"White, James - Sector General 06 - Star Healer.PDB" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)
on. You will agree that a normal patient, even though it is deeply anesthetized, reacts against the surgical intervention which is taking place. If it was conscious it would want to do what the Protector is trying to do to our operating staff, that is, trying to kill them and! or escape from the threat they represent. Even when anesthetized the normal patient is reacting unconsciously to a condition of severe stress, its system has been flooded with its equivalent of adrenaline, the available supplies of blood, sugars, and oxygen have been stepped up, and it is ready to fight or flee. This is a condition which our Protector enjoys, if that is the correct word, permanently. It is constantly fighting and fleeing because it is constantly under attack.”
Thornnastor and Murchison were watching him intently, but neither spoke.
“Because we are showing it pictures in three dimensions and in quite terrifying detail of its natural environment,” Conway went on, “and we will be attacking it, surgically, with an intensity that it has certainly not experienced before, I am hoping to fool it and its endocrine system into believing that its limbs are still engaged in fighting off the attack or trying to flee from it. The limbs are, after all, fighting against the restraints, and the muscular effort needed is comparable.
“We will be attacking it,” he concluded, “with a major cesarean procedure through the carapace rather than in the abdominal area, without benefit of anesthesia, and I expect that there will be enough pain and confusion in its mind to make it forget that its body is not in motion, at least for the relatively short time it will take to complete the operation.”
Murchison was staring at him, her face expressionless but as pale as her white uniform. The full meaning of what he had just been saying dawned on Conway, and he felt sick and ashamed. The words were in direct contradiction to everything he had been taught as a healer and a bringer of comfort. You must be cruel to be kind, someone had told him once, but surely they had not meant this cruel.
“The Earth-human DBDG component of my mind,” Thornnastor said slowly, “is feeling shock and disgust at such unheard-of behavior.”
“This DBDG,” Conway said, tapping himself angrily on the chest, “feels the same way. But your taped DBDG never had to deliver a Protector.”
“Neither,” Thornnastor said, “has anyone else.”
Murchison was about to speak when there was a double interruption.
“The birth opening is beginning to widen,” the Kelgian charge nurse reported, “and there is a small change in the position of the fetus.”
“The emotional radiation from both entities is reaching a peak,”
Prilicla said on the communicator. “You will not have long to wait, friend Conway. Please do not distress yourself. Your clinical thinking is usually trustworthy.”
The Cinrusskin invariably said the right thing, Conway thought gratefully as Thornnastor followed him to the operating frame.
They checked the underside first, moving as close as they could while still avoiding the Protector’s wildly thrashing legs and the Hudlar who was jabbing at them with a metal bar to reproduce the attacks of the small, sharp-toothed predators of its home world. The musculature associated with the limbs was in constant, writhing motion, and in the medial area the birth opening was slowly lengthening and widening.
For the recorders, Conway said, “Junior will not be coming out this way. Normally, a cesarean procedure calls for a long, abdominal incision through which the fetus is removed. That course is contraindicated in this case for two reasons. It would involve cutting through several of the leg muscles, and because this being is incapable of resting a damaged limb while healing takes place, the clinical injury would never heal and the limbs concerned would be permanently affected. Secondly, we would be going in very close to the two glands which, we are virtually certain, contain the secretions which reverse the prebirth paralysis and obliterate the mind. Both, as you can see in the scanner, are connected to the umbilical and are compressed, and their contents discharged into the fetus, during the later stages of the birth process. In this physiological classification, a traditional cesarean entry would almost certainly compress these glands prematurely, and the purpose of the operation, the delivery of an intelligent Unborn, would be defeated. So we’ll have to do it the hard way, by going through the carapace at an angle which will cause minimum disturbance to the underlying vital organs.
While the charge nurse had been positioning the Protector for the operation, the movements of the Unborn had been imperceptible, but now the scanner showed a slow, steady motion toward the birth canal. He forced himself to walk around to the other side of the operating frame, when his instinct was to break into an undignified gallop; then he checked that Thornnastor and Murchison were in position and said quietly, “Immobilize the patient.”
