of this Hudlar. On that occasion the blood flow had also been a fine spray rather than the pulsing stream characteristic of arterial bleeding, and the trouble had been due to a mechanical failure rather than to faulty surgical technique.

            Conway was not sure if that was the problem here, but a part of his multiple mind felt sure, and he decided to trust that part.

            "Stop the artificial heart," he said firmly. "Cut off the blood supply to the area.

            "We can easily make good the blood loss," Hossantir objected, "but cutting off circulation for more than a few minutes could kill the patient."

            "Do it now," Conway said.

            Within a few seconds the bright red spray had subsided and died. A nurse cleaned Conway’s visor while Hossantir used suction to clear the operative field. They did not need the scanners to see what had happened.

            "Technician, quickly," Conway said.

            Before he had finished speaking there was a furry little Nidian, looking like a gift-wrapped teddy bear in its transparent OR suit, hovering beside his elbow.

            "The nonreturn valve of the connector is jammed in the closed position," the Nidian said in its staccato, barking speech. "This was caused, I would say, by the valve setting being altered accidentally when it was struck by one of the surgical instruments. The flow from the artificial heart has been blocked and was forcing its way out via the recess of the valve setting control, hence the fine, highpressure spray. The valve itself isn’t damaged, and if you will raise the organ so that I will have space to reset the valve..."

            "I’d rather not move the heart," Conway said. "We are very short of time."

            "I am not a doctor," the Nidian said crossly. "This repair should properly be performed on a workbench, or at least in an area with room for my admittedly small elbows. Working in close contact with living tissue is . . . is repugnant to me. However, my tools are sterile in readiness for such emergencies."

            "Do you feel nauseous?" Conway asked worriedly. He had visions of the little being choking inside its helmet.

            "No," the Nidian said, "just irritated."

            Conway withdrew his Melfan instruments to give the technician more room to work. A nurse had clipped a tray of Earth-human DBDG instruments to the frame beside him, and by the time he had selected the ones he would need the Nidian had freed the jammed valve. Conway was thanking the little being for the speed of the repair when Hossantir broke in.

            "I’m restarting the artificial heart," it said.

            "No, wait," Conway said sharply. He was looking at the monitor and getting a feeling-a very vague feeling that was not strong enough even to be called a hunch-that any delay at all would be dangerous. "I don’t like the vital signs. There is nothing there which should not be there, considering that the flow from the artificial heart was interrupted, initially by the jammed connector valve and later when the system was shut down during the repair. I realize that if the artificial heart is not restarted within the next few minutes, irreversible changes leading to termination will take place in the brain. Even so, I have the feeling that we should not restart but go instead for an immediate resection of the replacement orgao...

            He knew that Hossantir would want to object and take the safer course, that of restarting the artificial heart and waiting until they were sure that the patient’s circulation had returned to optimum, and then proceed as originally planned. Normally Conway would not have argued against this, because he, too, preferred not to take unnecessary risks. But there was something niggling at the back of his mind, or one of his minds, something about the effect of longterm trauma on certain gravid, heavy-gravity life-forms, and the feeling was so persistent that he had to act on it. And while he had been speaking, Conway had unclipped his instruments to show Hossantir, nonverbally so that the Senior’s feelings would not be hurt too much, that he was not about to argue the point.

            "...Will you work on the connection to the absorption organ, please," he ended, "and keep an eye on the monitor."

            Sharing the operative field with the Tralthan, Conway worked quickly and carefully in the restricted space, clamping off the artery beyond the artificial heart connection, detaching it, and reconnecting it to the arterial stub projecting from the replacement organ. Unlike the first, shocking seconds of the earlier hemorrhaging, time seemed to have speeded up. His hands and instruments were well outside the field of the nullifiers, being acted on by four Earth-Gs, so they felt incredibly slow and awkward. Several times his instruments clinked loudly against those of Hossantir. He could sympathize with the surgeon, whoever it had been, who had accidentally knocked that connector valve off its setting. He had to concentrate hard to keep his instruments from leading a life of their own.

            He did not watch Hossantir’s work, because the Tralthan knew its stuff and there was no time for surgical sightseeing.

            He inserted retaining sutures to hold the artery in position on each end of the connector, which was designed both to hold the ends firmly in position when circulation was restored and to keep the sections of original and replacement tissue apart so as to reduce postoperative rejection problems. There were times when, immunologically speaking, he wondered why a highly evolved and complex organism should be its own worst enemy. Next he began the linkup of the vessel which supplied nutrient from the absorption organ to one of the major heart muscles.

            Hossantir had completed its connection and had turned its attention to the minor vessel which supplied one half of the womb when the Hudlar was in female mode-the second, undamaged heart had been performing double duty since the start of the operation. They were short of time, but as yet not dangerously so, when the Tralthan indicated the Monitor with a free appendage.

            "Ectopics," Hossantir said. "One in five, no, one in four. Pressure is reducing. The indications are that the heart will go into fibrillation and arrest very quickly. The defibrillator is ready."

            Conway took a quick look at the visual display where the irregular, ectopic heartbeat broke into the normal rhythm once in every four beats. From experience he knew how soon it could degenerate into a rapid, uncontrollable flutter and, with the subsequent loss of the pumping function, failure. The defibrillator would almost certainly shock it into action again, but that device could not be used while the operation on the replacement heart was in progress. He resumed his work with desperate, careful speed.

            So deep was his concentration that all of his minds were becoming involved again, contributing their expertise and at the same time their irritation that it was a set of Earth-human hands which were doing the work and not the assorted manipulators, pincers, and digits of his alter egos. He looked up finally to find that Hossantir and he had finished their connections at the same time. But a few seconds later the other heart went into fibrillation, then arrest. Their time was really short now.

            They eased the clamps on the main artery and secondary vessels and watched the flaccid replacement organ swell slowly as it was filled with Forty-three’s blood, checking with their scanners for the formation of air embolisms. There were none, so Conway placed the four tiny electrodes in position preparatory to restarting the replacement heart. Unlike the defibrillator charge needed for the other heart, which would have to penetrate more than ten inches of hard, Hudlar tegument and underlying tissue, these electrodes would be acting directly on the surface muscles of the replacement organ and would be carrying a relatively mild charge.

            The defibrillator brought negative results. Both hearts fluttered unsteadily for a few moments and then subsided.

            "Again," Conway said.

            "The embryo has arrested," Hossantir said suddenly.

            "I was expecting that," Conway said, not wanting to sound omniscient, but neither did he have the time for explanations.

            Now he knew why he had wanted to complete the replacement connections so fast after the emergency with the valve. It had been not a hunch but a memory from the past when he had been a very junior intern, and the memory was one of his own.

            ft had happened during his first lecture on the FROB life-form, which had been given by the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, Thornnastor. Conway had made a remark to the effect that the species was fortunate in having a standby heart if one should fail. Conway had meant it as a joke, but Thornnastor had jumped on him, figuratively speaking, with all six of its feet for making such a remark without first studying the Hudlar physiology in detail. It had gone on to describe the disadvantages of possessing two hearts, especially when the possessor was a gravid female-mode Hudlar nearing parturition, and the nerve network which controlled the involuntary muscle system was maintaining a delicate balance between the impulses to four hearts, two parental and two embryonic. At that particular stage the failure of one heart could quickly lead to the arrest of the other three.

            "And again," Conway said worriedly. The incident had not been worth remembering then, because major surgery on FROBs was considered to be impossible in those days. He was wondering if survival for this particular Hudlar was impossible now when both of its hearts twitched, hesitated, then settled into a strong, steady beat.

            "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.

            With a tremendous effort he guided his alien fingers to the transmit key for his general communication and said carefully, "You people are too good and there is nothing here for me to do. If a problem should arise, call me on the Red Three frequency. There is a matter which I must attend to at once on the methane level."

            As he was leaving, Hossantir bent an eye-stalk in his direction and said gravely, "Stay cool, Conway."

 

CHAPTER 16

 

The ward was cold and dark. Heavy shielding and insulation protected it against the radiation and heat given off by the ship traffic in the vicinity of the hospital, and there were no windows, because even the light which filtered in from the distant stars could not be allowed to penetrate to this level. For this reason the images appearing on his vehicle’s screen had been converted from the nonvisible spectrum which gave the pictures the unreal quality of fantasy, and the scales covering Diagnostician Semlic’s eightlimbed, starfish-shaped body shone coldly through the methane mist like multihued diamonds, making it resemble some wondrous, heraldic beast.

            Conway had often studied pictures and scanner records of the SNLU life-form, but this was the first time he had seen Semlic outside its refrigerated life-support vehicle. In spite of the proven efficiency of Conway’s own insulated vehicle, the Diagnostician was keeping its distance.

            "I come in response to your recent invitation," Conway said hesitantly, "and to escape from that madhouse up there for a while. I have no intention of examining any of your patients."

            "Oh, Conway, it’s you inside that thing!" Semlic moved fractionally closer. "My patients will be greatly relieved by your lack of attention. That furnace you insist on occupying makes them nervous. But if you would park to the right of the observation gallery, just there, you will be able to see and hear everything that goes on. Have you been here before?"

            "Twice," Conway replied. "Purely to satisfy my curiosity on both occasions, as well as to enjoy the peace and quiet."

            Semlic made a sound which did not translate, then said, "Peace and quiet are relative, Conway. You have to turn the sensitivity of your outside microphone right up to hear me with sufficient volume for your translator to be able to handle my input, and I am speaking loudly for an SNLU. To a being like you, who are nearly deaf, it is quiet. I hope that the environment, busy and noisy as it is to me, will help bring the peace and calm which your mind requires so badly.

            "And don’t forget," it said as it moved away, "turn your sound sensitivity up and your translator off."

            "Thank you," Conway said. For a moment the jeweled starfish shape of the Diagnostician aroused in him an almost childlike sense of wonder, so that a sudden wave of emotion misted his eyes and added to the blurring effect of the methane fog filling the ward as he added, "You are a kind, understanding, and warmhearted being."

            Semlic made another untranslatable sound and said, "There is no need to be insulting...

            For a long time he watched the activity in the busy ward and noticed that a few of the low-temperature nursing staff attending the patients wore lightweight protective suits, indicating that their atmosphere requirements were somewhat different from the ward in general. He saw them doing things to and for their charges which made no sense at all, unless he was to take an SNLU tape, and they worked in the almost total silence of beings with a hypersensitivity to audible vibrations, and at first there was nothing to hear. But the more deeply he concentrated the more aware he became of delicate patterns of sound emerging, of a kind of alien music which was cold and pure and resembled nothing he had ever heard before, and eventually he could distinguish single voices and conversations which were like the cool, passionless, delicate, and ineffably sweet chiming of colliding snowflakes. Gradually the peace and beauty and utter strangeness of it all reached him and the other components of his mind, and gently dissolved away all the stress and conflict and mental confusion.

            Even Khone, in whom xenophobia was an evolutionary imperative, could find nothing threatening in these surroundings, and it, too, found the peace and calm which enables the mind either to float without thinking or to think clearly and coolly and without worrying.

