James White - SG 06 - Star Healer

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Star Healer

James White

1984

This was the first full length novel in the Sector General series. Previous

books realeased were comprised of a series of short stories.

Scanned by lzmini Feb 03

CHAPTER 1

Something struck Conway as odd about the latest bunch of trainees as he stood

aside to allow them to precede him into the observation gallery of the Hudlar

Children’s Ward. It was not that among the fourteen of them they comprised five

widely different life-forms or that their treatment of him—he was, after all, a

Senior Physician attached to the galaxy’s largest multienvironment hospital—was

condescending to the point of rudeness.

To be accepted for advanced training at Sector Twelve General Hospital a

candidate—in addition to possessing a high degree of medical and surgical

ability—had to be able to adapt to and accept people and circumstances which,

back in their home-planet hospitals, they could barely have imagined. At home an

off-planet patient would be a rarity indeed, while at Sector General they would

be treating nothing else. Furthermore, many of them would find it difficult to

make the transition from highly respected member of the local medical fraternity

to mere trainee at Sector General, but they would soon settle in.

His mind was playing tricks on him, Conway decided—probably because he had

so much on it at the present time. A rumor was going around about changes in his

ambulance ship setup, and he was scheduled for an hour early that afternoon with

the Chief Psychologist, always an unsettling prospect.

Conway was also irritated because he seemed to be coming in for more than

his fair share of short-term projects and medical odd jobs—such as giving the

trainees their initial orientation tour. His special ambulance-ship team had had

very few calls in recent months.

“The patients in the ward below are infant Hudlars,” Conway explained when

the trainees had formed an untidy crescent around and behind him. “They belong

to an immensely strong species and, as adults, are extremely resistant to

physical injury and disease. So much so that the concept of curative medical

treatment has been foreign to them. No medical profession exists on Hudlar, and

the high infant mortality rate of the recent past was simply accepted. Their

young fall prey to a large number of indigenous pathogens from the moment they

are born, and those which do not quickly develop or inherit resistance to them

perish. The hospital is trying to develop a wide-spectrum immunization procedure

to be carried out during the prenatal stage, but so far with limited success.”

He indicated a young Hudlar standing just below them, looking up. “You

will already have deduced from this individual’s general stance and musculature

that the species evolved on a world with very heavy gravity and proportionately

high atmospheric pressure, both of which have been reproduced in the ward. You

will also observe no beds or rest furniture; patients who can move simply roam

about at will. This is because their body tegument is so tough that padded rest

areas are unnecessary. Because of the difficulty other species have in telling

Hudlars apart, patient ID and case history are impressed magnetically on the

metal band attached to the left forelimb. The Hudlars’ six limbs can serve as

either manipulatory or locomotor appendages.

“While gravity and atmospheric pressure have been duplicated here,” Conway

went on, “the exact constituents of their atmosphere have not been reproduced.

Their home world’s air is a thick, semiliquid soup laden with tiny, airborne

food particles which are absorbed and excreted by specialized areas of the skin.

We find it more convenient to spray them periodically with a nutrient paint, as

two of the armored medical attendants are doing now.

“With the facts now in your possession,” he said, turning to regard them,

“would anyone like to classify this life-form?”

For a moment there was no verbal response. The Orligian DBDGs moved

restively, but the expressions on their humanoid features were concealed by

facial hair. The silvery fur of the caterpillarlike Kelgian DBLFs was in

constant motion, but the emotions which the movements expressed were readable

only by a fellow member of the species or by a being carrying a Kelgian tape in

its mind. As for the elephantine Tralthan FGLIs and the diminutive Dewatti

EGCLs, their features were too decentralized to be visible in their entirety,

while the hard, angular mandibles and deeply recessed eyes of the Melfan ELNTs

were completely expressionless.

One of the four Melfan trainees first broke the silence, Its translator

hummed briefly, “They belong to physiological classification

PRO B.”

It was difficult to tell Melfans apart at the best of times, since all

adult ELNTs possessed similar body mass and the only visible differences were

the subtle variations in marking on the upper carapace. To make identification

even more difficult, two of the four Melfan trainees seemed to be identical

twins. One of these had spoken.

“Correct,” Conway said approvingly. “Your name, Doctor?”

“Danalta, Senior Physician.”

Polite, too, Conway thought. “Very well, Danalta. But you were slow in

making the identification even though your colleagues were even slower. All of

you must learn to quickly and accurately classify—”

“With respect, Senior Physician,” the Melfan broke in, “I did not wish to

offer gratuitous display of my medical knowledge, woefully limited as it is at

present, until my colleagues had a chance to respond. I have studied all that

was available to me regarding your physiological classification system. But I

come from a backward world where the level of technology is low and

intercultural communication has been limited, particularly where medical data on

this hospital was concerned.

