Alien Emergencies - James White [215]
He walked rapidly toward the three Orligians, for the good reason that there should have been only two of them. Quickly but gently he reached out to their shoulders and slipped a finger between the straps of their harnesses and the underlying fur. On the third attempt he could not do it because the harness and the fur would not separate.
Dryly, Conway said, “Do you have any future plans or ambitions, Doctor Danalta, other than playing practical jokes?”
For a moment the head and shoulders melted and slumped into what could have been the beginnings of a Melfan carapace—the sort of disquieting metamorphosis, Conway thought, which he would have to get used to—before it firmed back to the Orligian shape.
“I am most sincerely sorry, Senior Physician,” Danalta said, “if my recent actions have caused you mental distress. The matter of physical shape is normally of complete indifference to me, but I thought that adopting the forms of the people within the hospital would be more convenient for purposes of communication and social intercourse, and I also wished to practice my mimicry as soon and as often as possible before a being who was most likely to spot any inconsistencies. On the ferrycraft I discussed it with the other members of the group, and they agreed to cooperate.
“My chief purpose in seeking a position at the hospital,” Danalta went on quickly, “was to have the opportunity of working with so large and varied a group of life-forms. To a mimic of my capabilities—and at this point I should say that they are considered greater than average among my people—this establishment represents a tremendous challenge, even though I fully realize that there will be life-forms which I may not be able to reproduce. Regarding the word ‘joker,’ this does not seem to translate into my language. But if I have given offense in this matter, I apologize without reservation.”
“Your apology is accepted,” Conway said, thinking of some of the harebrained stunts his own group of trainees had been up to many years ago—activities which had only the most tenuous connection with the practice of medicine. He looked at his watch and added, “If you are interested in meeting a large number of different life-forms, Doctor, you will shortly have your wish. All of you, please follow me.”
But the Orligian who was not an Orligian did not move. It said, “As you rightly deduced, Senior Physician, the practice of medicine is completely foreign to our species. My purpose in coming here is selfish, even pleasurable, rather than idealistic. I shall merely be using my abilities to reassure beings who are suffering from physical malfunctions by mimicking them if there are no members of their own race present to give such reassurance. Or to adapt quickly to environments which others would find lethal so that urgent treatment would not be delayed because of time wasted in the donning of protective envelopes. Or to extrude limbs of a specialized shape or function which might be capable of repairing otherwise inaccessible areas where an organic malfunction had occurred. But I am not, and should not be called, a Doctor.”
Conway laughed suddenly. He said, “If that is the kind of work you plan to do here, Danalta, we won’t call you anything else.”
Chapter 2
Like a gigantic, cylindrical Christmas tree Sector Twelve General Hospital hung in the interstellar darkness between the rim of the parent Galaxy and the densely populated star systems of the Greater Magellanic Cloud. In 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 ultrafrigid methane life-forms through the more common oxygen-breathing types up to the weird and wonderful beings who did not breathe, or even eat, but existed by the direct absorption of hard radiation.
Sector General represented a two-fold miracle of engineering and psychology. Its supply and maintenance were handled by the Monitor Corps—the Federation’s executive and law-enforcement arm—which also saw