            Except, that was, for a small, niggling worry over the fact that he had been here for several hours while there was important work awaiting his attention, and besides which, it had been nearly ten hours since he had eaten.

            The cold level had served its purpose very well by leaving him in all respects cool. Conway looked around for Semlic, but the SNLU had disappeared into a side ward. He turned on his translator, meaning to ask two nearby patients to pass on his message of thanks to the Diagnostician, but hastily changed his mind.

            The delicate chiming and tinkling speech of the two SNLU patients translated as ..... Nothing but a whining, hypochondriac cow! If it wasn’t such a kindly being, it would tell you so and probably kick you out of the hospital. And the shameless way you try to get its sympathy is not far short of seduction. . ." and, in reply, "You have nothing to be seductive with, you jealous old bitch! You’re falling apart. But it still knows which one of us is really ill, even when I try to hide it. .

            As he left Conway made a mental note to ask O’Mara what the uItrafrigid SNLUs did about cooling a situation which had become emotionally overheated. And what, for that matter, could he do to calm down the perpetually pregnant Protector of the Unborn he would be calling on as soon as he had something to eat. But he had the feeling that the answer would be the same in both cases, nothing at all.

            When he had returned to the normal warmth and light of the interlevel corridors, he stopped to think.

            The distance between his present position and the level occupied by the Protector was roughly the same as that to the main dining hall which lay in the opposite direction, which meant that he would have a double journey no matter which area he visited first. But his own quarters were between him and the Protector, and Murchison always liked to have food available-a habit dating back to her nursing days-in case a sudden emergency or sheer fatigue kept her from visiting the dining hall. The menu was not varied, but then all he wanted to do was refuel.

            There was another reason for avoiding the dining hall. In spite of the fact that his limbs no longer seemed quite so foreign to him, and the people passing him in the corridor were not nearly so unsettling as they had been before his visit to Semlic’s wards, and he felt in control of his alter egos, he was not sure that he could remain so if he were to be exposed to the proximity of masses of food which his taped entities might find nauseating.

            It would not look good if he had to pay another visit to Semlic so soon. He did not think that the type of cold comfort he had received was habit-forming, but the law of diminishing returns would most certainly apply.

            When he arrived Murchison was dressed, technically awake, but in a powered-down condition, and about to go on duty. They both knew, and they were careful not to mention to each other that they knew, that O’Mara had arranged their free periods to coincide as seldom as possible-the assumption being that it was sometimes better to put off a problem rather than cause unnecessary grief by trying to solve it too soon. Murchison yawned at him and wanted to know what he had been doing and what, apart from sleeping, he intended doing next.

            "Food, first," Conway said, yawning in sympathy. "Then I have to check on the condition of the FSOJ. You remember that Protector? You were in at its birth."

            She remembered it, all right, and said so in terms which were less than ladylike.

            "How long is it since you’ve had any sleep?" she went on, trying to hide her concern by pretending to be cross. "You look worse than some of the patients in intensive care. Your taped entities will not feel fatigue, because they weren’t tired when they donated their brain recordings, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that you are tireless."

            Conway fought back another yawn, then reached forward suddenly to grab her around the waist. He was pretty sure that his arms were not trembling as he held her, even though his arousal was being matched by equivalent feelings in his alter egos, but the kiss was much less lingering than was usual. Murchison pushed him away gently.

            "Do you have to go right away?" he asked, fighting another mammoth yawn.

            Murchison laughed. "I’m not going to fool about with you in that condition. You’d probably arrest. Go to bed before you go to sleep. I’ll fix you something before I leave, something hidden inside a sandwich so that your mind-friends won’t object to what you’re eating."

            As she busied herself at their food dispenser, she went on, "Thorny is very interested in the birth process in the Protector, and it has asked me to check the patient at frequent intervals. I’ll call you if anything unusual develops there, and I’m sure the Seniors in Hudlar OR will do the same."

            "I really ought to check them myself," Conway said.

            "What’s the use of having assistants," she said impatiently, "if you insist on doing all the work yourself?"

            Conway, with the remains of his first sandwich in one hand and an unspecified but no doubt nutritious cup of something in the other, sat down on their bed. He said, "Your argument is not without merit."

            She gave him an almost sisterly peck on the cheek, a kiss designed to cause minimal arousal in his alter egos as well as his own, and left without another word. O’Mara must have lectured her pretty thoroughly regarding her behavior toward a life-mate who had recently become an acting Diagnostician and who still had to adjust to the attendant emotional confusion.

            If he did not adjust soon, he could not look forward to having much fun. The trouble was, Murchison was not giving him much of an opportunity to try.

            He awoke suddenly with her hand on his shoulder and the remains of a nightmare, or it might have been an alien wishfulfillment dream, dissolving into the comfortable reality of their living quarters.

            "You were snoring," she said. "You’ve probably been snoring for the past six hours. The Hudlar OR and Protector teams left recorded messages for you. They obviously didn’t think them urgent or important enough to awaken you, and the rest of the hospital continues to go about its business much as usual. Do you want to go back to sleep?"

            "No," Conway said, and reached up to grab her around the waist. Her resistance was a token one.

            "I don’t think O’Mara would approve of this," she said doubtfully. "He warned me that there would be emotional conflicts, serious enough to permanently affect our relationship, if the process of adaptation is not slow and carefully controlled, and-"

            "And O’Mara isn’t married to the most pulchritudinous female DBDG in the hospital," Conway broke in, and added, "And since when have I been fast and uncontrolled?"

            "O’Mara isn’t married to anything but his job," she said, laughing, "and I expect his job would divorce him if it could. But our Chief Psychologist knows his stuff, and I would not want to risk prematurely overstimulating your-"

            "Shut up," Conway said softly.

            It was possible that the Chief Psychologist was right, Conway thought as he gently rolled her onto the bed beside him; O’Mara usually was right. His alter egos were becoming increasingly aroused, and were looking with other-species disfavor on the features occupying the forward skull and the softly curving mammaries of the Earth-human DBDG in such close proximity to them. And when tactile sensations were added to the visual sensory input, their disfavor became extreme.

            They reacted with mental images of what should have been going on in the Hudlar, Tralthan, Kelgian, Melfan, Illensan, and Cogleskan equivalent situation, and they insisted that this was utterly and quite revoltingly wrong. What was worse, they tried to make Conway feel that it was wrong, too, and that the life-mate beside him should have been of an entirely different physiological classification, the exact species being dependent on the emotional intensity of the entity who was protesting the most.

            Even the Gogleskan was insisting that this activity was all wrong, but it was disassociating itself from the proceedings. Khone was a rugged individualist, a perfect example of a loner among a species which had evolved to the point where solitude was a prime survival characteristic. And suddenly Conway realized that he was using Khone’s Gogleskan presence and ability, that he had already used it on several previous occasions to ignore those thoughts and feelings which had to be ignored and to focus his Earth-human mind on those which required the utmost concentration.

            The alien protests were still strong, but the protestors were being put in their places and given a low order of priority. Even the Cogleskan objections were being noted but otherwise ignored. He was using the FOKTs unique ability against itself as well as the others, and Khone’s race certainly knew how to concentrate on a subject.

            "We shouldn’t.., be doing.., this," Murchison said breathlessly.

            Conway ignored her words but concentrated on everything else. There were times when other-species responses to equivalent situations obtruded, insisting that his partner was too large, too tiny, too fragile, the wrong shape, or in the wrong position. But his visual and tactile sensors were those of a male Earth-human, and the stimuli they were receiving overwhelmed the purely mental interference of the others. Sometimes his alter egos suggested certain actions and movements. These he ignored as well, except in a few instances when he was able to modify them to his own purpose. But toward the end all of the alien interference was swamped out, and the hospital’s primary reactor could have blown and he would scarcely have noticed it.

            When their elevated pulse and respiration rates had returned to something approaching normal, she continued to hold him tightly, not speaking and even more reluctant to let go. Suddenly she laughed softly.

            "I was given precise instruction," she said in a tone which contained both puzzlement and relief, "regarding my behavior toward you for the next few weeks or months. The Chief Psychologist said that I should avoid intimate physical contact, maintain a professional and clinical manner during all conversations, and generally consider myself a widow until you had either come to terms with the tapes riding you, or you had been forced to resume your former Senior Physician status. It was an extremely serious matter, I was told, and great amounts of patience and sympathy would be required to see you through this difficult time. I was to consider you a multiple schizophrenic, with the majority of the personalities concerned feeling no emotional bond with me, and in many cases reacting toward me with physical revulsion. But I was to ignore all this because to do otherwise would be to subject you to the risk of permanent psychological damage."

            She kissed the tip of his nose and gave a long, gentle sigh. She went on. "Instead I find no evidence of physical revulsion and... Well, you don’t seem to be entirely your old self. I can’t say exactly what the difference is, and I’m not complaining, but you don’t appear to be having any psychological difficulties at all and ... and O’Mara will be pleased!"

            Conway grinned. "I wasn’t trying to please O’Mara he began, when the communicator beeped urgently at them.

            Murchison had set it to record any nonurgent messages so that he could sleep undisturbed, and obviously someone thought his problem urgent enough to wake him. He escaped from her clutches by tickling her under the arms, then directed the communicator’s vision pickup away from the devastated bed before answering. It was possible that there was an Earth-human male DBDG at the other end.

            Edanelt’s angular, chitinous features filled the screen as the Melfan Senior said, "I hope I did not disturb you, Conway, but Hudlar’s Forty-three and Ten have regained consciousness and are pain-free. They are feeling very lucky to be alive and have not yet had time to think about the disadvantages. This would be the best time to talk to them, if you still wish to do so.

            "I do," Conway said. He could not think of anything he wanted to do less just then, and the watching Edanelt and Murchison both knew it. He added, "What about Three?"

            "Still unconscious but stable," the Senior replied. "I checked its condition a few minutes before calling you. Hossantir and Yarrence left some hours ago to indulge in these periods of physical and mental collapse which you people seem to need at such ridiculously short intervals. I shall speak to Three when it comes to. The problems of adjustment there are not so serious."

            Conway nodded. "I’m on my way.

            The prospect of what lay ahead of him had brought the Hudlar material rushing in to fill virtually all of his mind, so that his goodbye to Murchison was nonphysical and lacked even verbal warmth. Fortunately, she had come to accept this kind of behavior from him and would ignore it until he was his old self again. As he turned to go, Conway wondered what there was so special about this pink, flabby, ridiculously weak and unbeautiful entity with whom he had spent most of his adult life.

 

CHAPTER 17

 

you have been very fortunate," Conway said, "very fortunate indeed that neither the baby nor you have suffered permanent damage."

            Medically that was quite true, Conway told himself. But the Hudlar in his mind thought otherwise, as did the members of the recovery ward staff who had withdrawn to a discreet distance to enable the patient and its physician to talk privately.

            "Having said that," Conway went on, "I regret to tell you that you, personally, have not escaped the long-term and perhaps emotionally distressing effects of your injuries."

