"White, James - Sector General 03 - Major Operation.PDB" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

"So far as we have been able to discover," Prilicla went on, "its emphatic faculty is highly developed and not allied to intelligence. The same applies to the second Drambon native you brought back, except that it is .
"Much smarter," O'Mara finished sourly. "Almost as smart as a badly retarded dog. I don't mind admitting that for a while I thought our failure to communicate may have been due to a lack of professional competence in myself. But now it is clear that you were simply wasting our time giving sophisticated tests to Drambon animals."
"But that SRJH saved me."
"A very highly specialized but nonintelligent animal," said O'Mara firmly. "It protects and heals friends and kills enemies, but it does not think about it. As for the new specimen you brought in, when we exposed it to the thought-controlled tool it emoted awareness and caution-a feeling similar to our emotional radiation if we were standing close to a bare power line-but according to Prilicla it did not think at or even about the gadget.
"So I'm sorry, Conway," he ended, "we are still looking for the species responsible for making those tools, and for intelligent local medical assistance with your own problem."
Conway was silent for a long time, staring at the two SRJHs on O'Mara's floor. It seemed all wrong that a creature responsible for saving his life should have done so without thought or feeling. The SRJH was simply a specialist like the other specialized animals and plants inhabiting the interior of the great strata beasts, doing the work it had evolved to do. Chemical reactions were so slow inside the strata creatures-the material was too diluted for them to be otherwise since its blood might be little more than slightly impure water-that specialized plant and animal symbiotes could produce the secretions necessary for muscle activity, endocrine balance, supplying nourishment to and removing waste material from large areas of tissue. Other specialized symbiotes handled the respiration cycle and gave vision of a kind on the surface.
"Friend Conway has an idea," said Prilicla.
"Yes," said Conway, "but I would like to check it by getting the dead SRJH up here. Thornnastor hasn't done anything drastic to it yet, and if something should happen to it we can easily get another. I would like to face the two living SRJHs with a dead colleague.
"Prilicla says that they do not emote strongly about anything," Conway added. "They reproduce by fission so there can be no sexual feeling between them. But the sight of one of their own dead should cause some kind of reaction."
O'Mara stared hard at Conway as he said, "I can tell by the way Prilicla is trembling and by the smug look on your face that you think you have the answer. But what is likely to happen? Are these two going to heal and resuscitate it? Oh, never mind, I'll wait and let you have your moment of medical drama. .
When the dead SRJH arrived Conway quickly slid it from the litter onto the office floor and waved O'Mara and Prilicla back. The two living SRJHs were already moving purposefully toward the cadaver. They touched it, flowed around and over it and for about ten minutes were very busy. When they had finished there was nothing left.
"No detectable change in emotional radiation, no evidence of grief," said Prilicla. It was trembling but its own feelings of surprise were probably responsible for that.
"You don't look surprised, Conway," said O'Mara accusingly.
Conway grinned and said, "No, sir. I'm still disappointed at not making contact with a Drambon doctor, but these beasties are a very good second best. They kill the strata beast's enemies, heal and protect its friends and tidy up the debris. Doesn't that suggest something to you? They aren't doctors, of course, just glorified leucocytes. But there must be millions of them, and they're all on our side. .
"Glad you're satisfied, Doctor," said the Chief Psychologist, looking pointedly at his watch.
"But I'm not satisfied," said Conway. "I still need a senior pathologist trained in and with the ability to use the hospital's facilities-one particular pathologist. I need to maintain a close liaison with-"
"The closest possible liaison," said O'Mara, grinning suddenly. "I quite understand, Doctor, and I shall urge it with Thornnastor just as soon as you've closed the door...

