explanations or pretensions of humility, and it would be better if the true
explanation was never given. With any luck Pathologist Murchison would believe,
and go on believing, that Cha Thrat was a self-opinionated maintenance
technician and one-time trainee nurse with delusions of grandeur and, for the
time being at least, the team leader was leaving her ears unpinned.
“Explain,” Prilicla said.
Quickly Cha Thrat reviewed the current clinical picture, gravely worsened now by
the extreme debilitation that, even in a healthy Gogleskan, followed a joining.
When she said that Rhone lacked the strength and physical resources to withstand
major surgery—it would have to be a cesarean procedure rather than a simple
enlargement of the birth opening—she spoke with absolute certainty because she
had the patient-healer’s viewpoint of the case as well as her own. But she did
not mention that, saying instead that Rhone’s emotional radiation would confirm
her observations.
“It does,” the empath said.
She went on quickly. “The FOKT classification is one of the few life-forms
capable of resting in the upright position, although they can also lie down.
Since their ancestors emerged from the oceans, their bodies and internal organs
have been acted on by vertical G forces, as are those of the Hudlars and
Tralthans and Rhenithi. I am reminded of a case in Tralthan Maternity a few
years ago that was broadly similar to this one and required—”
“You didn’t learn that from Cresk-Sar,” Murchison broke in suddenly. “Trainee
nurses aren’t told about the near-failures, at least not in first year.”
“I liked to study odd cases outside me syuauus, ^u<* Thrat lied smoothly, "and I still do, when I'm not engrossed in a maintenance manual." Her emotional radiation would tell the Cinrusskin that she was lying, but it could only guess at what she was lying about. All it said was "Describe your procedure." "Before I do," she went on quickly, "please remove the canopy from the litter and reposition the gravity grids to act laterally in opposite directions. Set the body restraints to the size and weight of the patient under anything up to an alternating plus and minus three Gs. Move the probe into the passageway, so I can step from it onto the roof. Hurry, please. I'm bringing out the patient now and will explain on the way..." Cradling the barely conscious Khone in two medial arms and with all of her free hands gripping its fur tightly to make it feel that it was still joined to a friend, she climbed awkwardly onto the roof and sidled back the way she had come. Prilicla hovered anxiously above her all the way, Naydrad complained bitterly that its litter would never be the same again, and Murchison reminded it that they had a maintenance technician, or something,with them. She continued to grip the Gogleskan's fur while Naydrad expertly fitted the restraints and Murchison attached an oxygen supply to all breathing orifices. With her head touching Rhone's and the long, silvery tendrils still making contact, she checked that the other had a clear view of the scanner display, which she in her present awkward position did not, then braced herself and gave the signal to begin. Cha Thrat felt her head and upper limbs being pulled sideways as Naydrad fed power to the gravity grid positioned above the patient's head. It was difficult to keep her balance because her lower body and legs were out-side the influence of the artificial gravity field. But so far I as Khone was concerned, it was tied upside-down to the litter under double, increasing to treble and Gogleskan standard gravity pull. "Heart rate irregular," Prilicla reported quietly. "Blood pressure increasing in the upper body and head, respiration labored, minor displacement of thoracic organs, but the fetus hasn't moved." "Shall I increase the pull to four Gs?" Naydrad asked, looking at Prilicla. But it was Cha Thrat who replied. "No," she said. "Give it two Gs alternating as rapidly as possible between normal and reverse pull. You've got to try to shake Junior loose," Now she was being knocked from side to side, as if by the soft, invisible paws of some great beast, while the patient was suffering the same maltreatment in