Sector General Omnibus 3 - General Practice (38 page)

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Authors: James White

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At that point Cha Thrat, who must have sensed his increasing emotional distress, firmly steered the conversation onto O’Mara and the
Chief Wizard’s reasons for taking them into its department, and from there to the assignment that had brought him here in the hope of gathering information from a patient who was plainly in no condition to give it.
They were still discussing Seldal and wondering aloud whether they should try talking to Mannen the next day, if it should survive that long, when the supposedly unconscious patient opened its eyes and looked at them.
“I, that is, we apologize, sir,” Cha Thrat said quickly. “We assumed that you were unconscious because your eyes remained closed since our arrival and the biosensor readings showed no change. I can only assume that you realized our mistake, and because we were discussing matters of a confidential nature, you maintained the pretense of sleep out of politeness to avoid causing us great embarrassment.”
Mannen’s head moved slowly from side to side in the Earth-human gesture of negation, and it seemed that the eyes staring up at him were in some clinically inexplicable fashion younger than the rest of the patient’s incredibly wrinkled features and time-ravaged body. When it spoke, the words were like the whispering of the wind through tall vegetation and slowed with the effort of enunciation.
“Another … wrong assumption,” it said. “I am … never polite.”
“Nor do we deserve politeness, Diagnostician Mannen,” Lioren said, forcing his mind and his voice to the surface of a great, hot sea of embarrassment. “I alone am responsible for this visit, and the blame for it is entirely mine. My reason for coming no longer seems valid and we shall leave at once. Again, my apologies.”
One of the thin, emaciated hands lying outside the bed covering twitched feebly, as if it would have been raised in a nonverbal demand for silence if the arm muscles had possessed sufficient strength. Lioren stopped speaking.
“I know … your reason for coming,” Mannen said, in a voice barely loud enough to carry the few inches to its bedside translator. “I overheard everything … you said about Seldal … as well as yourself. Very
interesting it was … But the effort of listening to you … for nearly two hours … has tired me … and soon my sleep will not be a pretense. You must go now.”
“At once, sir,” Lioren said.
“And if you wish to return,” Mannen went on, “come at a better time … because I want to ask questions as well as listen to you. But the visit should not be long delayed.”
“I understand,” Lioren said. “It will be very soon.”
“Perhaps I will be able to help you … with the Seldal business and in return … you can tell me more about Cromsag … and do me another small favor.”
The Earth-human Mannen had been a Diagnostician for many years. Its help and understanding of the Seldal problem would be invaluable, especially as it would be given willingly and without the need of him having to waste time hiding the reason for his questions. But he also knew that the price he would have to pay for that assistance in inflaming wounds that could never heal would be higher than the patient realized.
Before he could reply, Mannen’s lips drew back slowly in the peculiar Earth-human grimace which at times could signify a response to humor or a nonverbal expression of friendship or sympathy.
“And I thought I had problems,” it said.
L
ioren’s subsequent visits were lengthier, completely private, and not nearly as painful as he had feared.
He had asked Hredlichi, the Charge Nurse on Mannen’s ward, to inform him immediately whenever the patient was conscious and in a condition to receive visitors, regardless of the time of the hospital’s arbitrary day or night that should be. Before agreeing, Hredlichi had checked with the patient, who hitherto had refused visits from everyone except for the ward rounds of its surgeon, and been greatly surprised when Mannen agreed to receive nonmedical visits only from Lioren.
Cha Thrat had explained it was insufficiently motivated to be willing to interrupt its sleep or drop other, more urgent work at a moment’s notice to pursue the Seldal investigation—which was, after all, Lioren’s responsibility—although it would continue to assist Lioren in any other way which did not involve major personal inconvenience. As a result, the first visit to Mannen had been the only one at which the Sommaradvan had been present.
By the third visit, Lioren was feeling relieved that Mannen did not want to talk exclusively about the Cromsaggar, disappointed that his understanding of Seldal’s behavior was no clearer, and embarrassed that the patient was spending an increasing proportion of each visit talking about itself.
“With respect, Doctor,” Lioren said after one particularly argumentative self-diagnosis, “I am not in possession of an Earth-human Educator tape which would enable me to give an opinion in your case nor, as a member of the Psychology Department, am I allowed to practice medicine. Seldal is your physician-in-charge and it—”
“Talks to me as if … I was a drooling infant,” Mannen broke in. “Or a frightened, terminal patient. At least you don’t … try to administer … a lethal overdose … of sympathy. You are here to … obtain information about Seldal and, in return, to satisfy my curiosity … about you. No, I am not so much afraid of dying … as having too much time to think about it.”
“Is there pain, Doctor?” Lioren asked.