            He knew that he was not being very subtle in his approach, but in many ways the FROB life-form was as direct and forthright as the Kelgians, although much more polite.

            "The reason for this is that organ replacement surgery was necessary to keep both of you alive," he continued, appealing to the patient’s maternal instincts in the hope that the good news about the young Hudlar would in some measure diminish the misfortune which would shortly befall the older one. "Your offspring will be born without complications, will be healthy, and will be fully capable of leading a normal life on or off its home planet. You, regrettably, will not."

            The Hudlar’s speaking membrane vibrated with the expected question.

            Conway thought for a moment before replying, not wanting to pitch the explanation at too elementary a level. This Hudlar was a mining specialist and highly intelligent; otherwise it and its life-mate would not have been working the Menelden asteroids. So he told Forty-three that while infant Hudlars sometimes fell seriously ill and a few might even die, adults were never sick, nor were they anything but physically perfect until the advent of senility. The reason for this was that they developed an immunity to their home planet’s pathogens which was as complete and perfect as any purely biochemical system could be, and no other species known to Federation medical science could match it. The FROB immune system was such that it would not allow foreign biological material of any kind to attach itself to their bodies without instantly initiating the process of rejection. Fortunately, their superefficient immune system could be neutralized when necessary, and one of these occasions was when vital organs or limbs from a donor were used as surgical replacements.

            He had been trying to make the explanation as simple and accurate as possible, but it was apparent that Forty-three’s mind was going its own way.

            "What about my life-mate?" it said, as if Conway had not been speaking.

            Momentarily a mind picture of Eighteen’s devastated body took form between the patient and himself, his own medical knowledge combining with that of his Hudlar component to suddenly involve his emotions. He cleared his throat and said, "I am deeply sorry, but your life-mate was so seriously injured that we were unable to maintain life, much less undertake curative surgery."

            "It tried to shield us with its body. Did you know that?" the Hudlar said.

            Conway nodded sympathetically, then realized that the small movement of an Earth-human head meant nothing to an FROB. His next words were chosen carefully, because he was sure that Forty-three-weakened by the recent major surgery, gravid, close to delivering its offspring, and in its ultimate female mode-would be susceptible to an emotional approach. His Hudlar alter ego was of the opinion that, at worst, some temporary psychological distress might result, while his own experience with other life-forms in similar situations suggested that he might do some good. But the situation was unique so far as this patient was concerned, and he could not be sure of anything.

            Of one thing he was very sure. Somehow he had to keep the patient from becoming too deeply introspective regarding its own situation, so that it would be thinking of its unborn rather than itself when the really bad news had to be faced. But the idea of deliberately manipulating the other’s emotions in this fashion was making him feel like a very low form of life indeed, somewhere on the level of an Earthly louse.

            He wondered why he had not thought of discussing the case with O’Mara before proceeding further-it was potentially serious enough for the Chief Psychologist to be consulted. He might still need to if he made a mess of things now.

            "We are all aware," Conway said finally, "of the action of your life-mate in trying to protect you. This type of behavior is common among the members of the more highly intelligent species, especially when the entity concerned is sacrificing itself to save the life of a loved one or a child. In this instance it was able to do both, and what is more, it was instrumental in giving life and unimpaired mobility to two very seriously injured survivors, one of whom is you, who would otherwise have died in spite of its earlier sacrifice."

This time, he thought, the patient is paying attention.

            "Your life-mate donated its undamaged limbs and one lobe of its nutrient absorption organ to the patient you can see at the other side of the ward," Conway went on. "That patient, like you, will continue to live in a state of perfect physical health, except for some irksome restrictions regarding environment and own-species group activities. And in addition to its protecting you and your unborn child during the accident, you are both continuing to live because one of your hearts was also donated by your life-mate."

            "While its presence is gone from you except as a memory, Conway added quietly, "it would not be completely true to say that it had died."

            He watched closely to see how Forty-three was taking this blatantly emotional onslaught, but the tegument of the body was too hard and featureless to give any indication of its feelings.

            "It tried very hard to keep you alive," he went on, "and so I think you owe it to your life-mate’s memory to continue trying very hard to stay alive, although there will be times when this will not be easy.

And now for the bad news, Conway thought.

            Gently, he went on to describe the effects of knocking out the FROB immune system-the aseptic environment which the patient would require, the specially prepared and treated food, and the barrier nursing and isolation ward procedures needed to guard against the possibility of any FROB infection invading the body which had been rendered utterly defenseless. Even the infant would have to be removed from the parent immediately after birth. Only visual contact with it would be possible, because the child would be normal in all respects and would therefore be a health hazard to the defenseless parent.

            Conway knew that the child would be raised and well cared for on Hudlar-the FROB family and social structures were both highly complex and flexible, and the concept of "orphan" was completely unknown to them. The infant would be deprived of nothing.

            "If you yourself were to return to your home world," Conway said in a firmer tone, "the same protective measures would be necessary to keep you alive, and at home your friends would not have the facilities and experience possessed by this hospital. You would be confined to your own quarters, you would have no physical contact with another Hudlar, and the normal range of exercise and work activities would be forbidden. There would also be the constant worry that your protective envelope would be breached or your nutrient infected and, with no natural defense against disease, you would die."

            The native Hudlars were not yet medically advanced enough to maintain such a sophisticated facility, so its death would be certain.

            The patient had been watching him steadily while he was speaking. Suddenly its membrane began to vibrate in reply.

            "In the situation you describe," it said, "I might not worry too much about dying."

            Conway’s first inclination was to remind Forty-three of all the work that had gone into keeping it alive, the implication being that it was displaying a lack of gratitude. But the Hudlar component of his mind was making comparisons with the normal FROB life-style and that which Conway was offering it. From the patient’s viewpoint he might not have done it a favor, other than by saving the life of its child-to-be. Conway sighed.

            "There is an alternative," he said, trying to put some enthusiasm into his tone. "There is a way in which you could lead an active working life, without physical constraints on your movements. In fact, you could travel all over the Federation, return to asteroid mining if you like, or do anything else you have a mind to do so far as your working life is concerned, provided that you do not return to Hudlar."

            The patient’s membrane vibrated briefly, but the translator was silent. Probably it was a sound of surprise.

            Conway had to spend the next few minutes explaining the basic tenets of multispecies medicine to the patient, and how disease and infection was transmissible only among the members of a species with a common evolutionary history and environment. An Ian or a Melfan or a member of any other species would be quite safe with an Earth-human with the most contagious and virulent Earthly diseases, because the victim’s pathogens were ineffective against-in fact they would completely ignore and be ignored by-the tissues of any other off-planet species. An ailment could, therefore, only be contracted from a being’s own world or people.

            "You can see what this means," Conway went on quickly. "After your wounds are healed and the child is born, you will be discharged from the hospital. But instead of confining you to an aseptic prison on your home world and severely restricting your activities, you could elect to go to another planet, where your lack of resistance to Hudlar diseases would be unimportant, because the pathogens on that world would have no interest in you.

            "Your nutrient would be synthesized locally and would not be a source of infection," he continued. "However, immunity suppressant medication will be required periodically to ensure that your immune system does not restart and begin to reject your artificial organs. This will be administered by a medic from the nearest Monitor Corps office, which will be given full instructions regarding your case. The Corps medic will also warn you of impending visits by members of your own species. When this happens you must not go anywhere near them. Do not occupy the same building as they do or, if possible, even the same town."

            Unlike the transplant patients of many other species, who could accept donor organs with no rejection problems after a short time on suppressants, the Hudlar immune system had to be permanently neutralized. But this was not the time, Conway thought, to add another misfortune to the list.

            "Exchanges of news between you and your friends at home should be by communicator only," Conway went on. "I must stress this point. A visitor of your own species, or even a package sent from home, would harbor the only kind of pathogens capable of infecting and killing you, and they would do so very quickly."

            Conway paused to allow the full meaning of his words to sink

in. The patient continued to regard him for a long time, its membrane showing no indication of it wanting to speak. This was a Hudlar in full female mode, and its present major concern would be for the safe delivery and future health and happiness of its offspring.

            When the birth was successfully accomplished, as it would be, the deceased male-mode life-mate should have been present to take care of the child and to slip gradually into female mode. Because of the death of its partner, that function would be taken over by close relatives. Immediately following the birth, however, this patient would begin the inevitable changeover to full male mode, and in that condition the absence of its life-mate would be particularly distressing.

            People of many intelligent species had lost life-mates before now. They had learned to live with it or they had gone out and found another who would accept them. The trouble here was that FROB-Forty-three would not be able to make physical contact with any other member of its species, and would therefore remain in full male mode for the remainder of its life. That, for a young adult Hudlar, would be an intensely frustrating and unhappy condition to be in.

            Through the torrent of sex-related Hudlar material which was flooding his mind, a purely Earth-human thought rose to the surface. What would it be like to be forever separated from Murchison and every other member of his species? If he could have Murchison he would not mind having only a bunch of extraterrestrials to talk to and work with-that was the everyday situation at Sector General. But to be cut off from the one form of warm, human, intimate, and mentally as well as physically stimulating contact which he had been taking for granted for so many years-he did not know what he would be able to do about that. The question was unanswerable because the situation was unthinkable.

            "I understand," the patient said suddenly, "and thank you, Doctor."

            His first thought was to refuse its thanks and instead apologize to it. He had the taped insight which made him in effect another Hudlar, and he wanted to tell how truly sorry he was for subjecting it to the trauma of this highly complex and professionally demanding operation which would give it so many more years of mental suffering. But he knew that his mind was oversensitized to the Hudlar material right now, and a Doctor should not speak to his patient in such a maudlin and unprofessional fashion.

            Instead he said reassuringly, "Your species is very adaptable regarding working environments, and much in demand throughout the Federation on planetary and space projects, and your recovery will be complete. With certain personal restrictions, which will require a high order of mental discipline to negate, you can look forward to leading a very active and useful life."

            He did not say a happy life, because he was not that big a liar.

            "Thank you, Doctor," the patient said again.

            "Please excuse me," Conway said, and escaped.

            But not for long. The rapid, irregular tapping of six hard-tipped Melfan legs signaled the approach of Senior Physician Edanelt.

            "That was well done, Conway," the Senior said. "A nice blend of clinical fact, sympathy, and encouragement, although you did spend a lot more time with the patient than is usual for a Diagnostician. However, there was a message for you from Thornnastor requesting a meeting as soon and wherever is convenient for you. It did not specify other than saying that it concerned your Protector and that it was urgent."

            "If the time and place are of my choice," Conway said slowly, his mind still on the future troubles of FROB-Forty-three, "it can’t be too urgent. What about Three and Ten?"

            "They, too, are urgently in need of reassurance," Edanelt replied. "Three was the responsibility of Yarrence, who did some delicate and quite brilliant work relieving its depressed cranial fracture and underlying repairs, but no replacement surgery was necessary. Visually, Three will not be an aesthetically pleasing entity to its fellows, but unlike Ten and Forty-three, neither will it be a permanent exile from its home world and people.

