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  Major Operation

  ( Sector General - 3 )

  James White

  Major Operation is a 1971 science fiction book by author James White and is the third volume in the Sector General series. The book collects together a series of five short stories, all of which were originally published in New Worlds magazine.

  “Invader” — A series of clumsy accidents at the hospital lead Conway to suspect an alien presence.

  “Vertigo” (1968) — a spinning ship (from the planet later nicknamed 'Meatball') is 'rescued' and brought to the hospital.

  “Blood Brother” (1969) — Meatball's natural doctors are discovered.

  “Meatball” (1966) — Additional investigation reveals more about Meatball’s doctors.

  “Major Operation” (1971) — A gigantic patient on Meatball fights medical treatment.

  James White

  Major Operation

  Sector General 3

  INVADER

  Far out on the Galactic Rim, where star systems were widely scattered and the darkness nearly absolute, the tremendous structure which was Sector Twelve General Hospital hung in space. Inside its three hundred and eighty-four levels were reproduced the environments of all the intelligent life-forms known to the Galactic Federation, a biological spectrum ranging from the ultra frigid methane species through the more normal oxygen- and chlorine-breathing types up to the exotic beings who existed by the direct conversion of hard radiation. In addition to the patients, whose number and physiological classification was a constant variable, there was a medical and maintenance staff who were composed of sixty-odd differing life-forms with sixty different sets of mannerisms, body odors and ways of looking at life.

  The staff of Sector General was an extremely able, dedicated, but not always serious group of people who were fanatically tolerant of all forms of intelligent life-had this not been so they could never have served in such a multienvironment hospital in the first place. They prided themselves that no case was too big, too small or too hopeless, and their facilities and professional reputation were second to none. It was unthinkable that one of their number should be guilty of nearly killing a patient through sheer carelessness.

  “Obviously the thought isn’t unthinkable,” O’Mara, the Chief Psychologist, said dryly. “I’m thinking it, reluctantly, and you are also thinking it — if only momentarily. Far worse, Mannon himself is convinced of his own guilt. This leaves me with no choice but to—”

  “No!” said Conway, strong emotion overriding his usual respect for authority. “Mannon is one of the best Seniors we have — you know that!

  He wouldn’t … I mean, he isn’t the type to … He’s …

  “A good friend of yours,” O’Mara finished for him, smiling. When Conway did not reply he went on, “My liking for Mannon may not equal yours, but my professional knowledge of him is much more detailed and objective. So much so that two days ago I would not have believed him capable of such a thing. Now, dammit, uncharacteristic behavior bothers me …

  Conway could understand that. As Chief Psychologist, O’Mara’s prime concern was the smooth and efficient running of the hospital’s medical staff, but keeping so many different and potentially antagonistic life-forms working in harmony was a big job whose limits, like those of O’Mara’s authority, were difficult to define. Given even the highest qualities of tolerance and mutual respect in its personnel, there were still occasions when friction occurred.

  Potentially dangerous situations arose through ignorance or misunderstanding, or a being could develop a xenophobic neurosis which might affect its efficiency, mental stability, or both. An Earth-human doctor, for instance, who had a subconscious fear of spiders would not be able to bring to bear on one of the insectile Cinrusskin patients the proper degree of clinical detachment necessary for its treatment. It was O’Mara’s duty to detect and eradicate such trouble, or to remove the potentially troublesome individuals. This guarding against wrong, unhealthy or intolerant thinking was a duty which he performed with such zeal that Conway had heard him likened to a latter-day Torquemada.

  Now it looked as if this paragon of psychologists had been something less than alert. In psychology there were no effects without prior cause and O’Mara must now be thinking that he had missed some small but vital warning signal — a slightly uncharacteristic word or expression or display of temper, perhaps — which should have warned him of trouble developing for Senior Physician Mannon.

  The psychologist sat back and fixed Conway with a pair of gray eyes which saw so much and which opened into a mind so keenly analytical that together they gave O’Mara what amounted to a telepathic faculty He said, “No doubt you are thinking that I have lost my grip. You feel sure that Mannon’s trouble is basically psychological and that there is an explanation other than negligence for what happened. You may decide that the recent death of his dog has caused him to go to pieces from sheer grief, and other ideas of an equally uncomplicated and ridiculous nature will occur to you. In my opinion, however, any time spent investigating the psychological aspects of this business will be completely wasted. Doctor Mannon has been subjected to the most exhaustive tests. He is physically sound and as sane as we are. As sane as I am any …

  “Thank you,” said Conway.

  “I keep telling you, Doctor,” O’Mara said sourly, “my job here is to shrink heads, not swell them. Your assignment, if we can call it that, is strictly unofficial. Since there is no excuse for Mannon’s error so far as health and psycho profile are concerned I want you to look for some other reason-some outside influence, perhaps, of which the Doctor is unaware. Doctor Prilicla observed the incident in question and may be able to help you.

