which glowed with multihued light at her approach, revealing themselves to be a
part of the ward lighting system. But the pleasures of discovery were
short-lived.
One of the long, dark-green, motionless shadows lying along the floor of the
ward had detached itself and was rushing silently toward her. It slowed, took
monstrous, terrifying, three-dimensional form and began to circle her slowly as
she had been circling the structuralsupport.
The creature was like an enormous, armored fish with a heavy, knife-edged tail,
a seemingly haphazard arrangement of stubby fins, and a thick ring of ribbon
tentacles projecting from the few gaps in its organic body-armor. The tentacles
lay flat along its sides when it was moving forward, but they were long enough
to reach beyond the thick, blunt wedge of the head. One tiny, lidless eye
watched her as it circled closer.
Suddenly the head divided to reveal a vast pink cavern of a mouth edged with row
upon row of enormous white teeth. It drifted closer, so that she could even see
the periodic fogging of the water around its gills. The mouth opened even wider.
“Hello, Nurse,” it said shyly.
Chapter 5
ChaThrat was not sure whether the AUGL ward’s duty roster had been drawn up by
Charge Nurse Hredlichli or a seriously deranged computer overlooked by the
Maintenance staff, and she could not ask without calling into question someone’s
level of mental compe-tence. It was unbalanced, she thought, whether “it” re*i
ferred to the roster, some anonymous Maintenance entity, or Hredlichli itself.
After six days and two and a half nights darting about like an overworked minnow
among her outsized Chalders, she had been given two whole days in which she
could do whatever she liked— provided that part of the free time was spent at
her studies.
The proportion suggested by their noxious Nidian tutor, Cresk-Sar, was
ninety-nine percent.
Sector General’s corridors held fewer terrors for her now, and she was trying to
decide whether to go exploring or continue studying when her door signal
sounded.
“Tarsedth?” she called. “Come in.”
“I hope that question refers to my purpose in calling,” the Kelgian trainee said
as it undulated into the room, “and not another expression of doubt regarding my
ideality. You should know me by new!”
Cha Thrat also knew that no reply was often the best reply.
The DBLF came to a halt in front of the viewscreen and went on. “What’s that, an
ELNT lower mandible? You’re lucky, Cha Thrat. You’ve gotten the hang of this
physiological classification business a lot faster than the rest of us, or is it
just that you study every waking minute? When Cresk-Sar pulled that three-second
visual on us and you identified it as a blow-up of an FGLI large metatarsal and
phalange before the picture was off the screen—”
“You’re right, I was lucky,” Cha Thrat broke in. “We had Diagnostician
Thornnastor in the ward two days earlier. There was a small misunderstanding, a
piece of clumsiness on my part, while we were presenting the patient for
examination. For a few moments I had a veryclose look at a Tralthan large toe
while the foot was trying not to step on me.”
“And I suppose Hredlichli jumped on you with all five of those squishy things it
uses for feet?”
“It told me…” Cha Thrat began, but Tarsedth’s mouth and fur had not stopped
moving.
“I’m sorry for you,” it went on. “That is one tough chlorine-breather. It was
Charge Nurse on my PVSJ ward before it applied for other-species duty with the
Chalders, and I’ve been told all about it, including something that happened
between it and a PVSJ Senior Physician on Level Fifty-three. I wish I knew what
did happen. They tried to explain it to me but who knows what is right, wrong,
normal, or utterly scandalous behavior where chlorine-breathers are concerned?
Some of the people in this hospital are strange.”
Cha Thrat stared for a moment at the thirty-limbed, silvery body that sat like a
furry question mark in front of the viewscreen. “I agree,” she said.
Returning to the original question, Tarsedth said, “Are you in trouble with
Hredlichli? About your clumsiness when a Diagnostician was in the ward, I mean?