MAJOR OPERATION


On the whole weird and wonderful planet there were only thirty-seven patients requiring treatment, and they varied widely both in size and in their degree of physical distress. Naturally it was the patient who was in the greatest distress who was being treated first, even though it was also the largest-so large that at their scout ship's sub orbital velocity of six thousand plus miles per hour it took just over nine minutes to travel from one side of the patient to the other.
"It's a large problem," said Conway seriously, "and even altitude doesn't make it look smaller. Neither does the shortage of skilled help."
Pathologist Murchison, who was sharing the tiny observation blister with him, sounded cool and a little on the defensive as she replied, "I have been studying all the Drambon material long before and since my arrival two months ago, but I agree that seeing it like this for the first time really does bring the problem home to one. As for the shortage of help, you must realize, Doctor, that you can't strip the hospital of its staff and facilities for just one patient even if it is the size of a subcontinent- there are thousands of smaller and more easily curable patients with equal demands on us.
"And if you are still suggesting that I, personally, took my time in getting here," she ended hotly, "I came just as soon as my chief decided that you really did need me, as a pathologist."
"I've been telling Thornnastor for six months that I needed a top pathologist here," said Conway gently. Murchison looked beautiful when she was angry, but even better when she was not. "I thought everybody in the hospital knew why I wanted you, which is one reason why we are sharing this cramped observation blister, looking at a view we have both seen many times on tape and arguing when we could be enjoying some unprofessional behavior-"
"Pilot here," said a tinny voice in the blister's 'speaker. "We are losing height and circling back now and will land about five miles east of the terminator. The reaction of the eye plants to sunrise is worth seeing."
"Thank you," said Conway. To Murchison he added, "I had not planned on looking out the window."
"I had," she said, punching him with one softly clenched fist on the jaw. "You I can see anytime."
She pointed suddenly and said, "Someone is drawing yellow triangles on your patient."
Conway laughed. "I forgot, you haven't been involved with our communications problems so far. Most of the surface vegetation is light sensitive and, some of us thought, might act as the creature's eyes. We produce geometrical and other figures by directing a narrow, intense beam of light from orbit into a dark or twilight area and moving it about quickly. The effect is something like that of drawing with a high persistency spot on a vision screen. So far, there has been no detectable reaction.
"Probably," he went on, "the creature can't react even if it wanted to, because eyes are sensory receptors and not transmitters. After all, we can't send messages with our eyes.
"Speak for yourself," she said.
"Seriously," Conway said, "I'm beginning to wonder if the strata creature itself is highly intelligent...
They landed shortly afterward and stepped carefully onto the springy ground, crushing several of the vegetable eyes with every few yards of progress. The fact that the patient had countless millions of other eyes did not make them feel any better about the damage inflicted by their feet.
When they were about fifty yards from the ship, she said suddenly, "If these plants are eyes-and it is a natural assumption, since they are sensitive to light-why should it have so many in an area where danger threatens so seldom? Peripheral vision to coordinate the activity of its feeding mouths would be much more useful."
Conway nodded. They knelt carefully among the plants, their long shadows filled with the yellow of tightly closed leaves. He indicated their tracks from the entry lock of the ship, which were also bright yellow, and moved his arms about so as to partly obscure some of the plants from the light. Leaves partially in shade or suffering even minor damage reacted exactly as those completely cut off from the light. They rolled up tight to display their yellow undersides.
"The roots are thin and go on forever," he said, excavating gently with his fingers to show a whitish root which narrowed to the diameter of thin string before disappearing from sight. "Even with mining equipment or during exploratories with diggers we haven't been able to find the other end of one. Have you learned anything new from the internals?"
He covered the exposed root with soil, but kept the palms of both hands pressed lightly against the ground.
Watching him, she said, "Not very much. Light and darkness, as well as causing the leaves to open out or roll up tight, causes electrochemical changes in the sap, which is so heavily loaded with mineral salts that it makes a very good conductor. Electrical pulses produced by these changes could travel very quickly from the plant to the other end of the root. Er, what are you doing, dear, taking its pulse?"
Conway shook his head without speaking, and she went on. "The eye plants are evenly distributed over the patient's top surface, including those areas containing dense growths of the air-renewal and waste-elimination types, so that a shadow or light stimulus received anywhere on its surface is transmitted quickly-almost instantaneously, in fact-to the central nervous system via this mineral-rich sap. But the thing which bothers me is what possible reason could the creature have for evolving an eyeball several hundred miles across?"
"Close your eyes," said Conway, smiling. "I'm going to touch you. As accurately as you can, try to tell me where."
"You've been too long in the company of men and e-ts, Doctor," she began, then broke off, looking thoughtful.
Conway began by touching her lightly on the face, then he rested three fingers on top of her shoulder and went on from there.
"Left cheek about an inch from the left side of my mouth," she said. "Now you've rested your hand on my shoulder. You seem to be rubbing an X onto my left bicep. Now you have a thumb and two, maybe three, fingers at the back of my neck just on the hairline... Are you enjoying this? I am."
Conway laughed. "I might if it wasn't for the thought of Lieutenant Harrison watching us and steaming up the pilot's canopy with his hot little breath. But seriously, you see what I'm getting at, that the eye plants have nothing to do with the creature's vision but are analogous to pressure- , pain- or temperature-sensitive nerve endings?"
She opened her eyes and nodded. "It's a good theory, but you don't look happy about it."
"I'm not," said Conway sourly, "and I'd like you to shoot as many holes in it as possible. You see, the complete success of this operation depends on us being able to communicate with the beings who produced the thought-controlled tools. Up until now I had assumed that these beings would be comparable in size to ourselves even if their physiological classification would be completely alien, and that they would possess the usual sensory equipment of sight, hearing, taste, touch and be capable of being reached through any or all of these channels. But now the evidence is piling up in favor of a single intelligent life-form, the strata creature itself, which is naturally deaf, dumb and blind so far as we can see. The problem of communicating even the simplest concepts to it is-"
He broke off, all his attention concentrated on the palm of one hand which was still pressed against the ground, then said urgently, "Run for the ship."
They were much less careful about stepping on plants on the way back, and as the hatch slammed shut behind them Harrison's voice rattled at them from the lock communicator.