“Besides,” it concluded, “the Hudlar life-form is distinctive, unique, and

could only be FROB.”

Conway would not have described Melf as a backward world and neither would

any other member of the Galactic Federation, so this Danalta must have come from

one of the colonies recently seeded by Melf. To qualify for Sector General with

a background like that required determination as well as professional

competence. It did not matter that the Melfan was turning out to be an odd

combination of polite, self-effacing smart aleck—the operative word was “smart,”

and the best assistants an overworked Senior could have were those who strived

to render their superiors redundant. He decided that he would keep a close watch

on Danalta’s progress, for purely selfish reasons.

“Since it is possible,” Conway said dryly, “that a number of your

colleagues are less well-informed on this subject than you, I shall outline very

briefly the system of life-form identification which we use here. Your various

specialist tutors will take you through it in more detail.”

He looked for Danalta, but the trainees had changed their positions and

Conway could no longer tell which of the two identical Melfans was which. He

went on, “Unless you have already been attached to a multienvironment hospital,

you will normally have encountered off-world patients one species at a time,

probably on a short-term basis as the result of a ship accident or some

emergency, and you would refer to them by their planets of origin. But here—

where rapid and accurate identification of incoming patients is vital because

all too often they are in no condition to furnish physiological data themselves—

we have evolved a four-letter physiological classification system. It works like

this.

“The first letter denotes the level of physical evolution reached by the

species when it acquired intelligence,” he continued. “The second indicates the

type and distribution of limbs, sense organs, and body orifices, and the

remaining two letters refer to the combination of metabolism and food and air

requirements associated with the home planet’s gravity and atmospheric pressure,

which in turn gives an indication of the physical mass and protective tegument

possessed by the being.”

Conway smiled, although he knew that a long time would elapse before any

of the trainees would be able to recognize that peculiarly Earth-human facial

grimace for what it was. “Usually I have to remind some of our extraterrestrial

candidates at this point that the initial letter of their classification should

not be allowed to give them feelings of inferiority, because the degree of

physical evolution is controlled by environmental factors and bears little

relation to the level of intelligence . .

Species with the prefix A, B, or C, he went on to explain, were water-

breathers. On most worlds life had originated in the sea, and these beings had

developed intelligence without having to leave it. D through F were warm-blooded

oxygen-breathers, into which group most of the intelligent races of the

Federation fell, and the G and K types were also oxygen breathing, but

insectile. The Ls and Ms were light-gravity, winged beings.

Chlorine-breathing life-forms were contained in the 0 and P groups, and

after these came the more exotic, the more highly evolved physically and the

downright weird types. Into these categories fell the radiation-eaters, the

cold-blooded or crystalline beings, and entities capable of modifying their

physical structures at will. However, those beings possessing extrasensory

powers sufficiently well developed to make ambulatory or manipulatory appendages

unnecessary were given the prefix V regardless of their size or shape.

“There are anomalies in the system,” Conway went on, “and these must be

blamed on a lack of imagination and foresight by the originators. The AACP life-

form, for instance, has a vegetable metabolism. Normally the A prefix denotes a

water-breather, there being nothing lower on the evolutionary scale than the

piscatorial lifeforms, but the AACPs are intelligent vegetables and plant-life

came before the fish.”

Conway pointed suddenly at a nurse who was spraying nutrient onto a young

Hudlar at the other end of the ward, then turned toward Danalta. “Perhaps you

would like to classify that life-form, Doctor.”

“I am not Danalta,” the Melfan Conway was addressing protested. Even

though the process of translation tended to filter the emotional overtones from

messages, the ELNT sounded displeased.

“My apologies,” Conway said, looking around for its twin, in vain. He

decided that Danalta, for reasons known only to itself, had hidden behind the

group of Tralthan trainees. Before he could redirect the question, one of the

Tralthans answered it.

“The being you indicate is encased in a heavy-duty protective suit,” the

big FGLI said, this deep modulated rumblings of its native speech reinforcing

the ponderous and pedantic style of the translated words. “The only part of the

being visible to me is the small area behind the visor, and this is indistinct

because of reflections from the ward lighting. Since the protective suit is

self-propelled, there is no evidence available as to the number and type of the

locomotor appendages. But the overall size and shape of the suit together with

the positioning of the four mechanical manipulators spaced around the base of

the conical head section—assuming that for ergonomic reasons these mechanical

extensions approximate the positions of the underlying natural limbs—leads me to

state with a fair degree of certainty that the entity in question is a Kelgian

of physiological classification DBLF. Glimpses of a gray, furry tegument and

what appears to be one of the Kelgian visual sensors revealed, however

unclearly, through the small area of the visor, supports this identification.”

