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White, James – Sector General 07 – Code Blue Emergency

for me to do. Then I saw the Earth-human’s injuries and knew that the local

healer would not dare touch it because he was a healer of serviles. Even though

the survivor was not a Sommaradvan warrior, it was plainly a warrior injured in

the course of its duty.

“I am uncertain about your units of time measurement,” she went on. “The crash

occurred just before sunrise, and 1 reached the shore of the lake where Chiang

had been placed shortly before the time of the morning meal. Without proper

medication or knowledge of the body structure, many things had to be considered.

The sensible course would have been to allow the survivor to bleed to death or,

out of kindness, expedite matters by immersing it in the lake…”

She stopped for a moment because O’Mara seemed to have a temporary blockage of

the breathing passages, then she resumed. “After several examinations and

evaluations of the risks, surgery was begun early in the afternoon. At the time

I did not know that Chiang was the ruler of a ship.”

The two Earth-humans exchanged looks, and O’Mara said, “That was five, maybe six

hours later. Do you usually take as long as that to reach a professional

decision? And would it have made any difference if you had known of Chiang’s

importance?”

“There were many risks to consider—I did not want to risk losing a limb,” she

replied sharply, sensing a criticism. “And yes, it should have made a

difference. A warrior-surgeon is in the same position to a ruler as the

servile-healer is in relation to a warrior. I am forbidden to practice beyond my

qualifications. The penalties are most severe, even allowing for the

increasingly lax standards so prevalent these days. But in this instance, well,

it was a unique situation. I felt frightened, and excited, and I would probably

have acted in the same way.”

O’Mara said, “I’m glad you don’t normally practice surgery beyond your level of

competence…”

“It’s a good thing she did,” Chiang said softly.

“… And your tutors will be relieved as well,” O’Mara went on. “But I’m

interested in this stratification of the Sommaradvan medical profession. Can you

tell me aboutthat?”

Puzzled by what seemed to be a nonsense question, she replied, “We are not

forbidden to talk about anything. On Sommaradva there are three levels of

persons —serviles, warriors, and rulers—and three levels of healers to care for

them…”

At the bottom were the serviles, the people whose work was undemanding and

repetitious—important in many respects, but completely without risk. They were a

contented group, protected from gross physical damage, and the healers charged

with their care used very simple procedures and medication such as herbs,

poultices, and other traditional remedies. The second level, less numerous than

the serviles, were the warriors, who occupied positions of responsibility and

often great physicaldanger.

There had been no war on Sommaradva for many generations, but the warrior class

had kept the name. They were the descendants of the people who had fought

toprotect their homelands, hunted for food, raised city defenses, and generally

performed the dangerous, responsible jobs while the serviles saw to their

physical needs. Now they were the engineers, technicians, and scientists who

still performed the high-risk jobs associated with mining, power generation,

large-scale construction, and the protection of rulers. For that reason the

injuries sus- \ tained by warriors were and always had been traumatic in nature,

requiring surgical intervention or repair, and this work was the responsibility

of the warrior-surgeons.

The ruler-healers had even greater responsibilities and, at times, much less

reward or satisfaction in their work.

Protected against all physical accident or injury, the ruler class were the

administrators, academics, researchers, and planners on Sommaradva. They were

the .j people charged with the smooth running of the cities and the continents

and the world, and the ills that affected them were invariably the phantasms of

the mind. Their healers dealt in wizardry, spells, sympathetic magic, and all

the other aspects of nonphysical medicine.

“Even from the earliest times the practice of healing has been so divided,” Cha

Thrat concluded, “into physicians and surgeons and wizards.”

When she finished speaking, O’Mara looked down for a moment at its hands, which

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