Alien Emergencies - James White [244]
He broke off to answer a question from Khone regarding the hair on his wrist, and he took the opportunity of weakening the other’s conditioning a little more by suggesting that it perform a simple surgical procedure on him. It would involve removing a small area of hair, and using a fine needle in conjunction with the scanner to withdraw a small quantity of blood from a minor vein at the back of Conway’s hand. He assured Khone that the procedure would be painless and no harm would be done even if the needle were not positioned with complete accuracy.
He explained that it was the kind of test which was done countless times every day at Sector General on a wide variety of patients, and later analysis of the sample taken revealed a great deal about the condition of these patients, and in many cases, the data obtained was instrumental in curing them.
There would be very little direct physical contact involved in taking the sample, because Khone would be using the scanner, swab, scissors, and a hypodermic, he added encouragingly. Just as there would be minimal body contact if or when Conway performed similar tests on the Gogleskan.
For a moment Conway thought that he had rushed things too much, because Khone had backed away until it was pressing against the inside of the closed external door. It remained there, its hair twitching while it fought another battle with its conditioning, then it slowly returned to the litter. While he waited for it to speak, Conway took a quick look at the amazingly lifelike picture which was taking form on Wainright’s screen.
The Lieutenant had incorporated in the display all of the FOKT data as well as information he had gleaned earlier on the subsea vegetation of prehistoric times. The fossil remains, which the computer had reconstructed as slightly smaller versions of present-day Gogleskans, lay singly and in small, linked groups among the gently waving marine vegetation, lit by bright, greenish yellow sunlight which filtered down from the wave-wrinkled surface above. Only in the enormous, roselike object which lay in the center of the picture was there a lack of detail. An idea about it began to take shape at the back of Conway’s mind, but Khone spoke suddenly before it could form.
The Gogleskan was still not taking any interest in the screen.
“If this test were to cause pain,” Khone asked, “what would be the procedure then? And would it be preferable, in the present circumstances, for the blood sample to be taken by and from oneself?”
A helpful but cautious entity, this Khone, Conway thought, trying not to laugh. He said, “If a procedure is expected to cause discomfort, a quantity of the material contained in one of the phials colored in yellow and black diagonal bands is withdrawn and injected into the site. The quantity required is dependent on the period and degree of discomfort which one is expecting to cause.
“The material concerned is a painkiller for my species,” he went on, “as well as a muscle relaxant. But it is not required in this instance…”
While he continued to give the directions for withdrawing the blood sample, he told Khone that it was much easier to perform such work on a subject other than oneself. He did not, at that time, make any mention of the fact that if he was to obtain a specimen of FOKT blood from Khone, the first thing he would have wanted to discover was if the yellow and black marked medication, or one of the other similar preparations in his supply, was suited to the Gogleskan metabolism. If one of them was suitable and there was an opportunity of injecting it, Khone would be left in such a pain-free, relaxed, and massively tranquilized state that subsequent and more revealing tests would have been no problem at all.
A muscle relaxed, he thought, his eyes going back to Wainright’s display, as opposed to a muscle in spasm!