“You know there is no pain, dammit,” Mannen replied in a voice made stronger by its anger. “In the bad old days there might have been pain, and inefficient painkilling medication that so depressed the functioning of the involuntary muscle systems that … the major organs went into failure and the medication killed the patient as well as its pain … so that its medic escaped with the minimum of ethical self-criticism and … its patient was spared a lingering death. But now we have learned how to negate pain without harmful side effects … and there is nothing I can do but wait to see which of my vital organs … will be the first to expire from old age.
“I should not,” Mannen ended, its voice dropping to a whisper again, “have allowed Seldal loose in my intestines. But that blockage was … really uncomfortable.”
“I sympathize,” Lioren said, “because I, too, wish for death. But you can look back with pride and without pain to your past and to an ending that will not be long delayed. In my past and future lies only guilt and desolation that I must suffer until—”
“Do you really feel sympathy, Lioren?” Mannen broke in. “You impress me as being nothing but a proud and unfeeling … but very efficient organic healing machine. The Cromsag Incident … showed that the machine had a flaw. You want to destroy the machine … while O’Mara wants to repair it. I don’t know which of you will succeed.”
“I would never,” Lioren said harshly, “destroy myself to avoid just punishment.”
“To an ordinary member of the staff,” Mannen went on, “I would not say such … personally hurtful things. I know you feel you deserve them … and worse … and you expect no apology from me. But I do apologize … because I am hurting in a way that I did not believe possible … and am striking out at you … and I ignore my friends when they visit me in case they discover … that I am nothing but a vindictive old man.”
Before Lioren could think of a reply, Mannen said weakly, “I have been hurtful to a being who has not hurt me. The only recompense I can make is by helping you … with information on Seldal. When it visits me tomorrow morning … I shall ask it specific and very personal questions. I shall not mention … nor will it suspect your connection.”
“Thank you,” Lioren said. “But I do not understand how you can ask—”
“It is very simple,” Mannen said, its voice strengthening again. “Seldal is a Senior Physician and I was, until my summary demotion to the status of patient, a Diagnostician. It will be pleased to answer all my questions for three reasons. Out of respect for my former rank, because it will want to humor a terminal patient who wants to talk shop for what might well be the last time, and especially because I have not spoken a word to it since three days before the operation. If I cannot discover any helpful information for you after that exercise, the information does not exist.”
This terminally ill entity, in what might well be the last constructive act of its life, was going to help him with the Seldal assignment as no other person was capable of doing, simply because it had used a few impolite words to him. Lioren had always considered it wrong to become emotionally involved in a case, however slightly, because the patient’s interests were best served by the impersonal, clinical approach—and Mannen was not even his patient. But somehow it seemed that the investigation into the Nallajim Senior’s behavior was no longer his only concern.
“Thank you again,” Lioren said. “But I had been about to say that I cannot understand why you are hurting in ways that you did not believe possible when your medication should render you pain-free. Is it a nonmedical problem?”
Mannen stared up at him unblinkingly for what seemed a very long time in silence, and Lioren wished that he was able to read the expression on its wasted and deeply wrinkled features. He tried again.
“If it is nonmedical, would you prefer I send for O’Mara?”
“No!” Mannen said, weakly but very firmly. “I do not want to talk to the Chief Psychologist. He has been here many times, until he stopped trying to talk to a person who pretended to be asleep all the time and, like my other friends, stayed away.”
It was becoming clear that Mannen wanted to talk to someone, but had not yet made the decision to do so. Silence, Lioren thought, might be the safest form of questioning.
“In your mind,” Mannen said finally, in a voice which had found strength from somewhere, “there is too much that you want to forget. In mine there is even more that I cannot remember.”
“Still I do not understand you,” Lioren said.
“Must I explain it as if you were a first-day trainee?” the patient said. “For the greater part of my professional life I have been a Diagnostician. As such I have had to accommodate in my mind, often for periods of several years, the knowledge, personalities, and medical experience of anything up to ten entities at a time. The experience is of many alien personalities occupying and—because these tape donors were rarely timid or self-effacing people—fighting for control of the host mind. This is a subjective mental phenomenon which must be overcome if one is to continue as a Diagnostician, but initially it seems that the host mind is a battleground with too many combatants warring with each other until—”
“That I do understand,” Lioren said. “During my time here as a Senior I was once required to carry three tapes simultaneously.”
“The host is able to impose peace and order,” Mannen continued slowly, “usually by learning to understand and adapt to and make
friends with these alien personalities without surrendering any part of his own mind, until the necessary accommodation can be made. It is the only way to avoid serious mental trauma and removal from the roster of Diagnosticians.”
Mannen closed its eyes for a moment, then went on. “But now the mental battlefield is deserted, emptied of the onetime warriors who became friends. I am all alone with the entity called Mannen, and with only Mannen’s memories, which includes the memory of having many other memories that were taken from me. I am told that this is as it should be because a man’s mind should be his own for a time before termination. But I am lonely, lonely and empty and cared for and completely pain-free while I spend a subjective eternity waiting for the end.”