The four dorsal tentacles were at full extension, motionless except for the barest tremor caused by their efforts to overcome the restraints. He tried not to think of the devastation even one of those limbs would cause among the OR staff if it succeeded in pulling free, or that he was closest and would be the first casualty.
“It is desirable-in fact it may be vitally necessary-that we establish telepathic contact with the Unborn before the operation is completed,” Conway said above the buzzing of his surgical saw. “The first time such contact took place, there was only one physiological classification present, the Earth-human DBDGs Pathologist Murchison, Captain Fletcher of Rhabwar, and I. A multiplicity of physiological types and thought patterns may be making it difficult to make contact, or it may be that DBDGs are fractionally easier to communicate with telepathically. For this reason.
“Do you wish me to leave?” Thornnastor asked.
“No,” Conway said very firmly. “I need your assistance, as both a surgeon and an endocrinologist. But it would be helpful if you tried to bring forward the DBDG component of your mind and concentrated on its thought processes.”
“I understand,” the Tralthan said.
Working quickly, Thornnastor and Conway excised a large, triangular section of carapace, then paused to control some minor bleeding from the underlying vessels. Murchison was not assisting directly, but was concentrating all of her attention on the scanner so that she could warn them if the trauma of the operation was giving indications of triggering premature delivery. They went deeper, cutting through the thick, almost transparent membrane which enclosed the lungs, clamping it back.
“Prilicla?” Conway asked.
“The effect of this attack on the Unborn,” the empath went on, “is of markedly heightened sensation and mentation levels. There is greater awareness and intense effort. It is trying very hard to contact you, friend Conway.”
“It’s mutual,” he replied. But he knew that too much of his mind was being devoted to the surgical aspect just then and not enough to communication for there to be any hope of success.
In the FSOJ the heart was not situated between the lungs, but there were several major blood vessels traversing the area, and these with their associated digestive organs had to be moved out of the way without cutting-surgery had to be kept to the irreducible minimum when the patient would be mobile minutes after the operation was completed. As he pressed them carefully apart and locked the dilators in position, he knew that the circulation in several of those vessels was being seriously impaired, and that he was constricting one of the lungs and rendering it little more than sixty percent effective.
“It will be for a short time only,” he said defensively in answer to Thornnastor’s unspoken comment, and the patient is on pure oxygen, which should make up the deficiency..
He broke off as his exploring fingers moved deeper and encountered a long, flat bone which had no business being there. He looked quickly at the position of his hand in the scanner and saw that he was, in fact, touching not a bone but one of the muscles of a dorsal tentacle. The muscle had locked in spasm as the patient tried to pull the limb free of the restraints. Or perhaps it was simply reacting-as did the members of other species who locked mandibles or clenched fists-to unbearable pain.
Suddenly his hands were trembling as all of his medically trained and caring alter egos reacted to that thought.
“Friend Conway,” Prilicla said, its voice distorted by more than the translator, “you are distressing me. Concentrate on what you are doing and not on what you are feeling!”
“Don’t bully me, Prilicla!” he snapped. Then he laughed as he realized the ridiculous thing he had just said, and went back to work. A few minutes later he was feeling out the contours of the Unborn’s upper carapace and its limp dorsal tentacles. He grasped one of them and began to pull gently.
“That entity,” Thornnastor rumbled at him, “is supposed to come out of the womb fighting and able to inflict serious damage with those particular limbs. I don’t think the tentacle would come off if you were to pull a little harder, Conway.”
He pulled harder and the Unborn moved, but only a few inches. The young FSOJ was no lightweight, and Conway was already sweating with the effort. He slipped his other hand down into the opening and found another dorsal tentacle; then he began a two-handed pull with one knee braced against the operating frame.
