Alien Emergencies - James White [256]
“You were looking for me, Lieutenant?” Conway asked.
“For the past couple of hours, Doctor,” the officer replied. “But you were with the Chief Psychologist on a taping session and could not be disturbed.”
Conway nodded. “What’s the trouble?”
“Problems with the Protector,” the Lieutenant said, and went on quickly. “The Exercise Room—that’s what we’re calling it now even though it still looks like a torture chamber—is underpowered. Tapping into the main power line for the section would necessitate going through four levels, only one of which is inhabited by warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. The structural alterations in the other three areas would be very time-consuming because of our having to guard against atmosphere contamination, especially where the Illensan chlorine-breathers are concerned. The answer would be a small power source sited within the Exercise Room. But if the Protector broke free, the shielding around the power unit might not survive, and if the shielding went, the radiation hazard would necessitate five levels’—above and below the area—being evacuated, and a lot more time would be wasted cleaning the—”
“The room is close to the outer hull,” Conway said, feeling that a lot of time was being wasted right now by asking a medical man’s advice on purely technical questions, and fairly simple ones at that. “Surely you can set up a small reactor on the outer hull, safe from the Protector, and run a line into—”
“That was the answer I came up with, too,” the Lieutenant broke in, “but it gave rise to other problems, administrative rather than technical. There are regulations regarding what structures can and cannot be placed on the outer hull, and a reactor there, where one had never been before, might necessitate alterations in the hospital’s external traffic flow patterns. In short, there is a major tangle of red tape which I can unravel given time, and if I asked all of the people concerned nicely and in triplicate. But you, Doctor, considering the urgency of your project, could tell them what you need.”
Conway was silent for a moment. He was remembering one of the Chief Psychologist’s remarks prior to the taping session and just before the sedation had taken effect. O’Mara had smiled sourly and said, “You have the rank now, Conway, even though it may turn out to be temporary. Go out and use it, or even abuse it. Just let me see you doing something with it.”
Striving to make his tone that of a Diagnostician to whom nobody in the hospital would say no, Conway said, “I understand, Lieutenant. I’m on my way to Hudlar Geriatric, but I’ll deal with it at the first communicator I pass. You have another problem?”
“Of course I have problems,” the Lieutenant replied. “Every time you bring a new patient to the hospital, the whole maintenance division grows ulcers! Levitating brontosaurs, Drambon rollers, and now a patient who hasn’t even been born yet inside a…a berserker!”
Conway looked at the other in surprise. Usually the Monitor Corps officers were faultless in matters of discipline and respect toward their superiors, whether military or medical. Dryly, he said, “We can treat ulcers.”
“My apologies, Doctor,” the other said stiffly. “I’ve been in charge of a squad of Kelgians for the past two years, and I’ve forgotten how to be polite.”
“I see.” Conway laughed. Since he was carrying a Kelgian tape himself right then, the Lieutenant had his sympathy. “That problem I cannot help you with. Are there others?”
“Oh, yes,” the other