An hour ago this would have been just another caterpillar, Conway thought dryly, an “it” about whom he felt only clinical concern. Now he had reached the stage of worrying about the patient’s marriage prospects. A physiology tape certainly made one feel for one’s e-t patients.
When he had finished Conway called Reception, described the patient’s condition and urged that it should be evacuated as quickly as possible. Mannon told him that there was half a dozen small vessels loading at the moment, most of them with provision for taking oxy-breathers, and gave him a choice of two Locks in the vicinity. Mannon added that, with the exception of a few patients on the critically ill list, all patients of classifications A through G had either gone or were on the point of going, along with staff members of the same classifications who had been ordered to go by O’Mara for security reasons.
Some of them had displayed extreme reluctance to leave. One in particular, a hoary old Tralthan Diagnostician who was unfortunate enough to own a personal space yacht-something which in normal conditions would not have been considered a misfortune!-had had to be formally charged with attempted treason, disturbing the peace and incitement to mutiny and arrested, that being the only way to get it aboard ship.
As he broke the connection Conway thought that they wouldn’t have to go to such lengths to get him to leave the hospital. He shook his head, angry and ashamed of himself, and gave Murchison instructions for transferring the patient to the ship.
The injured Kelgian had to be enclosed in a pressure tent for the initial stage of its trip through the AUGL ward, which was now open to space. There were no water-breathers left in the big tank and no water, there being more urgent things to do than repairing and refilling a section which would very likely never be used again. The sight of the great tank, empty now, with its walls vacuum dry and the lush, underwater vegetation which had been designed to make the ward seem more homelike to its occupants hanging like pieces of brittle, discolored parchment made Conway feel horribly depressed. The depression remained with him while they negotiated the three empty chlorine levels below it and came to another air-filled section.
Here they had to pause to allow a procession of TLTUs to pass. Conway was glad of the chance to stop for a while because, although the pep-shot had him still feeling full of artificial beans, Murchison was beginning to droop. As soon as their patient was aboard he thought he would order her off to bed.
Seven TLTUs filed slowly past, their protective spheres anchored to stretcher-carriers driven by sweating, tense-faced orderlies. Unlike those of the methane life-forms these spheres did not collect frost. Instead they emitted a high-pitched, shuddering whine as their generators labored to maintain the internal temperature at a comfortable, for their occupants, five hundred degrees. Each one of them passed in a wave of heat which Conway could feel six yards away.
If another warhead was to strike here and now, and one of those globes was opened… Conway didn’t think there was a worse way to die than to have the flesh boiled off his bones in a blast of super-heated steam.
By the time they had handed the patient over to the ship’s medical officer at the Lock, Conway was having difficulty focusing his eyes and his legs had a definite rubbery feel to them. Bed was indicated, he thought, or another pep-shot. He had just decided on the former course of treatment when he was collared respectfully by a Monitor officer wearing a heavy-duty suit which was still radiating the cold of space.
“The casualties are here, sir,” the officer said urgently. “We brought them in on a supply ship because Reception is tied up with the evacuation. We’re locked onto the DBLF section, but the place is empty and you’re the first doctor I’ve seen. Will you take care of them?”
Conway almost asked what casualties, but stopped himself in time. There had been an attack, he remembered suddenly, the attack had been beaten off and the ensuing casualties, whether great or small, were obviously of prime concern to this officer. If he had known that Conway had been too busy to think about the battle and its casualties.