"White, James - Sector General 08 - The Genocidal Healer.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)
The Gogleskan psychosis forced them into avoiding direct physical contact with each other for the greater part of their adult lives, which was certainly not the problem with the Cromsaggar. Trying to control his feelings of impatience, Lioren said, "If we do not quickly find a cure for this plague, your Chief Psychologist will run out of subjects for his slow and careful investigation. What progress has been made since your last visit?"
"Friend Lioren," Prilicla said gently, "significant progress has been made. However, I sense and wholly agree with your need to avoid wasting time, so I suggest that Pathologist Mur-chison makes its report to you in person rather than having it relayed through myself, since you will doubtless have questions and I, because of my selfish need to surround myself with pleasant emotional radiation, have the unfortunate habit of accentuating the positive aspects of any situation."
Lioren's original reason for wanting a private meeting with Prilicla no longer seemed valid, and he could not reject the other's suggestion without seriously embarrassing both himself and the empath. He had the feeling, which was no doubt shared by the empath, that somehow he had lost the initiative.
Pathologist Murchison was a warm-blooded oxygen-breather of physiological classification DBDG with a body that, although considerably shorter and less massive than Lioren's own, had the soft, lumpy and top-heavy aspect of many of the Earth-human females. It was Thornnastor's principal assistant, when not required for special ambulance-ship duty, and its words were clear and concise and its manner respectful without being subservient. It also had the slightly irritating habit of answering questions before Lioren could ask them.
The identification, isolation, and neutralization of other-species pathogens, Pathologist Murchison said, was a routine procedure for Thornnastor's department, but the behavioral characteristics of the Cromsaggar virus—its mechanisms of transmission, infection, incubation, and propagation—remained undetectable to all of the normal investigative techniques. It was only in recent days, when the discovery had been made that the virus was either inherited at conception or transmitted by the mother prior to birth, that some progress had been made.
"The effects on the adult Cromsaggar are known to you," Murchison went on, "and the present indications are that every member of the species is infected. In the preterminal stage there is a livid rash and skin eruptions covering most of the body, accompanied by progressive and massive debilitation and lassitude which is sometimes overcome, temporarily, by strong emotional stimuli such as fear and danger. The effects on the children are less apparent and this led to the initial assumption that the young were immune, which they are not.
"We have since discovered," it continued, "that severe debility and lassitude are also present in the young, although it is difficult to be precise since we have no idea of how active a young, noninfected Cromsaggar should be. And, incredible though it might seem, neither can we be precise about the ages of these child patients. There is physiological and verbal evidence which suggests that many of them are not nearly as young as they appear, and that our age estimates should be extended by a factor of two or three because, in addition to its general debilitating effect, the plague retards the overall physiological development and greatly delays the onset of puberty. Probably there are psychological effects, as well, which might explain their grossly antisocial adult behavior, but again, this must remain speculative since you have yet to find a normal, disease-free Cromsaggar."
"I doubt whether such an entity exists," Lioren said. "But you spoke of having verbal as well as physiological evidence. These people absolutely refuse to give information about themselves. How was it obtained?"
"A large proportion of the cases you sent us were young or, as we now know, not yet physically mature," Murchison replied. "The adult patients remain completely uncooperative, but O'Mara was able to open dialogue with a few non-adults, who were much less reticent about themselves. Because of this immature viewpoint, adult motivations still remain unclear, and the picture of the Cromsaggar culture that is emerging is confusing and fraught with—"
"Pathologist Murchison," Lioren interrupted, "my interest is in the clinical rather than the cultural picture, so please confine yourself to that. My reason for asking Rhabwar to transfer so many young or not so young patients to the hospital was that they were among the large numbers left parentless or without adults to care for them. As well as suffering from undernourishment or exposure, conditions which are treatable, they displayed symptoms of respiratory distress associated with elevated temperature, or a wasting disease affecting the peripheral vascular and nervous systems. If Thornnastor's investigation into the plague is showing no results, what of these other and, I would think, clinically less complex conditions which seem to affect only the young?"
