orders full Colonels and Diagnosticiansaround, and not always politely. Your own
rank of junior technician, Environmental Maintenance, Grade Two, which became
effective as soon as we received O’Mara’s instructions, will not give you as
much leeway.”
“Please,” she said urgently, “this is a serious matter. It is my understanding
that the Monitor Corps is an organization of warriors. It has been many
generations on Sommaradva since our warrior-level citizens fought together in
battle. Peace and present-day technology offer danger enough. As a
warrior-surgeon I am required to heal wounds, not inflict them.”
“Seriously,” the Earth-human said, “I think your information on the Corps came
chiefly from the entertainment channels. Space battles and hand-to-hand combat
are an extremely rare occurrence, and the library tapes will give you a much
truer, and more boring, description of what we do and why we do it. Study the
material. You’ll find that there will be no conflict of loyalty between your
duties to the Corps, your home world, or your ethical standards.
“We’ve arrived,” it added briskly, pointing at the sign on the heavy door before
them. “From here on we’ll need heavy radiation armor. Oh, you’ve another
question?”
“It’s about my salary,”she said hesitantly.
Timmins laughed and said, “I do so hate these altruistic types who consider
money unimportant. The pay at your present rank isn’t large. Personnel will be
able to tell you the equivalent in Sommaradvan currency, but then there isn’t
much to spend it on here. You can always save it and your leave allowance and
travel. Perhaps visit your AUGL friend on Chalderescol sometime, or go to—”
“There would be enough money for an interstellar trip like that?” she broke in.
The Earth-human went into a paroxym of coughing, recovered, then said, “There
would not be enough money to pay for an interstellar trip. However, because of
the isolated position of Sector General, free Corps transport is available for
physiologically suitable hospital personnel to travel to their home planets or,
with a bit of fiddling, to the planet of your choice. The money could be spent
there, enjoying yourself. Now will you please get into that armor?”
Cha Thrat did not move and the Earth-human watched her without speaking.
Finally she said, “I am being given special treatment, shown areas where I am
not qualified to work and mechanisms that I can’t hope to use for a very long
time. No doubt this is being done as an incentive, to show me what is possible
for me to achieve in the future. I understand and appreciate the thinking behind
this, but I would much prefer to stop sightseeing and do some simple, and
useful, work.”
“Well, good for you!” Timmins said, showing its teeth approvingly. “We can’t
look directly at the Telfi anyway, so we aren’t missing much. Suppose you begin
by learning to drive a delivery sled. A small one, at first, so that an accident
will damage you more than the hospital structure. And you’ll have to really
master your internal geography, and be able to navigate accurately and at speed
through the service tunnel network. It seems to be a law of nature that when a
ward or diet kitchen has to be resupplied, the requisition is always urgent and
usually arrives late.
“We’ll head for the internal transport hangar now,” it ended, “unless you have
another question?”
She had, but thought it better to wait until they were moving again before
asking it.
“What about the damage to the AUGL ward for whichI was indirectly responsible?”
she said. “Will the cost be deducted from my salary?”
Timmins showed its teeth again and said, “I’d say that it would take about three
years to pay for the damage caused by your AUGL friend. But when the damage was
done you were one of the medical trainee crazies, not a serious and responsible
member of the Maintenance Department, so don’t worry about it.”
She did not worry about it because, for the rest of the day, there were far more
important things to worry about—principally the control and guidance of the
uncontrollable and misguided, multiply accursed heap of machinery called an
antigravity sled.
In operation the vehicle rode a repulsion cushion so that there was no contact