Lioren waited until he was sure that Mannen had finished speaking; then he said, “Terminally aged Earth-humans, indeed the members of the majority of species, find comfort in the presence of friends at a time like this. For some reason you have chosen to discourage such visits, but if you would prefer the company of donor entities who were your friends of the mind, the answer is to reimpress your brain with Educator tapes of your choosing. I shall suggest this solution to the Chief Psychologist, who might—”
“Tear you psychologically limb from Tarlan limb,” Mannen broke in. “Have you forgotten that you are supposed to be investigating Seldal, not one of its patients called Mannen? Forget about the tapes. If O’Mara ever found out what you, a psychology trainee, have been trying to do here, you would be in very serious trouble.”
“I cannot imagine,” Lioren said very seriously, “being in worse trouble than I am now.”
“I’m sorry,” Mannen said, raising one of its hands a few inches above the covers and then letting it fall again. “For a moment I had forgotten the Cromsag Incident. A tongue-lashing from O’Mara would be insignificant compared to the punishment you are inflicting on yourself.”
Lioren did not acknowledge the other’s apology because the guilty did not deserve one and said instead, “You are right, reimpressing your
Educator tapes is not a good solution. My knowledge of Earth-human psychology is meager, but would it not be better if at this time your mind was your own, and not filled with others whose mind records were taken before they even knew of your existence, and whose apparent friendship for you was a self-delusion aimed at making their alien presence more bearable? At this time should you not be ordering the contents of your own mind, its thoughts, experiences, right or wrong decisions, and its considerable accomplishments during your own lifetime? This would help to pass your remaining time, and if your friends were no longer discouraged from visiting you, that would also shorten—”
“I have yet to meet an intelligent being,” Mannen said, “who did not wish for a long life and an instantaneous death. But such wishes are rarely granted, are they, Lioren? My suffering does not compare with yours, but I will still have a long time to spend in a body deprived of all feeling and with a mind that is empty and alien and frightening because it is my own, a mind I can no longer fill.”
The ex-Diagnostician’s two recessed eyes were fixed on the one of Lioren’s that was closest to it. He returned the patient’s stare for several minutes, his mind recalling the words the other had spoken and searching everyone of them for unspoken meanings, but Mannen spoke before he did.
“I have not talked for so long in many weeks,” it said, “and I am very tired. Go now, or I will be so discourteous as to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.”
“Please don’t,” Lioren said quickly, “because I have one more question to ask of you. It is possible that you are thinking that an entity who has already committed the monstrous and multiple crime of genocide would not suffer additional distress if he were to commit a single and, relatively, more venial offense as a favor to a colleague. Are you suggesting that I shorten your time of waiting?”
Mannen was silent for so long that Lioren checked the biosensors to be sure that it had not lost consciousness with its eyelids open; then
it said, “If that was my suggestion, what would your answer be?”
Lioren did not wait as long before replying. “The answer would be no. If it is possible, I must try to reduce my guilt, not increase it by however small an amount. The ethical and moral aspects might be argued, but I could not justify such an act on medical grounds because there is no physical distress of any kind. Your distress is subjective, the product of a mind that is empty of all but one occupant, you, who is no longer happy there.
“But the experience is not new to you,” Lioren went on, “because it was your normal condition before you became a Senior Physician and then a Diagnostician. I have already suggested that you fill your mind with old memories, experiences or professional decisions which brought you pleasure, or problems which you enjoyed solving. Or would you prefer to continue exercising it with new material?”
What he was about to say would sound callous and selfish and might well anger the patient into total noncooperation, but he said it anyway.
“For example,” he added, “there is the mystery of Seldal’s behavior.”
“Go away,” Mannen said in a weak voice, closing its eyes, “go now.”
Lioren did not leave until the biosensor readings indicated the changes which told him that on this occasion the patient’s sleep was not a pretense.
When he returned to the office next morning, Lioren deliberately concentrated on the routine work so as to avoid having to discuss Mannen with Cha Thrat. He did not think that the words of a terminal patient should be judged too harshly, nor be repeated to others, especially when they had no direct bearing on the Seldal investigation.
Of the other three Seldal post-op patients he questioned, two were willing to talk to him at length—about themselves, the hospital food, the nurses whose ministrations were at times as gentle as the hands of a parent or as insensitive as a kick from a Tralthan’s rear leg, but about their Nallajim surgeon scarcely at all. During the little time Seldal spent with them, it listened more than it talked, which was a little unusual in
a Senior but was not a character deviation serious enough to worry O’Mara. He was disappointed but not surprised when his general and necessarily vague questions brought no results.

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