He had performed more delicate feats of surgery and manipulation in his time, Conway thought sourly, but even with this unsubtle procedure the little beastie was refusing to budge.
“The passage is too tight,” he said, gasping. “So tight I think suction is holding it in. Can you slide a long probe between the inner face of the dilator and the inner surface of the carapace, just there, so that we can release...
“The Protector is beginning to weaken, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, the mere fact that it had been impolite enough to interrupt its Seniors stressing the urgency of its report.
But Thornnastor was moving in before the empath had finished speaking, using the slim, tapering extremity of a manipulatory tentacle instead of the probe. There was a brief hissing sound as suction was released. The Tralthan’s tentacle moved deeper, curled around the Unborn’s rear legs, and began helping Conway to lift and slide it out. Within a few seconds it was clear, but still connected to its parent by the umbilical.
“Well,” Conway said, placing the newly born Unborn on the tray Murchison had already placed to receive it, “that was the easy part. And if ever we needed a conscious and cooperative patient, now is the time.”
“The Unborn’s feelings are of intense frustration verging on despair, friend Conway,” Prilicla reported. “It must still be trying to contact you. The Protector’s emotional radiation is weakening, and there is a change in the texture which suggests that it is becoming aware of its lack of motion.”
To Thornnastor, Conway said quickly, “If we reduce the dilation, which is unnecessary now that the Unborn is out, that will enable the constricted lung to operate more effectively. How much room do we need to work in there?”
Thornnastor made a noise which did not translate, then went on. “I require a fairly small opening through which to work, and I am the endocrinologist. Those ridiculous DBDG knuckles and wrists are physiologically unsuited to this particular job. With respect, I suggest that you concentrate on the Unborn.”
“Right,” Conway said. He appreciated the Tralthan’s recognition of the fact that he was in charge even though he was, at best, only a temporary Diagnostician whose recent operative behavior would almost certainly ensure the temporary nature of his rank. Without looking up he went on. “All non-DBDG members of the OR and support teams move back to the ward entrance. Do not talk, and try to keep your minds as blank as possible by looking at and thinking about a clear area of wall or ceiling, so as to make it easier for the telepath to tune in to the three of us here. Move quickly, please.”
The scanner was already showing two of the Tralthan’s slim tentacles sliding down into the womb on each side of the umbilical. They came to rest above two ovoid swellings which, over the past few days, had grown to the size and coloration of large, red plums. There was adequate space inside the now-empty womb for a number of different surgical procedures to be carried out, but Thornnastor, of necessity, was doing nothing.
“The two glands are identical, Conway,” the Tralthan said, “and there is no rapid method of telling which secretes the deparalyzing agent and which the mind destroyer. There is one chance in two of being right. Shall I apply gentle pressure, and to which one?”
“No, wait,” Conway said urgently. “I’ve had second thoughts about that. If the birth had been normal, both glands would have been compressed while the Unborn was exiting and the secretions discharged through ducts directly into the umbilical. Considering the degree of swelling present and the tightly stretched appearance of the containing membranes, it is possible that even the most gentle pressure would cause a sudden rather than a gradual discharge of the secretions. My original idea of metering the discharge by applying gentle pressure and observing the effect on the patient was not a good one. As well, there is the possibility that both glands secrete the same agency and that it performs both functions.”
“Highly unlikely,” Thornnastor said, “the effects are so markedly different. Regrettably, the material has a complex and unstable biochemical structure which breaks down very quickly; otherwise the cadaver of your first Protector would have contained sufficient residual material for us to have synthesized it. This is the first occasion that samples have been available from a living Protector, but the analysis would be a lengthy process and the patients might not survive for long in their present condition.”
“I completely agree,” Prilicla said, sounding unusually vehement for a Cinrusskin. “The Protector is going into a panic reaction, it is becoming aware of its abnormal condition of immobility~ and the indications are of general and rapid deterioration. You must withdraw and close up, friend Conway, and quickly.”
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