“When we gave it the test shots the doctor neutralized them. They were a foreign substance being introduced into its patient’s body, you see. And you know what happened when we tried surgical removal. It was only when we threatened underlying vital organs with that stake, forcing the doctor to defend its patient at that one point..
“When you began asking for wooden stakes,” said O’Mara dryly, “I thought of putting you in a tight harness.”
Conway grinned. He said, “I’m recommending that the EPLH takes his doctor back. Now that Pathology has given it a fuller understanding of its employer’s medical and physiological history it should be the ultimate in personal physicians, and the EPLH is smart enough to see that.”
O’Mara smiled in return. “And I was worried about what it might do when it became conscious. But it turned out to be a very friendly, likeable type. Quite charming, in fact.”
As Conway rose and turned to go he said slyly, “That’s because it’s such a good psychologist. It is pleasant to people all the time…
He managed to get the door shut behind him before the explosion.
CHAPTER 5
n time the EPLH patient, whose name was Lonvellin, was discharged I and the steady procession of ailing e-ts who came under his care made the memory of Lonvellin’s fade in Con way’s mind. He did not know whether the EPLH had returned to its home galaxy or was still wandering this one in search of good deeds to do, and he was being kept too busy to care either way. But Conway was not quite finished with the EPLH.
Or more accurately, Lonvellin was not quite finished with Conway … “How would you like to get away from the hospital for a few months,
Doctor?” O’Mara said, when Conway had presented himself in the Chief Psychologist’s office in answer to an urgent summons over the PA. “It would be in the nature of a holiday, almost.”
Conway felt his initial unease grow rapidly into panic. He had urgent personal reasons for not leaving the hospital for a few months. He said, “Well..
The psychologist raised his head and fixed Conway with a pair of level gray eyes which saw so much and which opened into a mind so keenly analytical that together they gave O’Mara what amounted to a telepathic faculty. He said dryly, “Don’t bother to thank me, it is your own fault for curing such powerful, influential patients.”
He went on briskly, “This is a large assignment, Doctor, but it will consist mainly of clerical work. Normally it would be given to someone at Diagnostician level, but that EPLH, Lonvellin, has been at work on a planet which it says is urgently in need of medical aid. Lonvellin has requested Monitor Corps as well as hospital assistance in this, and has asked that you personally should direct the medical side. Apparently a Great Intellect isn’t needed for the job, just one with a peculiar way of looking at things. .
“You’re too kind, sir,” said Conway .
Grinning, O’Mara said, “I’ve told you before, I’m here to shrink heads, not inflate them. And now, this is the report on the situation there at the moment. . .” He slid the file he had been reading across to Conway , and stood up. ….. You can brief yourself on it when you board ship. Be at Lock Sixteen to board Vespasian at 2130, meanwhile I expect you have loose ends to tidy up. And Conway , try not to look as if all your relatives had died. Very probably she’ll wait for you. If she doesn’t, why you have two hundred and seventeen other female DBDGs to chase after. Goodbye and good luck, Doctor.”
Outside O’Mara’s office Conway tried to work out how best to tidy up his loose ends in the six hours remaining before embarkation time. He was scheduled to take a group of trainees through a basic orientation lecture in ten minutes from now, and it was too late to foist that job onto someone else. That would kill three of the six hours, four if he was unlucky and today he felt unlucky. Then an hour to tape instructions regarding his more serious ward patients, then dinner. He might just do it. Conway began hurrying toward Lock Seven on the one hundred and eighth level.