            "Ten will have the same long-term problems as Forty-three," the Melfan went on. The procedures for the multiple limb and absorption organ replacements went well, and the prognosis is for a full recovery under the usual strict regimen of suppressants. Since you are short of time, perhaps I should talk to one of them while you speak to the other?

            "I am a Senior Physician, Conway," it added, "and not a fledgling Diagnostician like you. But I would not want to keep Thornnastor waiting too long."

            "Thank you," Conway said, "and I’ll talk to Ten."

            Unlike Forty-three, Ten was in male mode and would not be susceptible to emotional manipulation and arguments as the previous patient. He hoped that Thornnastor was being its usual impatient self and not really in a hurry to see him..

            When it was over he felt in much worse mental shape than the patient, who seemed to have taken the first steps toward the acceptance of its lot without too much emotional distress, probably because it did not have a life-mate. Conway desperately wanted to clear his mind of all things pertaining to the Hudlar life-form, but it was proving extremely difficult to do so.

            "Surely it is theoretically possible for two suppressees, living away from their home planet, to meet without endangering each other?" he asked Edanelt when they were out of earshot of the Hudlar patients. "If both had their immune systems suppressed, they should be free of own-species pathogens which would otherwise infect each other. It might be possible to arrange periodic meetings of such exiles which would benefit-"

            "A nice, softhearted, and, may I say, softheaded idea," Edanelt broke in. "But if one of these suppressees had an inherited immunity to a pathogen not directly involved with the rejection process, to which the other members of this group had no immunity, they would be in serious danger. But try the idea on Thornnastor, who is the recognized authority on- "Thornnastor!" Conway burst out. "I’d forgotten. Has it

been?

            "No," Edanelt said. "But O’Mara came in to see if you needed help talking to the replacement patients. It advised me regarding my approach to Three’s problems, but said that you did not need help and seemed to be enjoying yourselves too much to be disturbed. Was that a remark denoting approval, or not? From my experience of working among Earth-human DBDGs I assume this was one of those occasions when incorrect verbal data is passed on in the belief that the listener will assume the opposite meaning to be true, but I do not understand this concept you call sarcasm.

            "One never knows whether O’Mara is approving or otherwise," Conway said dryly, "because he is invariably uncomplimentary and sarcastic."

            Nevertheless it gave him a warm feeling to think that the Chief Psychologist had thought enough of his handling of the postoperative interview with Ten not to interfere. Or maybe he had thought Conway was making such an unholy mess of things that O’Mara was unable, for reasons of discipline, to tell a probationary Diagnostician how abysmally wrong he was in front of junior members of the staff.

            But the doubt Conway felt was being swamped by a feeling which was even stronger, a physical need which was being reinforced by the sudden realization that he had had nothing but a sandwich to eat during the past ten hours. He turned quickly to the ward terminal and called up the on- and off-duty rosters of the warmblooded, oxygen-breathing members of the Senior Staff. He was in luck, their duty rosters coincided.

            "Would you contact Thornnastor, please," Conway said as he turned to leave the ward, "and tell it that I will meet it in thirty minutes in the dining hall."

 

CHAPTER 18

 

Conway knew the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology well enough to tell it apart from all the other Tralthans using the dining hall, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Murchison at the same table. Thornnastor, as was its wont, was purveying some interspecies gossip to its assistant, and so engrossed in it were they that they did not notice his approach.

            ..... One would not think it likely or even possible," the Tralthan was rumbling pedantically through its translator, "for the urge toward indiscriminate procreative activity to be strong in a life-form which is only a few degrees above absolute zero. But believe me, a fractional elevation in body temperature, even when it is accidentally produced by the treatment, can cause acute embarrassment among the other SNLU genders present. Four genders in one species tends to be confusing anyway, even when one is carrying the SNLU tape, and a certain Melfan Senior, you know who I mean, was sufficiently disturbed emotionally to use its external manipulators to signal its readiness to-"

            "Frankly, sir, my trouble is somewhat different Murchison began.

            "I realize that," Thornnastor replied. "But really, there does not appear to be any great emotional, physical, or psychological problem. Naturally, the mechanics of this particular mating process are distasteful to me personally, but I am willing to consider the matter clinically and give what advice I can."

            "My difficulty," Murchison said, "is the distinct feeling I experienced while it was happening that I was being unfaithful five times over.

            They’re talking about us! Conway thought, feeling his face beginning to redden. But they were still too deeply engrossed to notice either him or his embarrassment.

            "I will gladly discuss this matter with my fellow Diagnosticians," Thornnastor resumed ponderously. "Some of them may have encountered similar difficulties. Not myself, of course, because the FGLI species indulges in this activity during a very small proportion of the Tralthan year, and during that period the activity is, well, frenetic and not subject to subtle self-analysis." All of its eyes took on faraway looks for a moment, then it went on. "However, a brief reference to my Earth-human component suggests that you do not concern yourself with minor and unnecessary emotional hairsplitting, and just relax and enjoy the process. In spite of the subtle differences which you mentioned earlier, the process is enjoyable?... Oh, hello, Conway."

            Thornnastor had raised the eye which had been regarding its food to look at him. It said, "We were just talking about you. You seem to be adapting very well to your multiple tape problems, and now Murchison tells me that-"

            "Yes," Conway said quickly. He looked appealingly into the Tralthan’s one and Murchison’s two eyes and went on. "Please, I would greatly appreciate it if you would not discuss this very personal matter with anyone else."

            "I don’t see why not," Thornnastor said, bringing another eye to bear on him. "Surely the matter is of intrinsic interest, and would no doubt prove enlightening to colleagues who have faced or are about to face similar problems. Sometimes your reactions are difficult to understand, Conway."

            He glared at Murchison, who, he felt, had been far too free in talking about her intrinsically interesting problems with her Chief. But she smiled sweetly back at him, then said to Thornnastor, "You’ll have to excuse him, sir. I think he is hungry, and hunger affects his sensorium as well as his blood sugar levels and sometimes makes him behave with a degree of irrationality."

            "Ah, yes," the Tralthan said, returning the eye to its plate. "It has the same effect on me."

            Murchison was already tapping instructions into the food console for one of his visually noncontroversial sandwiches. He said, "Make it three, please."

            He was attacking the first one as Thornnastor, who had the advantage of being able to speak with all four of its mouths, went on. "It seems I must compliment you on the way you are adapting to operative procedures requiring other-species surgical data. Not only were you calling up this data with little or no delay; the indications are that you were initiating new procedures derived from a combination of different entities’ experiences. The OR Seniors were most impressed, I have been told."

            Chewing furiously, Conway swallowed and said, "It was the Seniors who did all the real work."

            "That isn’t the way Hossantir and Edanelt tell it," Thornnastor said. "But I suppose it is in the nature of things that Seniors do most of the work and the Diagnostician-in-Charge gets most of the credit, or all of the discredit if things go wrong. And speaking of cases which might not go well, I would like to discuss your plans for the birth of your Unborn. The endocrinology of its parent and Protector is quite complex, and I am most interested in this one. However, I can foresee a few purely physical problems which..."

            Conway nearly choked at the understatement, and it was a moment before he was able to speak.

            "Must all verbal communication cease while it is eating?" said Thornnastor impatiently, using the mouth closest to Murchison. "Why wasn’t your species foresighted enough to evolve at least one additional orifice for the ingestion of food?"

            "Pardon me," Conway said, smiling. "I would be delighted to have any assistance and advice you can give me. The Protectors of the Unborn are the most untreatable life-form we’ve encountered, and I don’t think we have discovered all the problems yet, much less found solutions to them. In fact, I would be most grateful if your commitments would allow you to be present during the birth."

            "I thought you’d never ask, Conway," Thornnastor rumbled.

            "There are several problems," Conway said, rubbing his middle gently and wondering if one of them was going to be an attack of indigestion through eating his food too quickly. Apologetically, he went on. "But right now my mind is still sensitized to the Hudlar material and the questions which have arisen as a result of my recent experiences in the Hudlar OR and Geriatric wards. The questions are psychological as well as physiological, and so insistent that I find it very difficult to clear my mind for consideration of the Protector case. This is ridiculous!"

            "But understandable, considering your recent total involvement with FROB life-forms," Thornnastor said. "But if you have unresolved problems regarding these Hudlars, the simplest way of clearing your mind of this troublesome material is to ask the questions at once and obtain as many answers as possible, even though they may be unsatisfactory or incomplete answers, so that you will have taken the matter as far as it is possible to go with it at the present time. Your mind will accept this and allow you to think of other things, including your perpetually pregnant Protector.

            "Your particular mental quirk is far from rare, Conway," the Tralthan went on, slipping into its lecturing voice. "There must be a very good reason why your mind doesn’t want to leave the subject. Perhaps it is close to drawing significant conclusions, and if the question is shelved now the pertinent data might fade and be lost. I realize that I am beginning to sound like a psychologist, but one cannot practice medicine without acquiring some knowledge in that field. I can, of course, help you with the physiological questions on the Hudlar life-form, but I suspect that it is the psychological aspect which is crucial. In which case you should consult the Chief Psychologist without delay."

            "You mean," Conway said faintly, "call O’Mara right now?"

            "Theoretically," the Tralthan replied, "a Diagnostician may request the assistance of any member of the hospital staff at any time, and vice versa."

            Conway looked at Murchison, who smiled sympathetically and said, "Call him. On the intercom he can only indulge in verbal violence."

            "That," Conway said as he reached for the communicator, "doesn’t reassure me at all."

            A few seconds later the scowling features of the Chief Psychologist filled the tiny screen, making it impossible to tell how or if he was fully dressed. O’Mara said coldly, "I can tell from the background noise and the fact that you are still masticating that you are calling from the main dining hall. I would point out that I am in the middle of my rest period. I do rest occasionally, you know, just to fool you people into thinking that I’m only human. Presumably there is a good reason for your making this call, or are you complaining about the food?"

            Conway opened his mouth, but the combination of facing an angry O’Mara and a mind which was still too busily engaged in formulating his questions kept any words from coming out.

            "Conway," O’Mara said with exaggerated patience, "what the blazes do you want?"

            "Information," he replied angrily. Then he softened his tone and went on. "I need information which might help in the Hudlar geriatric work. Diagnostician Thornnastor, Pathologist Murchison, and I are presently in consultation regarding..

            "Which means," O’Mara said sourly, "that you’ve dreamed up some harebrained scheme over lunch."

            .... . A proposed method of treating their condition," Conway went on. "Regrettably, little can be done for the present occupants of the ward, since the degenerative condition is too far advanced in them. But early preventive treatment might be possible provided my idea has physiological and psychological support. Thornnastor and Murchison can give me detailed information on the former, but the key to their treatment, and any hope of its ultimate success, depends on the behavior under stress, adaptive ability, and potential for reeducation in aged but pregeriatric FROBs. I have not yet discussed the clinical problems which would be encountered, because to do so would be a waste of time if the answers you give me preclude further investigation."

            "Go on," O’Mara said, no longer sounding half-asleep.