"Surgeon-Captain Lioren," the pathologist said, using Lioren's name and rank for the first time, "I did not say that no progress is being made.
"All of the non-adult cases are being investigated and significant progress is being made," it went on quickly. "In one of them, the condition presenting respiratory distress symptoms, there has been a minor but positive response to treatment. But the main effort is being directed toward finding a specific for the adult condition, because it has become evident that if the massive debilitation and growth-retarding effects of the plague were removed, the diseases currently afflicting the pre-adult Cromsaggar would be countered by their bodies' natural defense mechanisms and would no longer be life-threatening."
If that much was known, Lioren thought, then progress was indeed being made.
"The trials conducted so far," Murchison continued, "have been inconclusive. Initially the medication was introduced in trace quantities and the patients' condition monitored routinely for fifty standard hours before the dosage was increased, until on the ninth day, within a few moments of the injection being given, both patients lost consciousness."
It paused for a moment to look at Prilicla then, seeming to receive a signal undetectable by Lioren, resumed. "Both patients were placed in isolation some distance from the others and each other. This was done so as to minimize same-species interference in their emotional radiation. Doctor Prilicla reported that the level of unconsciousness was extraordinarily deep, but that there was no sign of the subconscious distress that would have been present had they been drifting into termination. It suggested that the unconsciousness might be recuperative since it had many of the characteristics of sleep following a lengthy period of physical stress and that nutrient should be given intravenously. A few days after this was done there was a minor remission of symptoms in both cases, and evidence of slight tissue regeneration, although both patients remained deeply unconscious and in a critical condition."
"Surely that means—!" Lioren began, and broke off as Mur-chison held up one hand as if it and not himself had the rank. But suddenly he was too excited to verbally tear its insubordinate head off as he should.
"It means, Surgeon-Captain," Murchison said, "that we must proceed very carefully and, if the first two test subjects regain consciousness rather than drifting into termination, we must closely monitor their clinical and psychological condition before the trial is extended to the other patients. Diagnostician Thornnastor and everyone in its department believes, and Doctor Prilicla feels sure, that we are on the way to finding the cure. But until we are certain we must exercise patience for a time until—"
"How much time?" Lioren demanded harshly.
Prilicla's fragile body was shaking as if a strong wind was blowing through the casualty deck, but Lioren could no more have controlled the emotional storm of impatience, eagerness, and excitement that raged within him than he could have flown on the empath's fragile wings. He would apologize to Prilicla later, but now all that he could think of was the steadily dwindling number of Cromsaggar who still clung to life on this plague world, and who might now have a chance to remain alive. More quietly, he asked, "How long must I wait?"
"I don't know, sir," the pathologist said. "I only know that Tenelphi has been ordered to remain at flight readiness at Sector General until the medication has been approved for general use, so as to bring you the first production batch without delay."
Chapter 4
RHABWAR departed with its casualty deck filled principally with non-adult Cromsaggar. There were many adult cases in Vespasian's sick bay—and in the widely dispersed medical stations that Lioren visited every day—who were in a much more serious condition, but the future survival of any species lay with its young, and those fortunate enough to be under the care of Thornnastor would be the first to be cured.
He ignored the polite but increasingly sarcastic messages from Colonel Skempton, the administrative head of Sector General, reminding him that the hospital was unable to accept the entire Cromsag population, depleted though it might be, for hospital-ization, and that they had already received more than enough members of that species for the purposes of clinical investigation. The entire Rhabwar crew would have been aware of Skempton's uncoded messages and the pressure on ward accommodation that had prompted them, but Prilicla had raised no objections to transporting the additional twenty patients.
Prilicla must be the least objectionable entity in the known galaxy, Lioren thought, unlike the Cromsaggar, who were his patients but who would never be his friends—unless there was a species-wide personality reconstruction by the Galactic Federation's many deities, of whose existence he had the gravest doubts.
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