performance. Please begin.”
Hredlichli circled her, giving advice and directions during the first three
dressings, and then seemed to ignore her while it talked to the Senior
Physician. The spiney, membraneous body, looking like a haphazard collection of
oily, unhealthy vegetation, was obscured by the yellow chlorine fog inside the
being’s protective envelope. It was impossible to tell where the Charge Nurse’s
attention was directed, because Cha Thrat had been unable to locate its eyes.
“We are seriously understaffed at present,” Hredlichli was saying, “with three
of my best nurses on special post-op recovery cases to the exclusion of all
else. Are you hungry?”
Cha Thrat felt that the question was for her, but was unsure of the type of
answer to give—the subservient, self-negating reply expected by a ruler or the
accurate, truthful kind due a warrior-level colleague. Ignorant as she was of
Hredlichli’s exact status, she did her best to combine the two.
“I am hungry,” she replied, using the opportunity to test her suit’s
communicator, “but the condition is not yet so advanced that it would impair me
physically.”
“Good!” said Hredlichli. “As a junior-in-training you will soon discover that
practically everyone and every-thing takes precedence over you. If this causes
emotional tension, which may be expressed as verbal resentment or anger, try not
to release it until you are out of my ward. You will be allowed to visit your
dining hall, for a strictly limited period, as soon as someone returns to
relieve you. And now I think you know how your suit works…”
Cresk-Sar turned toward the entrance. Lifting one tiny, hairy hand, it said,
“Good luck, Cha Thrat.”
“… So we’ll go inside to the Nurses’ Station,” it went on, seeming to ignore
the departing Nidian. “Double-check your suit seals and follow me.”
She found herself in a surprisingly small compartment that had one transparent
wall giving a view into a dim green world where the difference between the
inhabitants and the decorative vegetation designed to make them feel at home was
unclear. The other three sides of the room were covered by storage units,
monitor screens, and equipment whose purpose she could not even guess at. The
entire ceiling was devoted to brightly colored signs and geometrical shapes.
“We have a very good staff and patient safety record in this ward,” the Charge
Nurse went on, “and I don’t want you to spoil it. Should you damage your suit
and be in danger of drowning, however, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is not
advisable between oxygen- and chlorine-breathers, so you must move quickly to
one of the emergency air chambers marked so”—she indicated one of the ceiling
designs—”and await rescue. But the accident, or should I say the serious
inconvenience, that you must guard against is pollution by patient body wastes.
Filtration or replacement of the water volume in a ward this size is a major
maintenance operation that would hamper our work and get us talked about in
derogatory fashion all over the hospital.”
“I understand,” Cha Thrat said.
Why had she come to this awful place, she wondered, ] and could she justify to
herself her immediate resignation? In spite of the warnings from O’Mara and
Cresk-Sar that she would be starting at the lowest level, this was not work for
a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon. If word of what she was expected to do were to
get back to her erstwhile colleagues, she would be forced into the life of a
recluse. But these people were not likely to tell her people about it because,
to them, such activities were so commonplace as to be unworthy of mention.
Perhaps she would be found unsuitable or incompetent and dismissed from the
hospital with this demeaning and unpleasant episode secret and her honor intact.
But she was dreading what was coming next.
But it was not nearly as bad as she had expected.
“The patients usually know in advance when they need to evacuate,” Hredlichli
went on, “and will call the nurse with time to spare. Should you be called for
this purpose, the equipment you require is stored in the compartment with its
door marked like this.” A frondlike arm appeared inside its protective envelope,
pointing to another distinctively marked panel on the ceiling, then to its