            Conway hesitated, thinking that his period of intensive Hudlar surgery, the visits to the FROB geriatric and infant wards, some old memories from his early childhood, and possibly material from his other-species mind partners had all contributed to an idea which was very likely unworkable, ethically questionable, and so ridiculous that O’Mara might well have second thoughts regarding his suitability as a future Diagnostician. But it was too late now to hold back.

            "From my FROB tape and lectures at various times on Hudlar pathology," he went on, nodding in acknowledgment toward Thornnastor, "it is clear that the various painful and incurable conditions to which the aged of that species are prey are traceable to a common cause. The loss of function in the limbs and the abnormal degree of calcification and fissuring at the extremities can be ascribed to the simple deterioration in circulation which is common to the aged of any species.

            "This is not a new idea," Conway said, glancing quickly toward Thornnastor and Murchison. "However, as a result of working on a large number of Hudlar limb and organ replacement operations from the Menelden accident, it occurred to me that the deterioration I observed in the organs of absorption and evacuation among the aged FROBs was very similar to the temporary condition which occurred during the replacement of a heart, although at the time I was too busy to note the signs consciously. In short, the problems of the FROB geriatrics are due to circulatory impairment or madequacy.

            "If the idea isn’t new," O’Mara said with a flash of his characteristic sarcasm, "why am I listening to it?"

            Murchison was watching him in silence. Thornnastor continued to watch its food, Murchison, O’Mara, and Conway, also without speaking.

            "The Hudlars are a very energy-hungry species," Conway went on. "They have an extremely high metabolic rate which requires a virtually continuous supply of nutrient via their organs of absorption. The food thus metabolized serves the major organs, such as the two hearts, the absorption organs themselves, the womb when the entity is in gravid female mode, and, of course, the limbs.

            "I had learned from the pathology lectures," he continued, "that these six immensely strong limbs are the most energy-hungry system of the body, and demand close to eighty percent of the nutrient metabolized. But it was not until the recent Hudlar experience that my mind was drawn forcibly to this data, and to the fact which is also widely recognized, that it is the ultrahigh metabolic rate and excessive food requirement which enables the adult Hudlar to be so fantastically resistant to injury and disease."

            O’Mara was getting ready to interrupt again, and Conway went on quickly. "With the onset of old age their troubles invariably begin in the limbs, which demand an even greater proportion of the body’s available resources to fight it. This places increasing stress on the twin hearts, absorption, and evacuation organs, all of which require their share of and are interdependent on the circulatory system’s nutrient content. As a result these systems go into partial failure, which further reduces the blood supply to the limbs, and the body as a whole slides into a degenerative spiral."

            "Conway," O’Mara said firmly, "I assume this lengthy but no doubt oversimplified clinical picture is for the benefit of the poor, ignorant psychologist so that he will understand the psychological questions when they come, if they ever come.

            Continuing with its meal, Thornnastor said, "The clinical picture is oversimplified, I agree, but essentially correct, although your method of describing it suggests a new approach to the problem. I, too, am impatient to know what it is that you intend."

            Conway took a deep breath and said, "Very well. It seems to me that the drain on the age-reduced resources of these Hudlars, represented by the irreversible limb conditions, can be alleviated before onset. With reduced stress and a greater share of the available nutrient supply, the hearts and organs of absorption and elimination could maintain their functions for an additional several years while keeping up optimum levels of circulation to the remaining limb or limbs."

            All at once it seemed that O’Mara’s face in the screen had become a still picture; Murchison was staring at him with a shocked expression, and all four of Thornnastor’s eyes had turned to regard him.

            "Naturally the procedure would be one of elective surgery, Conway went on, "and would not take place except at the request and the expressed permission of the entity concerned. The surgical problems involved in the removal of four or five limbs are relatively simple. It is the psychological preparation and aftereffects which are paramount and which would determine whether or not the procedure should be tried."

            O’Mara exhaled loudly through his nose, then said, "So you want me to tell you if it is possible to sell the pregeriatric Hudlars on the idea of voluntary multiple limb amputations?"

            "The procedure," Thornnastor said, "does seem, well, radical."

            "I realize that," Conway said. "But from the Hudlar material available to me it is obvious that there is a general and abject fear of growing old among that species, caused by the quite appalling clinical picture of the average geriatric FROB. The fear is increased by the knowledge that the minds of the aging Hudlars remain clear and active, although there is the tendency common to all aging entities to want to live in the past. But it is the situation of a normal mind being trapped inside a rapidly degenerating and often painracked body which causes the greatest distress. It is possible that the Hudlars may not have a lot of sales resistance to the idea, and may even welcome it.

            "But my information is purely subjective," he went on, "and comes from recent personal experience and from the feelings of the Hudlar who donated my tape, so my thinking may not be completely trustworthy. It requires the objective viewpoint of a psychologist with extraterrestrial experience, including that of the FROB life-form, to decide whether or not my idea has merit."

            O’Mara was silent for a long time; then he nodded and said, "What can you offer these close-to-limbless Hudlars, Conway? What could they do which would make their extended, less painful lives worth living?"

            "I have had time to consider only a few of the possibilities," he replied. "Their situation would be similar to that of the Hudlar amputees we will be sending home in a few weeks’ time. They will have limited mobility on prosthetics, one or two of their forelimbs will remain fully functioning, and they should remain mentally and physically effective until shortly before termination. I shall have to discuss the physiological details with Thornnastor before I can be certain of this, but-"

            "It is a fair assumption, Conway," the Tralthan broke in. "I have no doubt that you are right."

            "Thank you, sir," Conway said, feeling his face growing warm at the compliment. To O’Mara he went on, "On Hudlar medical science is in the early stages and for some time it will be primarily concerned with the treatment of diseases in the very young, since the adult members of the species do not take sick. These pediatric cases, although ill, remain very active and require only minimal restraint and supervision while the administered medication is doing its work. Our aged amputees will still be physically capable of withstanding without injury the enthusiasm and playfulness of the halfton Hudlar toddlers, and we are already training the first of a line of FROB pediatric nurses who will be able to instruct them..

            Mention of that very personable female-mode nurse had excited his Hudlar mind-partner, so Conway had to spend a few seconds telling it to behave itself. But when he tried to return his mind to what he had been about to say, memories of his extremely aged but alert great-grandmother and, at the time, only friend welled up in his mind. That touched off a sudden, intensely strong feeling of sorrow from Khone over the loss of parental physical contact, which was so necessary for the maintenance of mental coherency in Cogleskan society, and which occurred at a very early age. He felt with Khone the past loss of that love and warmth and the expectation of future loss when its offspring would be born and remain close all too briefly before it departed. And strangely, although Khone’s presence had been reacting against nearly all of the material being thrown up by Conway and his other mind-partners, the little Cogleskan was able to consider the sight and sounds and memories of Conway’s incredibly old and fragile first friend without the slightest hint of distress.

            This was important, he knew, because there were indications that the Gogleskan’s mind was not entirely repelled by the thought of the geriatric FROBs, either. A bridge was being built between Khone and the other species, and Conway began blinking rapidly because his tear ducts seemed suddenly to have developed a leak.

            He felt Murchison’s hand squeezing his arm as she said urgently, "What’s wrong?"

            "Conway," O’Mara said, sounding concerned, "are you still with us?"

            "Sorry, my mind went off at a tangent," he said, clearing his throat. "I’m all right. In fact, I feel very well indeed."

            "I see," O’Mara said. "But I would like to discuss the reasons for and the content of your tangential thinking at a more convenient time. Continue."

            "In common with elderly members of the majority of the intelligent species," Conway resumed, "the very old Hudlars have a close affinity with the very young, and a great deal of benefit can be derived from this relationship by both parties if they are placed together. The aged entities are at the stage loosely described as second childhood, when the memories and feelings of their own younger days are thrown into prominence, and they have nothing much to do with their remaining time. The children would have an adult playmate who understands them, who enjoys their company, and who is not, like the younger adults and parents, perhaps too deeply concerned with the day-to-day business of life to have enough time to spend with them.

            "Provided the geriatric amputee idea is acceptable to them," he continued, "I think they would be prime candidates for pediatric nursing training. The less elderly, whose mental age would be significantly greater, could be trained as teachers of older children and preadolescents. They might also be usefully engaged in supervising automated production processes, or on watch-keeping duty on the weather control stations, or as- "Enough!" O’Mara said, holding up one hand. He went on caustically. "Leave me something to do, Conway, to justify my existence. At least, your uncharacteristic behavior of a few minutes ago is no longer a mystery. The childhood material in your psych file and your suggestion regarding the geriatric Hudlars fully explain your temporary loss of control.

            "Regarding your original question," O’Mara went on, "I cannot give you a quick answer, but I shall call up my Hudlar material at once and start work on it. You’ve given me too much to think about for me to be able to go back to sleep now."

            "I’m sorry," Conway said, but the Chief Psychologist’s face had already gone from the screen.

            "And I’m sorry for the delay as well," he said to Thornnastor. "But now at last we can talk about the Protector...

            He broke off as the blue "Vacate" light began flashing on their table, indicating that they had remained for longer than was necessary to consume the food which had been ordered, and that they should move away so as to release the table for other would-be diners, of which there was a large number waiting.

            "Your office or mine?" Thornnastor said.

 

CHAPTER 19

 

First contact with the species known as the Protectors of the Unborn had been made by Rhabwar when the ambulance ship had answered a distress signal from a vessel which had been transporting two members of that species under restraint. It discovered that the Protectors had broken free, and while they had been killing the ship’s crew, one of them had died as well.

            The surviving Protector had delivered itself of its Unborn shortly before it, too, died. That newly born Protector was the patient who, after more than a year’s sojourn in Sector General, was about to give birth in its turn. The body of its parent had been thoroughly investigated by Pathology and had furnished information which might enable them to deliver the Unborn without it suffering complete obliteration of the higher functions of its mind.

            "...The primary purpose of the forthcoming operation is to save the mind of the Unborn," he repeated, looking around the crowded observation gallery before he returned his attention to the ward below, where the furiously battling Protector was engaging its life-support system and two Hudlar attendants in total war. "The problems are physical, surgical, and endocrinological, and Diagnostician Thornnastor and I have discussed little else for the past two days. And now, for the benefit of the support and after-care team members who have just joined us, as well as for the observers and the others who will be studying the recordings later, I shall briefly summarize the available information on this case.

            "The adult, nonintelligent Protector is physiological classification FSOJ," Conway went on. "As you can see, it is a large, immensely strong being with a heavy, slitted carapace from which protrude four thick tentacles, a heavy, serrated tail, and a head. The tentacles terminate in a cluster of sharp, bony projections so that they resemble spiked clubs. The main features of the head are the well-protected, recessed eyes, the upper and lower mandibles, and teeth which are capable of deforming all but the strongest metal alloys.

            "Flip it over, please," Conway said to the two Hudlars working on the patient with thin steel bars. "And hit it harder! You won’t hurt it and will, in fact, maintain it in optimum condition prior to the birth." To the observers he went on. "The four stubby legs also have osseous projections which enable these limbs to be used as weapons as well. While the underside is not armored, as is the carapace, this area is rarely open to attack, and is covered by a thick tegument which apparently gives sufficient protection. In the center of the area you can see a thin, longitudinal fissure which opens into the birth canal. It will not open, however, until a few minutes before the event.

