And for the last few days peace talks have been going on among my patients,” Conway ended breathlessly. “Unofficial, perhaps, but I think Colonel Williamson and Heraltnor here have enough rank to make them binding. ~
Heraltnor, the enemy officer, spoke briefly and vehemently to Williamson in Etlan, then gently tilted the plaster encased figure of the Captain until he could look at the fleet commander. Heraltnor watched Dermod, too. Anxiously.
“He’s no fool, sir,” said Williamson painfully. “From the sound of the bombardment and the glimpses he’s had of your screens he knows our defenses are hammered flat. He says that his people could land now and we couldn’t do a thing to stop them. That is true, sir, and we both know it. He says his chief will probably order the landing in a matter of hours, but he still wants a cease fire, sir, not a surrender.
“He doesn’t want his side to win,” the Captain ended weakly. “He just wants the fighting to stop. There are some things he has been told about this war and us which need straightening out, he says.. .”
“He’s been saying a lot,” said Dermod angrily. His face had a tortured look, as if he was wanting desperately to hope but did not dare let himself do so. He went on, “And you men have been doing a lot of talking! Why didn’t you let me know about it…
“It wasn’t what we said,” Stillman broke in sharply, “it was what we did! They didn’t believe a word we told them at first. But this place wasn’t at all what they had been told to expect, it looked more like a hospital than a torture chamber. Appearances could have been deceptive, and they were a very suspicious bunch, but they saw human and e-t doctors and nurses working themselves to death over them, and they saw him. Talking didn’t do anything, at least not until later. It was what we did, what he did…!”
Conway felt his ears getting warm. He protested, “But the same thing was happening in every ward of the hospital!”
“Shut up, Doctor,” Stillman said respectfully, then went on, “He never seemed to sleep. He hardly ever spoke to us once we were out of danger, but the patients in the side ward he never let up on, even though they were the hopeless cases. A couple of them he proved not to be hopeless, and moved them out to us in the main ward. It didn’t matter what side they were on, he worked as hard for everybody..
“Stillman,” said Conway sharply, “you’re dramatizing things…
Even then they were wavering a bit,” Stillman went on regardless.
“But it was the TRLH case which clinched things. The TRLHs were enemy e-t volunteers, and normally the Empire people don’t think much of e-ts and expected us to feel the same. Especially as this e-t was on the other side. But he worked just as hard on it, and when the pressure drop made it impossible for him to go on with the operation and the e-t died, they saw his reaction-”
“Stillman!” said Conway furiously.
But Stillman did not go into details. He was silent, watching Dermod anxiously. Everybody was watching Dermod. Except Conway , who was looking at Heraltnor.
The Empire officer did not look very impressive at that moment, Conway thought. He looked like a very ordinary, graying, middle-aged man with a heavy chin and worry-lines around his eyes. In comparison to Dermod’s trim green uniform with its quietly impressive load of insignia the shapeless, white garment issued to DBDG patients put Heraltnor at somewhat of a disadvantage. As the silence dragged on Conway wondered whether they would salute each other or just nod.
But they did better than either, they shook hands.
There was an initial period of suspicion and mistrust, of course. The Empire commander-in-chief was convinced that Heraltnor had been hypnotized at first, but when the investigating party of Empire officers landed on Sector General after the cease fire the distrust diminished rapidly to zero. For Conway the only thing which diminished was his worries regarding wards being opened to space. There was still too much for his staff and himself to do, even though engineers and medical officers from the Empire fleet were doing all they could to put Sector General together again. While they worked the first trickle of the evacuated staff began to return, both medical and maintenance, and the Translator computer went back into operation. Then five weeks and six days after the cease fire the Empire fleet left the vicinity of the hospital. They left their wounded behind them, the reasons being that they were getting the best possible treatment where they were, and that the fleet might have more fighting to do.