Alien Emergencies - James White [80]
“Everybody,” said Prilicla as it began checking the e-t instrument packs, “wants to be an empath, friend Murchison.”
They arrived in Control slightly breathless after their climb up the gravity-free well past the five intervening decks. Murchison had considerably more breath available than Conway, even though she had used a lot of it telling him that he was running to adipose and that his center of gravity was beginning to drop below his waistline—something that had not happened to the delightfully top-heavy pathologist over the years. As they straightened up, looking around the small, darkened compartment and at the intent faces lit only by indicator lights and displays, Captain Fletcher motioned them into the two supernumerary positions and waited for them to strap in before he spoke.
“We were unable to obtain an accurate fix on the distress beacon,” he began without preamble, “because of distortion caused by stellar activity in the area, a small cluster whose stars are in an early and very active period of evolution. But I expect the signal has been received by other and much closer Corps installations, who will obtain a more accurate fix, which they will relay to the hospital before we make the first Jump. For this reason I intend proceeding at one instead of four-G thrust to Jump-distance, losing perhaps half an hour, in the hope of obtaining a closer fix, which would save time, a great deal of time, when we reach the disaster site. Do you understand?”
Conway nodded. On many occasions he had been awaiting a subspace radio message, usually in answer to a request for environmental information regarding a patient whose physiological type was new to the hospital, and the signal had been well-nigh unreadable because of interference from intervening stellar objects. The hospital’s receptors were the equal of those used by the major Monitor Corps bases, and were hundreds of times more sensitive than any equipment mounted in a ship. If any sort of message carrying the coordinates of the distressed vessel’s position was received by Sector General, it would be filtered and deloused and relayed to the ambulance ship within seconds.
Always provided, of course, that their ship had not already left normal space.
“Is anything known about the disaster area?” asked Conway, trying to hide his irritation at being treated as a complete ignoramus in all matters outside his medical specialty. “Nearby planetary systems, perhaps, whose inhabitants might have some knowledge regarding the physiology of the survivors, if any?”
“In this kind of operation,” said the Captain, “I did not think there would be time to go looking for the survivors’ friends.”
Conway shook his head. “You’d be surprised, Captain,” he said. “In the hospital’s rescue experience, if the initial disaster does not kill everyone within the first few minutes, the ship’s safety devices can keep the survivors alive for several hours or even days. Furthermore, unless faced with a surgical emergency, it is better and safer to institute palliative treatment on a completely strange life-form and if it can be found, send for the being’s own doctor, as we would have done with the Dwerlan casualty had its injuries been less serious. There may even be times when it is better to do nothing at all for the patient and allow its own healing processes to proceed without interruption.”
Fletcher started to laugh, thought better of it when be realized that Conway was serious, then began tapping buttons on his console. In the big astrogation cube at the center of the control room there appeared a three-dimensional star chart with a fuzzy red spot at its center. There were about twenty stars in the volume of space represented by the projection, three of which were joined and enclosed by motionless swirls and tendrils of luminous material.
“That fuzzy spot,” said the Captain apologetically, “should be a point of light signifying the position of the distressed ship. As it is, we know its whereabouts only to the nearest hundred million miles. The area has not been surveyed or even visited