            "But first, the evolutionary and environmental background..."

            The Protectors had evolved on a world of shallow, steaming sea and swampy jungles where the line of demarcation between animal and vegetable life, so far as physical mobility and aggression were concerned, was difficult to define. To survive there at all, a life-form had to fight hard and move fast, and the dominant species on that hellish world had earned its place by fighting and moving and reproducing their kind with a greater potential for survival than any of the others.

            At an early stage in their evolution the utter savagery of their environment had forced them into a physiological configuration which gave maximum protection to the vital organs. The brain, heart, lungs, and womb were all sited deep within that fantastically well-muscled and protected body, and compressed into a relatively small volume. During gestation the organ displacement was considerable, because the fetus had to grow virtually to maturity before birth. It was rarely that they were able to survive the reproduction of more than three of their kind, because an aging parent was usually too weak to defend itself against the attack of a hungry lastborn.

            But the principal reason why the Protectors of the Unborn had risen to dominance on their world was that their young were already educated in the techniques of survival before they were born.

            The process had begun simply as the transmission of a complex set of survival instincts at the genetic level, but the close juxtaposition of the brains of the parent and the developing embryo led to an effect analogous to induction of the electrochemical activity associated with thought.

            The fetuses became short-range telepaths receiving everything the parents saw or felt or in any other way experienced.

            And even before the growth of the fetus was complete, there was another embryo beginning to take form inside the first one, and the new one was also increasingly aware of the world outside its self-fertilizing grandparent. Gradually the telepathic range had increased so that communication became possible between embryos whose parents were close enough to see each other.

            To minimize damage to the parent’s internal organs, the growing fetus was paralyzed while in the womb, with no degradation of later muscle function. But the prebirth deparalyzing process, or possibly the birth itself, also caused a complete loss of sentience and telepathic ability. A newborn Protector, it seemed, would not last very long in its incredibly savage environment if the purity of its survival instincts was clouded by the ability to think.

            ..... With nothing to do but receive information from their outside world," Conway went on, "and exchange thoughts with other Unborn, and try to widen their telepathic range by tuning to nonsentient life-forms around them, the embryos developed minds of great power and intelligence. But they cannot build anything, or engage in any cooperative physical activity, or keep written records, or, indeed, do anything at all to influence their parents and Protectors who have to fight and kill and eat continuously to maintain their unsleeping bodies and the Unborn within them."

            There was a moment’s silence which was broken only by the muffled clanking and thumping sounds made by the mechanical life-support system and the Hudlars, who together were laboring hard to make the FSOJ parent-to-be feel right at home. Then the Lieutenant in charge of the technical support team spoke up.

            "I have asked this question already," he said quietly, "but I have trouble accepting the answer. Is it really true that we must continue beating the patient even while the birth is taking place?"

            "Correct, Lieutenant," Conway said. "Before, during, and after. The only advance warning we will have of the event will be a marked increase in the Protector’s activity level approximately half an hour before the birth. On its home world this activity would be aimed at clearing the immediate area of predators so as to give the young one an increased chance of survival.

            "It will come out fighting," Conway added, "and its life-support must be the same as that needed by its parent except that the violence we administer will be scaled down, very slightly, because of its smaller size."

            There were several beings in the gallery making untranslatable sounds of incredulity. Thornnastor gave a peremptory rumble and added its considerable weight, both physical and intellectual, to Conway’s previous remarks.

            "You must all realize and accept without question," the Diagnostician said ponderously, "that continual violence is normal for this creature. The FSOJ must remain in a condition of stress in order that its quite complex endocrine system will function properly. It requires, and has evolved the ability to accept, the continuous release of a hormone into its system which is the equivalent of Kelgian thullis or Earth-human adrenaline.

            "Should the release of this hormone be inhibited," the Tralthan went on, "by the withdrawal of the ever-present threat of imminent injury or death, the Protector’s movements become sluggish and erratic, and if the attack is not quickly resumed, unconsciousness follows. If the period of unconsciousness is prolonged, irreversible changes take place in the endocrine systems of both Protector and Unborn leading to termination."

            This time the words were followed by an attentive silence. Conway indicated the ward below and said, "We shall now take you as close to the patient as it is possible to go in safety. You observers will be shown the details of the Protector’s life-support mechanisms, and of the smaller version in the side-ward which will accommodate the young one when it arrives, both of which resemble nothing so much as the instruments of interrogation used during a very unsavory period in Earth’s history. You new team-members will familiarize yourselves with these mechanisms and with the work expected of you, and ask as many questions as necessary to ensure that you fully understand your duties. But above all, do not be kind or gentle with this patient. That will not help it at all."

            The various feet, tentacles, and pincers were beginning to shuffle, slither, and scrape along the floor as they turned toward the gallery exit. Conway held up his hand.

            "Let me remind you once again," he said very seriously. "The purpose of this operation is not simply to assist at the FSOJ’s birth, which will take place with or without our assistance, believe me. It is to ensure that the Unborn and soon-to-be new Protector retains the same level of intelligence and the telepathic ability it now possesses within the womb."

            Thornnastor made a quiet sound which to the Tralthan component of Conway’s mind signified pessimism and anxiety. Following two days of consultations with the Diagnostician, the precise details of the forthcoming operative procedure had still to be finalized. Radiating a confidence which he did not feel, he discussed the functioning of the combination operating frame and gimbalmounted cage which accommodated the Protector before taking them through to the side-ward designed to receive its offspring.

            Nicknamed the Rumpus Room by the maintenance engineers responsible for its construction, the ward was more than half-filled by a hollow, cylindrical structure, wide enough to allow unrestricted passage of the FSOJ infant, which curved and twisted back on itself so that the occupant would be able to use all of the available floor area of the ward in which to exercise. The entry point into this continuous cylinder was a heavily reinforced door in the side-wall, which was otherwise composed of an immensely strong open latticework of metal. The cylinder floor was shaped to reproduce the uneven ground and natural obstacles, such as the mobile and voracious trip-roots found on the Protector’s home planet, and the open sections gave the occupant a continuous view of the screens positioned around the outer surface of the cylinder. Onto these screens were projected moving tri-di pictures of indigenous plant and animal life which the occupant would normally encounter.

            The open structure also enabled the medical team to bring to bear on their patient the more positive aspects of life-support system-the fearsome-looking mechanisms positioned between the projection screens which were designed to beat, tear, and jab at the occupant with any desired degree of frequency or force.

            Everything possible had been done to make the new arrival feel at home.

            "As you are already aware," Conway went on, "the Unborn, by virtue of its telepathic faculty, is constantly aware of the events taking place outside its parent. We are not telepaths and may not be capable of receiving its thoughts, even during the period of intense mental stress which occurs just prior to birth, when it is transmitting at maximum power because it knows that its mind and personality are about to be obliterated.

            "There are several telepathic races known to the Federation," he continued, his mind returning to its one and only contact with a telepathic Unborn. "These are usually species who have evolved this faculty so that their common organic receiver/transmitters are automatically in tune. For this reason telepathic contact between the members of different telepathic races is not always possible. When mental contact occurs between one of these entities and a nontelepath, it usually means that the faculty in the nontelepath is either dormant or atrophied. When such contact occurs the experience can be highly uncomfortable, but there are no physical changes in the brain affected, nor is there any lasting psychological damage."

            As he switched on the Rumpus Room’s screens and began projecting the visual record of that first, incredibly violent birth, his mind was adding the extra-sensory dimension of his own, minuteslong telepathic contact with the Unborn so soon to be born.

            Conway was aware that his fists were clenched, and that beside him Murchison’s face was pale as she watched the screen. Once again the rampaging Protector tried to get at them by battering at the partly open inner seal of the air lock. The opening was five or six inches wide, just enough for the pathologist, Rhabwar’s injured Captain, and Conway to see and hear and record everything which was happening. But their position was not a secure one. The Protector’s hard-tipped tentacles had already wreaked havoc in the lock antechamber, tearing out sections of metal plating and deforming the underlying structure, and the lock’s inner seal was not all that thick.

            Their only safety lay in the fact that the lock antechamber was weightless, and the flailing tentacles of the Protector sent it spinning helplessly away from every wall or obstruction they encountered, which simply increased its anger and the savagery of its attack. It also made it more difficult to observe the birth which was taking place. But the violence of the Protector’s attack was beginning to diminish. Weightlessness combined with physical damage sustained during encounters with the ship’s now-dead crew and the subsequent malfunctioning of the on-board life-support system had left it with barely enough strength to complete the birth process, which was already well advanced as the parent spun slowly to give a good if intermittent view of the emergence of the Unborn.

            Conway’s mind was on an aspect of the birth which the recording could not reproduce-the last few moments of telepathic contact with the fetus before it left its parent and became just another vicious, insensate, completely nonsentient young Protector- and for a moment he could not speak.

            Thornnastor must have sensed his difficulty because it reached past him and froze the picture. In its ponderous, lecturing manner it said, "You can see that the head and most of the carapace have appeared, and that the limbs which project from it are limp and unmoving. The reason for this is that the secretions which are released to reverse the prebirth paralysis of the Unborn, and at the same time obliterate all cerebral activity not associated with survival, have not yet taken effect. Up to this point the expulsion of the Unborn is solely the responsibility of the parent Protector."

            In the characteristically forthright manner of a Kelgian, one of the nurses asked, "Is the nonsentient parent to be considered expendable?"

            Thornnastor curled an eye to regard Conway, whose mind was still fixed immovably on the circumstances of that earlier birth.

            "That is not our intention," the Tralthan said when he did not respond. "The parent Protector was once a sentient Unborn, and is capable of producing anything up to three more sentient Unborn. Should the circumstances arise where a decision is needed whether to assist the birth of the sentient infant at the expense of the life of the presently nonsentient parent, or to allow the birth to proceed normally so that we end with two nonsentient Protectors, that must be the decision of the Surgeon-in-Charge.

            "If the latter decision was to be considered," it went on, with one eye still fixed on Conway, "it could be argued in support that with two Protectors, a young and an old one who will both produce telepathic embryos in time, we will have another chance or chances to solve the problem. But this would mean subjecting the two FSOJs to lengthy gestation periods in a highly artificial life-support system, which might have long-term ill effects on the new embryos, and would simply mean deferring the decision. The whole procedure would have to be repeated with, in all likelihood, the same decision having to be taken by a different Surgeon-in-Charge."

            Murchison’s eyes were on him as well, and she was looking worried. Those last few words had been something more than a not particularly direct answer to the nurse’s question; they were in the nature of a professional warning. Conway was being reminded that he was still very much on probation, and that the Diagnostician-inCharge of Pathology did not, in spite of its seniority, bear the ultimate responsibility for this case. But still he could not speak.

            "You will observe that the Unborn’s tentacles are beginning to move, but slowly," Thornnastor continued. "And now it is beginning to pull itself out of the birth canal..