  “You have a peculiar mind, Doctor,” O’Mara concluded, rising from his seat, “and an odd way of looking at problems. We don’t want to lose Doctor Mannon, but if you do get him out of trouble the surprise will probably kill me. I mention this so that you will have an added incentive …

  Conway left the office, fuming slightly. O’Mara was always flinging his allegedly peculiar mind in his face when the simple truth was that he had been so shy when he had first joined the hospital, especially with nurses of his own species, that he had felt more comfortable in extraterrestrial company. He was no longer shy, but still he numbered more friends among the weird and wonderful denizens of Traltha, Illensa and a score of other systems than beings of his own species. This might be peculiar, Conway admitted, but to a doctor living in a multi-environment hospital it was also a distinct advantage.

  Outside in the corridor Conway contacted Prilicla in the other’s ward, found that the little empath was free and arranged a meeting for as soon as possible on the Forty-sixth Level, which was where the Hudlar operating theater was situated. Then he devoted a part of his mind to the problem of Mannon while the rest of it guided him toward Forty-six and kept him from being trampled to death en route.

  His Senior Physician’s armband automatically cleared the way so far as nurses and subordinate grades of doctors were concerned, but there were continual encounters with the lordly and absentminded Diagnosticians who plowed their way through everyone and everything regardless, or with junior members of the staff who happened to belong to a more massive species. Tralthans of physiological classification FGLI-warm-blooded oxygen breathers resembling a sort of low-slung, six-legged elephant. Or the Kelgian DBLFs who were giant, silver-furred caterpillars who hooted like a siren when they were jostled whether they were outranked or not, or the crab-like ELNTs from Melf LV …

  The majority of the intelligent races in the Federation were oxygen breathers even though their physiological classifications varied enormously, but a much greater hazard to navigation on foot was the entity traversing
a foreign level in protective armor. The protection required by a TLTU doctor, who breathed superheated steam and whose gravity and pressure requirements were three times those of the oxygen levels, was a great, clanking juggernaut which was to be avoided at all costs.

  At the next intersection lock he donned a lightweight suit and let himself into the yellow, foggy world of the chlorine-breathing Illensans. Here the corridors were crowded with the spiny, membranous and unadorned denizens of Illensa while it was the Tralthans, Kelgians and Earth humans like himself who wore, or in some cases drove, protective armor. The next leg of his journey took him through the vast tank where the thirty-foot long, water-breathing entities from Chalderescol II swam ponderously through their warm, green world. The same suit served him here and, while the traffic was less dense, he was slowed down considerably through having to swim instead of walk. Despite this he was on the Forty-sixth Level observation gallery, his suit still streaming Chalder water, just fifteen minutes after leaving O’Mara’s office, and Prilicla arrived close behind him.

  “Good morning, friend Conway,” said the little empath as it swung itself deftly onto the ceiling and hung by six fragile, sucker-tipped legs. The musical trills and clicks of its Cinrusskin speech were received by Conway’s Translator pack, relayed down to the tremendous computer at the center of the hospital and transmitted back to his earpiece as flat, emotionless English. Trembling slightly, the Cinrusskin went on, “I feel you needing help, Doctor.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Conway, his words going through the same process of Translation and reaching Prilicla as equally toneless Cinrusskin. “It’s about Mannon. There was no time to give details when I called you …

  “No need, friend Conway,” said Prilicla. “On the Mannon incident the grapevine is more than usually efficient. You want to know what I saw and felt, of course.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Conway apologetically.

  Prilicla said that it didn’t mind. But the Cinrusskin was, in addition to being the nicest entity in the whole hospital, its greatest liar.

  Of physiological classification GLNO-insectile, exoskeletal with six pipe stem legs and a pair of iridescent and not quite atrophied wings, and possessing a highly developed empathic faculty, only on Cinruss with its one-eighth Earth gravity could a race of insects have grown to such dimensions and in time developed intelligence and a high civilization. But in Sector General Prilicla was in deadly danger for most of its working day. It had to wear gravity nullification devices everywhere outside its quarters because the gravity pull which most beings considered normal would instantly have crushed it flat, and when Prilicla held a conversation with anyone it swung itself out of reach of any thoughtless movement of arm or tentacle which would have caved in its fragile body or snapped off a leg. While accompanying anyone on rounds it usually kept pace with them along the corridor walls or ceiling so as to avoid the same fate.

  Not that anyone would have wanted to hurt Prilicla in any way-it was too well liked for that. Prilicla’s empathic faculty saw to it that the little being always said and did the right thing to people-being an emotion-sensitive to do otherwise would mean that the feelings of anger or sorrow which its thoughtless action caused would bounce back and figuratively smack it in the face. So the little empath was forced constantly to lie and to always be kind and considerate in order to make the emotional radiation of the people around it as pleasant for itself as possible.

  Except when its professional duties exposed it to pain and violent emotion in a patient, or it wanted to help a friend.

