They tried more difficult phrases then, technical words to put across obtuse medical and physiological details. Sometimes Conway was able to do it, sometimes not. His was at best only the crudest of pidgin Cinrus skin, but he persevered. Then suddenly there was an interruption.
“O’Mara here,” said a voice from his room communicator. “You should be awake now so here is the latest position, Doctor. We are still under attack, but this has eased off somewhat since more volunteer e-ts arrived to reinforce us. These are Melfans, some more Tralthans and a force of Illensan chlorine-breathers. So you’re going to have PVSJs to worry about, too. Then inside the hospital..
There followed a detailed breakdown of casualties and available staff into species, location and numbers, with further data on problems peculiar to each section and their degree of urgency.
….. It’s for you to decide where to start,” O’Mara went on, “and the sooner the better. But in case you are still feeling confused I’ll repeat-”
“No need,” said Conway , “I got it.”
“Good. How do you feel?”
“Awful. Horrible. And very peculiar.”
“That,” said O’Mara dryly, “is in all respects a normal reaction. Off.”
Conway released the strapping which held him to the bed and swung his legs out. Immediately he stiffened, unable to let go. Many of the beings inhabiting his mind were terrified by weightless conditions and the reaction was instinctive. Because of this it was very difficult to counter, and he had a moment of sheer panic when he discovered that his feet would not stick to the ceiling the way Prilicla’s did. And when he did relax his grip on the edge of the bed he found that he had been holding on with an appendage that was pallid and flabby and horribly different to the clean, hard outlines of the mandible he had expected to see. But somehow he managed to cross his room into the corridor and traverse it for a distance of fifty yards.
Then he was stopped.
An irate medical orderly in Corps green wanted to know why he was out of bed and what ward he had come from. The Corpsman’s language was colorful and not at all respectful.
Conway became aware of his large, gross, fragile, loathsome pink body. A perfectly good body, part of his mind insisted, if a little on the skinny side. And this shapeless, puny, monstrosity was encircled, where it was joined by its two lower appendages, by a piece of white fabric which served no apparent purpose. The body looked ridiculous as well as alien.
Oh damn! thought Conway , struggling up through a smother of alien impressions, I forgot to dress.
CHAPTER 21
Con way’s first act was to install one representative from each species room. A semblance of order had already been restored to the network by posting Corpsmen at every intercom unit to forbid their use-if the would-be user was not too persistent and well-muscled-to e-ts. This meant that Earth-human personnel could talk to each other. But with e-ts on the switchboard, calls by other species could be answered and redirected. Conway spent nearly two hours, more time than he ever spent anywhere else, putting himself en rapport with the e-t operators and devising a list of synonyms which would allow them to pass simple-very simple-messages to each other. He had two Monitor language experts with him on it, and it was they who suggested that he made a taped record of this seven-way Rosetta stone, and make others to fit the conditions he would find in the wards.
Wherever he went after that Prilicla, the language experts and a Corps radio technician trailed behind, in addition to the nursing staff he accumulated from time to time. It was an impressive procession, but Conway was in no mood to appreciate it just then.
Earth-human medical staff made up more than half of the present complement, but Earth-human Monitor casualties outnumbered the e-ts by thirty to one. On some levels one nurse had a whole ward of Corpsmen in her charge, with a few Tralthans or Kelgians trying to assist her. In such cases Con way’s job was simply that of arranging a minimum of communication between the human and e-t nurses. But there were other instances when the staff were ELNTs and FGLIs and the patients in their charge were DBLF, QCQL and Earth-human, or Earth-humans in charge of ELNTs, or the plant-like AACPs looking after a mixed bag of practically everything. The simple answer would have been to move the patients into the charge of staff of their own species-except that they could not be moved for the reason that they were too ill, that there was no staff available to move them, or that there were no nurses of that particular species. In these cases Con way’s job was infinitely more complex.