            It had been at that moment that the soundless telepathic voice in Conway’s mind had lost its clarity. There had been a feeling of pain and confusion and deep anxiety muddying up the clear stream of communication, but the final message from the Unborn had been a simple one.

            To be born is to die, friends, the silent voice had said. My mind and my telepathic faculty are being destroyed, and I am becoming a Protector with my own Unborn to protect while it grows and thinks and tries to make contact with you.

            Please cherish it.

            The trouble with telepathic communication, Conway thought bitterly, was that it lacked the ambiguity and verbal misdirection and diplomatic lying which was possible with the spoken word. A telepathic promise had no loopholes. It was impossible to break one without a serious loss of self-respect.

            And now the Unborn with whom he had experienced mind-tomind contact was his patient, a Protector with the Unborn he had promised to cherish about to enter the highly complex and alien world of Sector General. He was still not sure how best to proceed- or, more accurately, which of several unsatisfactory options to adopt.

            To nobody in particular he said suddenly, "We don’t even know that the fetus has grown normally in hospital conditions. Our reproduction of the environment may not have been accurate enough. The Unborn may not have developed sentience, much less the telepathic faculty. There have been no indications of..

            He broke off as a series of musical trills and clicks came from the ceiling above their heads, and from their translators came the words, "You may not be entirely correct in your assumption, friend Conway."

            "Prilicla!" Murchison said, and added unnecessarily, "You’re back!"

            "Are you.. . well?" Conway asked. He was thinking of the Menelden casualties and the hell it must have been for an empath to be placed in charge of classifying them.

            "I am well, friend Conway," Prilicla replied, the legs holding it to the ceiling twitching slowly as it baffled in the emotional radiation of friendship and concern emanating from those below. "I was careful to direct operations from as great a distance as possible, just as I am remaining well clear of your patient in the outer ward. The Protector’s emotional radiation is unpleasant to me, but not so the radiation from the Unborn.

            "Mentation of a high order is present," the Cinrusskin went on. "Regrettably, I am an empath rather than a true telepath, but the feelings I detect are of frustration which is caused, I would guess, by its inability to communicate with those outside, together with feelings of confusion and awe which are predominating."

            "Awe?" Conway said, then added, "If it has been trying to communicate, we’ve felt nothing, not even the faintest tickle."

            Prilicla dropped from the ceiling, executed a neat ioop, and fluttered to the top of a nearby instrument cabinet so that the DBLFs and DBDGs present would not have to strain their cervical vertebrae watching it. "I cannot be completely sure, friend Conway, because feelings are less trustworthy for the conveyance of intelligence than coherent thoughts, but it seems to me that the trouble may simply be one of mental overcrowding. During your original contact with the then Unborn and present Protector, the being had only three minds to consider, those of friends Murchison, Fletcher, and yourself. The other crew and medical team members were aboard Rhabwar and at extreme telepathic range.

            "Here there may be too many minds," the empath went on, "minds of a bewildering variety and degree of complexity, including two -its eyes turned to regard Thornnastor and Conway-"which seem to contain a multiplicity of entities, and which might be truly confusing, and awe-inspiring."

            "You’re right, of course," Conway said. He thought for a moment, then went on. "1 was hoping for telepathic contact with the Unborn before and during the birth. In this case the assistance of a conscious and cooperating patient would be of great help indeed. But you can see the size of the operating room staff and technical support people. There are dozens of them. I can’t simply send them all away.

            Prilicla began to tremble again, this time in agitation over the additional worry it was causing Conway, when its intention had been only to reassure him regarding the mental health of the Unborn. It made another attempt to improve the quality of its friend’s emotional radiation.

            "I called in at the Hudlar ward as soon as I got back," the Cinrusskin said, "and I must say that your people did very well. Those were bad cases I sent in, as nearly hopeless as it is possible to be, friend Conway, but you lost only one of them. It was very fine work, even though friend O’Mara says that you have handed him another freshly boiled vegetable."

            "I think," Murchison said, laughing as she translated the translated words, "it means another hot potato."

            "O’Mara?" Conway asked.

            "The Chief Psychologist was talking to one of your patients," Prilicla replied, "and assessing its nonmedical condition after visiting one of the Hudlars in the geriatric section. Friend O’Mara knew that I was coming to see you, and it said to tell you that a signal from Goglesk has arrived to the effect that your friend Khone wants to come to the hospital as soon as- "Khone is sick, badly injured?" Conway broke in, the persona of his Gogleskan mind-partner and his feelings for the little being pushing everything and everybody else out of his mind. He knew, because Khone had known, of the many diseases and accidents to which the FOKTs were prey, and for which very little could be done because to approach each other for help was to invite disaster. Whatever had happened to Khone, it must have been pretty bad for it to want to come to Sector General, where the worst nightmares of its mind were a physical actuality.

            "No, no, friend Conway," Prilicla said, trembling again with the violence of his emotional radiation. "Khone’s condition is neither serious nor urgent. But it has asked that you, personally, collect it and convey it to the hospital lest fear of your physically monstrous friends causes it to change its mind. Friend O’Mara’s precise words were that you seem to be attracting some odd maternity cases these days."

            "But it can’t be volunteering to come here!" Conway protested. He knew that Khone was mature and capable of producing offspring. There was nothing in the Gogleskan’s mind regarding recent sexual encounters, which meant that it must have happened since Conway had left Goglesk. He began doing calculations based on the FOKT gestation period.

            "That was my reaction as well, friend Conway," Prilicla said. "But friend O’Mara pointed out that you had lived with and adapted to the presence of your Gogleskan friend and that it, Heaven help it, had been similarly influenced by your Earth-human mind. That was the second boiled vegetable; the other was the geriatric Hudlar business.

            "Sorting out the psychoses of a FOKT parent-to-be and offspring scared of their prehistoric shadows was not going to be easy, the empath went on, "and the geriatric Hudlar problem had grown to the stage where it was taking up practically all of his time. It sounded very irritated and at times angry, did friend O’Mara, but its emotional radiation was at variance with the spoken words. There were strong feelings of anticipation and excitement, as if it was looking forward to the challenge. .

            It broke off and began trembling again. Beside the instrument cabinet it was clinging to, Thornnastor was lifting and lowering its six elephantine feet one at a time and in no particular sequence. Murchison looked at the Diagnostician, and even though she was not an empath, she knew her chief well enough to be able to recognize a very impatient Tralthan.

            "This is all very interesting, Prilicla," she said gently, "but unlike that of Khone, the condition of the patient awaiting our attention in the outer ward is both serious and urgent."

 

CHAPTER 20

 

In spite of everyone else’s sense of urgency the Protector seemed to be in no particular hurry to deliver its Unborn. Conway was secretly relieved. It gave him more time to think, to consider alternative procedures and, if he was honest with himself, more time to dither.

            The normally phlegmatic Thornnastor, with three eyes on the patient and one on the scanner projection, was slowly stamping one foot as it watched the lack of activity in the area of the Protector’s womb. Murchison was dividing her attention between the screen and the Kelgian nurse who was in charge of the patient’s restraints, and Prilicla was a distant, fuzzy blob clinging to the ceiling at the other end of the ward, where the emotional radiation from the Protector was bearable if not comfortable, and linked to the OR Team by communicator.

            It was there purely out of clinical curiosity, the little empath had insisted. But the true reason was probably that it sensed Conway’s anxiety regarding the coming operation and it wanted to help.

            "Of the alternative procedures you have mentioned," Thornnastor said suddenly, "the first is slightly more desirable. But prematurely enlarging the birth opening and withdrawing the Unborn while at the same time clamping off those gland ducts . . . It’s tricky, Conway. You could be faced with an awakened and fully active young Protector tearing and eating its way out of the parent. Or have you now decided that the parent is expendable?"

            Conway’s mind was filled again with the memory of his telepathic contact with an Unborn, an Unborn who had been born as a mindless Protector, this Protector. He knew that he was not being logical, but he did not want to discard a being whose mind he had known so intimately simply because, for evolutionary reasons, it had suffered a form of brain death.

            "No," Conway said firmly.

            "The other alternatives are even worse," the Tralthan said.

            "I was hoping you’d feel that way," Conway said.

            "I understand," Thornnastor said. "But neither am I greatly in favor of your primary suggestion. The procedure is radical, to say the least, and unheard-of when the species concerned possesses a carapace. Such delicate work on a fully conscious and mobile patient

is- "The patient," Conway broke in, "will be conscious, and immobilized."

            "It seems, Conway," it said, speaking quietly for a Tralthan, "that there is some confusion in your mind due, perhaps, to the multiplicity of tapes occupying it. Let me remind you that the patient cannot be immobilized for any lengthy period of time, either by physical restraint or anesthetics, without irreversible metabolic changes taking place which lead quickly to unconsciousness and termination. The FSOJ is constantly moving and constantly under attack, and the response of its endocrine system is such that. . . But you know this as well as I do, Conway! Are you well? Is there psychological, perhaps temporary, distress? Would you like me to assume charge for a time?"

            Murchison had been listening to her communicator and had missed Thornnastor’s earlier words. She looked worriedly at Conway, obviously wondering what was wrong with him, or what her Chief thought was wrong with him; then she said, "Prilicla called me. It didn’t want to interrupt you during what might have been an important clinical discussion between its superiors, but it reports a steady increase and change in the quality of emotional radiation emanating from both the Protector and its Unborn. The indications are that the Protector is preparing itself for a major effort, and this in turn has caused an increase in the level of mentation in the Unborn. Prilicla wants to know if you have detected any signs of an attempt at telepathic contact. It says the Unborn is trying very hard."

            Conway shook his head. To Thornnastor he said, "With respect, this information was contained in my original report on the FSOJ life-form to you, and my memory is unimpaired. I thank you for the offer to take charge, and I welcome your advice and assistance, but I am not psychologically distressed, and my mental confusion is at a similar level to that at which I normally operate."

            "Your remarks about immobilizing the patient suggested otherwise," Thornnastor said after a short pause. "I’m glad that you feel well, but I am not completely reassured regarding your surgical intentions."

            "And I’m not completely sure that I’m right," Conway replied. "But my indecision has gone, and my intended procedure is based on the assumption that we have been too heavily influenced by the FSOJ’s life-support machinery and the insistence on physical mobility . .

            Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figure of Prilicla grow more blurred as it began to tremble violently. He broke off and said into his communicator, "Withdraw, little friend. Keep in contact but move out into the corridor. The emotional radiation around here is going to be pretty savage stuff, so move back quickly."

            "I was about to do so, friend Conway," it replied. "But the quality of your own emotional radiation is not pleasant for either of us. There is determination, anxiet¾ and the feeling that you are forcing yourself to do something which normally you would not do. My apologies. In my concern for a friend I am discussing material which should properly be considered privileged. I am leaving now. Good luck, friend Conway."

            Before he could reply one of the Kelgians, its fur rippling with urgency, reported that the birth opening was beginning to enlarge.

