Conway was thinking of that single, precognitive glimpse he had had into Arretapec’s mind, of the civilization which would develop on the brontosaur’s world and the monstrous yet strangely graceful beings that it would contain in some far, far, future day. But he did not mention these thoughts aloud. Instead he said, “Like most telepaths Arretapec was both squeamish and inclined to discount purely physical methods of investigation. It was not until I introduced him to Dr. Mannon’s dog, and pointed out that a good way to get an animal to use a new ability was to teach it tricks with it, that we got anywhere. I showed that trick where I throw cushions at the dog and after wrestling with them for a while it arranges them in a heap and lets me throw it on top of them, thus demonstrating that simple-minded creatures don’t mind-within limits, that is-a little roughhousing-”
“So that,” said O’Mara, gazing reflectively at the ceiling, “is what you do in your spare time..
Colonel Skempton coughed. He said, “You’re playing down your own part in this. Your foresight in stuffing that hulk with tractor and pressor beams…
“There’s just one other thing before I see it off,” Conway broke in hastily. “Arretapec heard some of the men calling the patient Emily. It would like to know why.”
“It would,” said O’Mara disgustedly. He pursed his lips then went on, “Apparently one of the maintenance men with an appetite for early fiction-the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne to be exact- dubbed our patient Emily Brontosaurus. I must say that I feel a pathological interest in a mind which thinks like that. . .” O’Mara looked as though there was a bad smell in the room.
Conway groaned in sympathy. As he turned to go, he thought that his last and hardest job might be in explaining what a pun was to the high-minded Dr. Arretapec.
Next day Arretapec and the dinosaur left, the Monitor transport officer whose job it was to keep the hospital supplied heaved a great sigh of relief, and Conway found himself on ward duty again. But this time he was something more than a medical mechanic. He had been placed in charge of a section of the Nursery, and although he had to use data, drugs and case-histories supplied by Thornnastor, the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, there was nobody breathing directly down his neck. He could walk through his section and tell himself that these were his wards. And O’Mara had even promised him an assistant…!
It has been apparent since you first arrived here,” the Major had told him, “that you mix more readily with e-ts than with members of your own species. Saddling you with Dr. Arretapec was a test, which you passed with honors, and the assistant I’ll be giving you in a few days might be another.”
O’Mara had paused then, shook his head wonderingly and went on, “Not only do you get on exceptionally well with e-ts, but I don’t hear a single whisper on the grapevine of you chasing the females of our species . .
“I don’t have the time,” said Conway seriously. “I doubt if I ever will.”
“Oh, well, misogyny is an allowable neurosis,” O’Mara had replied, then had gone onto discuss the new assistant. Subsequently Conway had returned to his wards and worked much harder than if there had been a Senior Physician breathing down his neck. He was too busy to hear the rumors which began to go around regarding the odd patient who had been admitted to Observation Ward Three.
CHAPTER 4
VISITOR AT LARGE
Despite the vast resources of medical and surgical skill available, resources which were acknowledged second to none anywhere in the civilized Galaxy, there had to be times when a case arrived in Sector General for which nothing whatever could be done. This particular patient was of classification SRTT, which was a physiological type never before encountered in the hospital. It was amoebic, possessed the ability to extrude any limbs, sensory organs or protective tegument necessary to the environment in which it found itself, and was so fantastically adaptable that it was difficult to imagine how one of these beings could ever fall sick in the first place.