“Very good, Doctor!” But before Conway could ask the Tralthan its name,

the entrance lock of the ward swung open and a large, spherical vehicle mounted

on caterpillar treads rolled in. The sphere was encircled equatorially by a

variety of remote handling and sensory devices, and prominently displayed on the

forward upper surface was the insignia of a Diagnostician. Instead, Conway

pointed to the vehicle and said, “Can you classify that one?”

This time one of the Kelgians spoke first.

“Only by inference and deduction, Senior Physician,” it said as slow,

regular waves rippled along its fur from nose to tail. “Plainly the vehicle is a

self-powered pressure vessel which, judging by the external bracing evident on

the sphere, is designed to protect the ward patients and medical staff as well

as the occupant. The walking limbs, if there are any, are concealed by the

pressure envelope, and I would say that the number of external handling and

sensory devices is so large that it is probable the being has only a small

number of natural manipulators and sensors, and operates the external devices as

required. The walls of the pressure vessel are of unknown thickness, so that

there is no accurate data available to me regarding the size and physical

configuration of the occupant.”

The Kelgian paused for a moment and sat back on its rearmost legs, looking

like a fat, furry question mark. Silvery ripples continued to move slowly along

its back and flanks, while the fur of its three fellow DBLFs twitched and tufted

and flattened randomly as if there were a strong wind blowing in the observation

gallery.

An air of restlessness, of low-key agitation, seemed to pervade the other

members of the group. The Tralthans were each raising and lowering their stumpy,

elephantine feet in turn. The continuous clicking and scraping sound was the

Melfans tapping their crablike legs against the floor, while the teeth of the

Orligians showed whitely in their dark, furry faces. Conway hoped they were

smiling.

“I am aware of two life-forms which use a pressure vessel of this kind,”

the Kelgian went on. “They are utterly dissimilar in environmental requirements

and physiology, and both would be considered by the more common oxygen- and

chlorine-breathing species to be among the exotic categories. One is a frigid-

blooded methane-breather who is most comfortable in an environment at a few

degrees above absolute zero, and who evolved on the perpetually dark worlds

which have been detached from their original solar systems and drift through the

interstellar spaces.

“Physically they are quite small,” the Kelgian continued, “averaging one-

third of the body mass of a being like myself. But during contact with other

species, the highly refrigerated life-support and sensory translation systems

which they are forced to wear are large and complex and require frequent power

recharge...

Three of them! Conway thought. He looked around for the Tralthan who had

correctly tagged the suited DBLF, and Danalta, the Melfan trainee who had

identified the FROB, to observe their reactions to the very knowledgeable

Kelgian—but the group was milling about so much that he could not tell who was

who. Certainly he had sensed something unusual about this bunch shortly after

taking charge of them at the hospital’s staff entry port.

The other life-form,” the Kelgian was saying, “inhabits a heavy-gravity,

watery planet which circles very close to its parent sun. It breathes

superheated steam and has a quite interesting metabolism about which I am

incompletely informed. It, also, is a small life-form, and the large size of its

pressure envelope is necessitated by its having to mount heaters to render the

occupant comfortable, and surface insulation and refrigerators to keep the

vicinity habitable by other life-forms.

“The environment of the Hudlar ward is warm with a high moisture content,”

the Kelgian continued, “and some measure of the low internal temperature

required by a methane-breathing SNLU would be conducted, no matter how efficient

the insulation to the outer fabric of the vehicle, where condensation would be

apparent. Since condensation is not present, the probability is high that the

vehicle contains the high-temperature life-form, a member of which species is

said to be a Diagnostician at the hospital.

“This identification is the result of deduction, guesswork, and a degree

of prior knowledge, Senior Physician,” the Kelgian ended, “but I would place the

entity in physiological classification TLTU.”

Conway looked closely at the slow, regular fur movements of the unusually

unemotional and well-informed DBLF, and then at the agitated pelts of its

Kelgian colleagues. Speaking slowly, because his mind was moving at top speed

and little of it was free for speech, he said, “The answer is correct, no matter

how you arrived at it.”

He was thinking about the DBLF classification, and in particular about

their expressive fur. Because of inadequacies in the speech organs, the Kelgian

spoken language lacked emotional expression. Instead the beings’ highly mobile

fur acted, so far as another Kelgian was concerned, as a perfect but

uncontrollable mirror to the speaker’s emotional state. As a result the concept

of lying was totally alien to them, and the idea of being tactful or diplomatic

or even polite was utterly unthinkable. A DBLF invariably said exactly what it

meant, and felt, because its fur revealed its feelings from moment to moment and

to do otherwise would be sheer stupidity.