            "Relax," he said, studying the scanner picture. "Nothing is happening internally as yet. Please position the patient on its left side with a right upper dorsal presentation. The operative field will be centered fifteen inches to the right of the carapacial median line in the position marked. Continue with the present life-support arrangements, but with a bit more enthusiasm if you can manage it, until I tell you to stop. On my signal the restraints team will immobilize the patient’s limbs, being particularly careful to stretch the tentacles to full lateral extension and to anchor them with clamps and pressor beams. I have just decided that this job will be difficult enough without the patient jerking and wriggling all over the table while we are operating. ‘While the operation is in progress, I want the minimum number of OR and support staff present, and those who are present must discipline their thinking as I will direct. Do you understand your instructions?"

            "Yes, Doctor," the Kelgian replied, but its fur was showing doubt and disapproval. A series of shocks transmitted through his shoes from the floor told him that Thornnastor was stamping its feet again.

            "Sorry about the interruptions," he said to the Tralthan. "I had been about to suggest that complete immobilization might be possible during the period necessary to complete the operation without serious damage to the patient. To follow my reasoning in this we must first consider what happens before, during, and after a major operation on any of the life-forms who, unlike the FSOJ, become periodically and frequently unconscious in the condition we know as sleep. In such cases-"

            "They are tranquilized to minimize preoperative worry," Thornnastor broke in, its feet still displaying its impatience, "anesthetized during the procedure, and monitored postoperatively until the metabolism and vital signs have stabilized. This is elementary, Conway.

            "I realize that," he replied, "and I’m hoping that the solution to the problem is also elementary."

            He paused for a moment to marshal his thoughts, then went

on.       You will agree that a normal patient, even though it is deeply anesthetized, reacts against the surgical intervention which is taking place. If it was conscious it would want to do what the Protector is trying to do to our operating staff, that is, trying to kill them and! or escape from the threat they represent. Even when anesthetized the normal patient is reacting unconsciously to a condition of severe stress, its system has been flooded with its equivalent of adrenaline, the available supplies of blood, sugars, and oxygen have been stepped up, and it is ready to fight or flee. This is a condition which our Protector enjoys, if that is the correct word, permanently. It is constantly fighting and fleeing because it is constantly under attack."

            Thornnastor and Murchison were watching him intently, but neither spoke.

            "Because we are showing it pictures in three dimensions and in quite terrifying detail of its natural environment," Conway went on, "and we will be attacking it, surgically, with an intensity that it has certainly not experienced before, I am hoping to fool it and its endocrine system into believing that its limbs are still engaged in fighting off the attack or trying to flee from it. The limbs are, after all, fighting against the restraints, and the muscular effort needed is comparable.

            "We will be attacking it," he concluded, "with a major cesarean procedure through the carapace rather than in the abdominal area, without benefit of anesthesia, and I expect that there will be enough pain and confusion in its mind to make it forget that its body is not in motion, at least for the relatively short time it will take to complete the operation."

            Murchison was staring at him, her face expressionless but as pale as her white uniform. The full meaning of what he had just been saying dawned on Conway, and he felt sick and ashamed. The words were in direct contradiction to everything he had been taught as a healer and a bringer of comfort. You must be cruel to be kind, someone had told him once, but surely they had not meant this cruel.

            "The Earth-human DBDG component of my mind," Thornnastor said slowly, "is feeling shock and disgust at such unheard-of behavior."

            "This DBDG," Conway said, tapping himself angrily on the chest, "feels the same way. But your taped DBDG never had to deliver a Protector."

            "Neither," Thornnastor said, "has anyone else."

            Murchison was about to speak when there was a double interruption.

            "The birth opening is beginning to widen," the Kelgian charge nurse reported, "and there is a small change in the position of the fetus."

            "The emotional radiation from both entities is reaching a peak,"

Prilicla said on the communicator. "You will not have long to wait, friend Conway. Please do not distress yourself. Your clinical thinking is usually trustworthy."

            The Cinrusskin invariably said the right thing, Conway thought gratefully as Thornnastor followed him to the operating frame.

            They checked the underside first, moving as close as they could while still avoiding the Protector’s wildly thrashing legs and the Hudlar who was jabbing at them with a metal bar to reproduce the attacks of the small, sharp-toothed predators of its home world. The musculature associated with the limbs was in constant, writhing motion, and in the medial area the birth opening was slowly lengthening and widening.

            For the recorders, Conway said, "Junior will not be coming out this way. Normally, a cesarean procedure calls for a long, abdominal incision through which the fetus is removed. That course is contraindicated in this case for two reasons. It would involve cutting through several of the leg muscles, and because this being is incapable of resting a damaged limb while healing takes place, the clinical injury would never heal and the limbs concerned would be permanently affected. Secondly, we would be going in very close to the two glands which, we are virtually certain, contain the secretions which reverse the prebirth paralysis and obliterate the mind. Both, as you can see in the scanner, are connected to the umbilical and are compressed, and their contents discharged into the fetus, during the later stages of the birth process. In this physiological classification, a traditional cesarean entry would almost certainly compress these glands prematurely, and the purpose of the operation, the delivery of an intelligent Unborn, would be defeated. So we’ll have to do it the hard way, by going through the carapace at an angle which will cause minimum disturbance to the underlying vital organs.

            While the charge nurse had been positioning the Protector for the operation, the movements of the Unborn had been imperceptible, but now the scanner showed a slow, steady motion toward the birth canal. He forced himself to walk around to the other side of the operating frame, when his instinct was to break into an undignified gallop; then he checked that Thornnastor and Murchison were in position and said quietly, "Immobilize the patient."

            The four dorsal tentacles were at full extension, motionless except for the barest tremor caused by their efforts to overcome the restraints. He tried not to think of the devastation even one of those limbs would cause among the OR staff if it succeeded in pulling free, or that he was closest and would be the first casualty.

            "It is desirable-in fact it may be vitally necessary-that we establish telepathic contact with the Unborn before the operation is completed," Conway said above the buzzing of his surgical saw. "The first time such contact took place, there was only one physiological classification present, the Earth-human DBDGs Pathologist Murchison, Captain Fletcher of Rhabwar, and I. A multiplicity of physiological types and thought patterns may be making it difficult to make contact, or it may be that DBDGs are fractionally easier to communicate with telepathically. For this reason.

            "Do you wish me to leave?" Thornnastor asked.

            "No," Conway said very firmly. "I need your assistance, as both a surgeon and an endocrinologist. But it would be helpful if you tried to bring forward the DBDG component of your mind and concentrated on its thought processes."

            "I understand," the Tralthan said.

            Working quickly, Thornnastor and Conway excised a large, triangular section of carapace, then paused to control some minor bleeding from the underlying vessels. Murchison was not assisting directly, but was concentrating all of her attention on the scanner so that she could warn them if the trauma of the operation was giving indications of triggering premature delivery. They went deeper, cutting through the thick, almost transparent membrane which enclosed the lungs, clamping it back.

            "Prilicla?" Conway asked.

            "The patient is feeling anger, fear, and pain in steadily increasing intensity. It does not seem to be aware of anything other than that it is being savagely attacked and is defending itself. Apparently it has not realized that it isn’t moving, and there are no emotional indications of endocrine misfunction...

            "The effect of this attack on the Unborn," the empath went on, "is of markedly heightened sensation and mentation levels. There is greater awareness and intense effort. It is trying very hard to contact you, friend Conway."

            "It’s mutual," he replied. But he knew that too much of his mind was being devoted to the surgical aspect just then and not enough to communication for there to be any hope of success.

            In the FSOJ the heart was not situated between the lungs, but there were several major blood vessels traversing the area, and these with their associated digestive organs had to be moved out of the way without cutting-surgery had to be kept to the irreducible minimum when the patient would be mobile minutes after the operation was completed. As he pressed them carefully apart and locked the dilators in position, he knew that the circulation in several of those vessels was being seriously impaired, and that he was constricting one of the lungs and rendering it little more than sixty percent effective.

            "It will be for a short time only," he said defensively in answer to Thornnastor’s unspoken comment, and the patient is on pure oxygen, which should make up the deficiency..

            He broke off as his exploring fingers moved deeper and encountered a long, flat bone which had no business being there. He looked quickly at the position of his hand in the scanner and saw that he was, in fact, touching not a bone but one of the muscles of a dorsal tentacle. The muscle had locked in spasm as the patient tried to pull the limb free of the restraints. Or perhaps it was simply reacting-as did the members of other species who locked mandibles or clenched fists-to unbearable pain.

            Suddenly his hands were trembling as all of his medically trained and caring alter egos reacted to that thought.

            "Friend Conway," Prilicla said, its voice distorted by more than the translator, "you are distressing me. Concentrate on what you are doing and not on what you are feeling!"

            "Don’t bully me, Prilicla!" he snapped. Then he laughed as he realized the ridiculous thing he had just said, and went back to work. A few minutes later he was feeling out the contours of the Unborn’s upper carapace and its limp dorsal tentacles. He grasped one of them and began to pull gently.

            "That entity," Thornnastor rumbled at him, "is supposed to come out of the womb fighting and able to inflict serious damage with those particular limbs. I don’t think the tentacle would come off if you were to pull a little harder, Conway."

            He pulled harder and the Unborn moved, but only a few inches. The young FSOJ was no lightweight, and Conway was already sweating with the effort. He slipped his other hand down into the opening and found another dorsal tentacle; then he began a two-handed pull with one knee braced against the operating frame.

            He had performed more delicate feats of surgery and manipulation in his time, Conway thought sourly, but even with this unsubtle procedure the little beastie was refusing to budge.

            "The passage is too tight," he said, gasping. "So tight I think suction is holding it in. Can you slide a long probe between the inner face of the dilator and the inner surface of the carapace, just there, so that we can release...

            "The Protector is beginning to weaken, friend Conway," Prilicla said, the mere fact that it had been impolite enough to interrupt its Seniors stressing the urgency of its report.

            But Thornnastor was moving in before the empath had finished speaking, using the slim, tapering extremity of a manipulatory tentacle instead of the probe. There was a brief hissing sound as suction was released. The Tralthan’s tentacle moved deeper, curled around the Unborn’s rear legs, and began helping Conway to lift and slide it out. Within a few seconds it was clear, but still connected to its parent by the umbilical.

            "Well," Conway said, placing the newly born Unborn on the tray Murchison had already placed to receive it, "that was the easy part. And if ever we needed a conscious and cooperative patient, now is the time."

            "The Unborn’s feelings are of intense frustration verging on despair, friend Conway," Prilicla reported. "It must still be trying to contact you. The Protector’s emotional radiation is weakening, and there is a change in the texture which suggests that it is becoming aware of its lack of motion."

            To Thornnastor, Conway said quickly, "If we reduce the dilation, which is unnecessary now that the Unborn is out, that will enable the constricted lung to operate more effectively. How much room do we need to work in there?"

            Thornnastor made a noise which did not translate, then went on. "I require a fairly small opening through which to work, and I am the endocrinologist. Those ridiculous DBDG knuckles and wrists are physiologically unsuited to this particular job. With respect, I suggest that you concentrate on the Unborn."