Not for them were the simple, mundane injuries and diseases. For a Diagnostician to look at a patient that patient had to be unique, hopeless and at least three-quarters dead. When one did take charge of a case though, the patient was as good as cured-they achieved miracles with monotonous regularity.
With the lower orders of doctor there was always the temptation, Conway knew, to keep the contents of a tape rather than have it erased, in the hope of making some original discovery that would bring them fame. In practical, level-headed men like himself, however, it remained just that, a temptation.
Conway did not see his tiny patients even though he examined them individually. He couldn’t unless he went to a lot of unnecessary trouble with shielding and mirrors to do so. But he knew what they were like, both inside and out, because the tape had practically made him one of them. That knowledge, taken together with the results of his examinations and the case history supplied him, told Conway everything he wanted to know to begin treatment.
His patients had been part of a Telfi gestalt engaged in operating an interstellar cruiser when there had been an accident in one of the power piles. The small, beetle-like and-individually-very stupid beings were radiation eaters, but that flare-up had been too much even for them. Their trouble could be classed as an extremely severe case of over-eating coupled with prolonged over-stimulation of their sensory equipment, especially of the pain centers. If he simply kept them in a shielded container and starved them of radiation-a course of treatment impossible on their highly radioactive ship-about seventy percent of them could be expected to cure themselves in a few hours. They would be the lucky ones, and Conway could even tell which of them came into that category. Those remaining would be a tragedy because if they did not suffer actual physical death their fate would be very much worse: they would lose the ability to join minds, and that in a Telfi was tantamount to being a hopeless cripple.
Only someone who shared the mind, personality and instincts of a Telfi, could appreciate the tragedy it was.
It was a great pity, especially as the case history showed that it was these individuals who had forced themselves to adapt and remain operative during that sudden flare of radiation for the few seconds necessary to scatter the pile and so save their ship from complete destruction. Now their metabolism had found a precarious balance based on three times the Telfi normal energy intake. If this intake of energy was interrupted for any lengthy period of time, say a few more hours, the communications centers of their brains would suffer. They would be left like so many dismembered hands and feet, with just enough intelligence to know that they had been cut off. On the other hand, if their upped energy-intake was continued they would literally burn themselves out within a week.
But there was a line of treatment indicated for these unfortunates, the only one, in fact. As Conway prepared his servos for the work ahead he felt that it was a highly unsatisfactory line-a matter of calculated risks, of cold, medical statistics which nothing he could do would influence. He felt himself to be little more than a mechanic.
Working quickly, he ascertained that sixteen of his patients were suffering from the Telfi equivalent of acute indigestion. These he separated into shielded, absorbent bottles so that re-radiation from their still “hot” bodies would not slow the “starving” process. The bottles he placed in a small pile furnace set to radiate at Telfi normal, with a detector in each which would cause the shielding to fall away from them as soon as their excess radioactivity had gone. The remaining seven would require special treatment. He had placed them in another pile, and was setting the controls to simulate as closely as possible the conditions which had obtained during the accident in their ship, when the nearby communicator beeped at him. Conway finished what he was doing, checked it, then said “Yes?”
“This is Enquiries, Dr. Conway. We’ve had a signal from the Telfi ship asking about their casualties. Have you any news for them yet?”