Conway was also thinking about the Melfan ELNTs and their mechanism of

reproduction which made twinning an impossibility, and about the phrasing of the

answers volunteered by Danalta and the other two, particularly that of the

Kelgian who had implied that the TLTU life-form was not particularly exotic.

From the moment they had arrived, he had felt that something was distinctly

unusual about the group. He should have trusted his feelings.

He thought back to his first sight of the newcomers and of how they had

looked and acted at different times since then, especially their nervousness and

the general lack of questioning about the hospital. Was some kind of conspiracy

afoot? Without being obtrusive about it, he looked at each of them.

Four Kelgian DBLFs, two Dewatti EGCLs, three Tralthan FGLIs, three Melfan

ELNTs, and two Orligian DBDGs—fourteen in all. But Kelgians are never polite or

respectful or capable of much control over their fur, Conway thought as he

deliberately turned away from them and looked into the ward.

“Who’s the joker?” he said.

No one replied, and Conway, still without looking at them, said, “I have

no previous knowledge of the life-form concerned, and my identification is

based, therefore, on inference, deduction, and behavioral observation...

The sarcasm in his voice was probably lost in the translation, and the

majority of extraterrestrials were literal-minded to a fault, anyway. He

softened his tone as he went on. “I am addressing that entity among you whose

species is amoebic in that it can extrude any limbs, sense organs, or protective

tegument necessary to the environment or situation in which it finds itself. My

guess is that it evolved on a planet with a highly eccentric orbit, and with

climatic changes so severe that an incredible degree of physical adaptability

was necessary for survival. It became dominant on its world, developed

intelligence and a civilization, not by competing in the matter of natural

weapons but by refining and perfecting the adaptive capability. When it was

faced by natural enemies, the options would be flight, protective mimicry, or

the assumption of a shape frightening to the attacker.

“The speed and accuracy of the mimicry displayed here,” he continued,

“particularly in the almost perfect reproduction of behavior patterns, suggests

that the entity may be a receptive empath. With such effective means of self-

protection available, I would say that the species is impervious to physical

damage other than by physical annihilation or the application of ultrahigh

temperatures, so that the concept of curative surgery would be a strange one

indeed to members of that race. Virtual physical indestructibility would mean

that they did not require mechanisms for selfprotection, so they are likely to

be advanced in the philosophical sciences but backward in developing their

technology.

“I would identify you,” Conway said, swinging around to face them, “as

physiological classification TOBS.”

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 ultraftigid 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 to its nonmedical

administration. But the traditional friction between military and civilian

members of the staff did not occur, and neither were there any serious problems

among its ten thousand-odd medical personnel, who were composed of nearly

seventy differing life-forms with as many different mannerisms, body odors, and

ways of looking at life.

But space was always at a premium in Sector General, and whenever possible

the beings who worked together were expected to eat together—though not, of

course, of the same food.

The trainees were lucky enough to find two adjoining tables, unlucky in

that the furniture and eating utensils were designed for the use of dwarflike

Nidian DBDGs. The vast dining hail catered to the warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing

members of the staff, and one look around made plain that different species

dined or talked shop or simply gossiped together at the same table. Wrong-size

furniture was a discomfort which the newcomers would get used to and, in this

instance, things could have been much worse.

The Melfan’s mandibles were at the right height above the table, and it

was no inconvenience for the ELNTs to eat while standing. The Tralthans did

everything including sleeping on their six blocky feet. The Keigians could adapt

their caterpillar shapes to any type of furniture, and the Orligians, like

Conway himself, could sit without too much discomfort on the armrests of the

chairs. The tiny Dewatti had no problems at all, and the polymorphic Danalta had

taken the shape of a Dewatti.

“The food-ordering and delivery system is standard,” Conway said, looking

from one table to the other, “and the same as that used on the ships which

brought you here. If you punch in your physiological classification, the menu

will be displayed in your own written language. Except for Danalta. There are no

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StarHealerJamesWhite1984ThiswasthefirstfulllengthnovelintheSectorGeneralseries.Previousbooksrealeasedwerecomprisedofaseriesofshortstories.ScannedbylzminiFeb03CHAPTER1SomethingstruckConwayasoddaboutthelatestbunchoftraineesashestoodasidetoallowthemtoprecedehimintotheobservationgalleryoftheHudlarChildr...

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