  Just before Prilicla began its report Conway said, “I’m not sure myself what exactly it is I’m looking for, Doctor. But if you can remember anything unusual about Mannon’s actions or emotions, or those of his staff …

  With its fragile body trembling with the memory of the emotional gale which had emanated from the now empty Hudlar theater two days ago, Prilicla set the scene as it had been at the beginning of the operation. The little GLNO had not taken the Hudlar physiology tape and so had not been able to view the proceedings with any degree of involvement with the patient’s condition, and the patient itself was anesthetized and scarcely radiating at all. Mannon and his staff had been concentrating on their duties with only a small part of their minds free to think or emote about anything else. And then Senior Physician Mannon had his … accident. In actual fact it was five separate and distinct accidents.

  Prilicla’s body began to quiver violently and Conway said, “I … I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are,” said the empath, and resumed its report.

  The patient had been partially decompressed so that the operative field could be worked more effectively. There was some danger in this considering the Hudlar pulse rate and blood pressure, but Mannon himself had evolved this procedure and so was best able to weigh the risks. Since the patient was decompressed he had had to work quickly, and at first everything seemed to be going well. He had opened a flap of the flexible armor-plating which the Hudlars used for skin and had controlled the subcutaneous bleeding when the first mistake occurred, followed in quick succession by two more. Prilicla could not tell by observation that they were mistakes, even though there was considerable bleeding-it was Mannon’s emotional reactions, some of the most violent the empath had ever experienced, which told it that the surgeon had committed a serious and stupid blunder.

  There were longer intervals between the two others which followed- Mannon’s work had slowed drastically, his technique resembling the first fumblings of a student rather than that of one of the most skillful surgeons in the hospital. He had become so slow that curative surgery was impossible, and he had barely time to withdraw and restore pressure before the patient’s condition deteriorated beyond the point of no return.

  It was very distressing,” Prilicla said, still trembling violently. “He wanted to work quickly, but the earlier mistakes had wrecked his self confidence. He was thinking twice about doing even the simplest things, things which a surgeon of his experience would do automatically, without thinking.”

  Conway was silent for a moment, thinking about the horrible situation Mannon had been in. Then he said, “Was there anything else unusual about his feelings? Or those of the theater staff?”

  Prilicla hesitated, then said, “It is difficult to isolate subtle nuances of emotion when the source is emoting so … so violently. But I received the impression of … the effect is hard to describe … of something like a faint emotional echo of irregular duration …”

  “Probably the Hudlar tape,” said Conway. “It’s not the first time a physiology tape gave me mental double vision.”

  “That might possibly be the case,” said Prilicla. Which, in a being who was invariably and enthusiastically in agreement with whatever was said to it, was as close as the empath could come to a negative reply. Conway began to feel that he might be getting onto something important.

  “How about the others?”

  “Two of them,” said Prilicla, “were radiating the shock-worry-fear combination indicative of a mildly traumatic experience in the recent past. I was in the gallery when both incidents occurred, and one of them gave me quite a jolt …

  One of the nurses had almost had an accident while lifting a tray of instruments. One of them, a long, heavy, Hudlar Type Six scalpel used for opening the incredibly tough skin of that species, had slipped off the tray for some reason. Even a small punctured or incised wound was a very serious matter for a Kelgian, so that the Kelgian nurse had a bad fright when it saw that vicious blade dropping toward its unprotected side. But somehow it had struck in such a way-it was difficult to know how, considering its shape and lack of balance-that it had not penetrated the skin or even damaged the fur. The Kelgian had been relieved and thankful for its good fortune, but still a little disturbed.

  “I can imagine,” said Conway. “Probably the Charge Nurse read the riot act. Minor errors become major crimes where theater staff are concerned …

  Prilicl
a’s legs began to tremble again, a sign that it was nerving itself for the effort of being slightly disagreeable. It said, “The entity in question was the Charge Nurse. That was why, when the other nurse goofed on an instrument count-there was one too many or too few-the ticking off was relatively mild. And during both incidents I detected the echo effect radiated by Mannon, although in these cases the echo was from the respective nurses.

  “We may have something there!” said Conway excitedly. “Did the nurses have any physical contact with Mannon?”

  “They were assisting him,” said Prilicla, “and they were all wearing protective suits. I don’t see how any form of parasitic life or bacteria could have passed between them, if that is the idea which is making you feel so excited and hopeful just now. I am very sorry, friend Conway, but this echo effect, while peculiar, does not seem to me to be important.”

  “It’s something they had in common,” said Conway.

  “Yes,” Prilicla said, “but the something did not have self identity, it was not an individual. Just a very faint emotional echo of the feelings of the people concerned.”

  “Even so,” said Conway.

  Three people had made mistakes or had had accidents in this theater two days ago, all of whom had radiated an odd emotional echo which Prilicla did not consider important. The presence of an accident-prone Conway ruled out because O’Mara’s screening methods were too efficient in that respect. But suppose Prilicla was wrong and something had got in the theater or into the hospital, some form of life which was difficult to detect and outside their present experience. It was well known that when odd things happened in Sector General the reasons very often were found outside the hospital. At the moment, however, he hadn’t enough evidence to form even a vague theory and the first job should be to gather some — even though he might not recognize it if he tripped over it with both feet.