“Charge Nurse, give me your estimate again of the elapsed time between my first withdrawal of blood sample, the monitor’s signaling the patient’s distress, and the sequence of events which followed.”
“Out of consideration for the feelings of the patient,” said Leethveeschi, “who appears to have some understanding of medical nomenclature, it might be better if that information were withheld.”
“And I,” said Medalont, “am hoping that with full information available the patient may be able to shed some light on its own condition. Go on, Charge Nurse.”
“Approximately twelve and a half minutes after you withdrew the blood sample and left,” said Leethveeschi, in a tone as corrosive as the chlorine it was breathing, “the patient’s monitor signaled an emergency condition. Ten seconds later the life signs went flat, completely flat, and sensory response and cerebration began the shutdown characteristic of approaching termination. The nursing staff were outside the station and busy preparing to serve a meal so I responded, preferring not to waste an additional few seconds needed to relay the information to another. Considering the stability of the patient’s condition until then, I suspected that equipment rather than cardiac failure had occurred. When I reached the patient and initiated chest massage forty seconds later it had lost consciousness, and it remained in that condition until the resuscitation team arrived six and one-quarter minutes later-”
“Are you sure about that, Nurse?” Medalont broke in. “In the excitement could subjective factors have caused you to exaggerate? Six minutes is not a good response time.”
“Patient Hewlitt was not responding either,” said Leethveeschi, “and I was watching the clock while I worked. The ward clock is not subject to exaggeration.”
“The charge nurse is right,” said the Nidian medic with a side glance at its partner, “and so are you, Doctor. Normally it would be considered an inexcusably slow response time. But we had an accident on the way, a collision with a food delivery float whose servers moved clear when they saw our flashing lights but left their vehicle in the middle of the ward. There were no casualties-just a mess of other-species meals spread all over the ward floor and nearby beds.”
“Patient Hewlitt,” the Kelgian doctor broke in, “chose an inconvenient time to arrest.”
“We had to spend a few minutes checking for equipment damage,” the Nidian doctor went on. “A jolt that would restart a Tralthan’s heart would cook an Earth-human’s in its own … ”
“Yes, yes,” said Medalont. “After six-plus minutes you revived the patient. What degree of mental or verbal confusion did you observe while it was returning to full consciousness?”
“No, and none,” the other replied. “We did not revive the patient; Charge Nurse Leethveeschi must have done that before we could attach the lines. The patient did not appear to be confused at all. Its first words were to tell the charge nurse to stop hitting it in the chest or it would damage its rib cage. Its words were coherent, well organized, and distinct, if not very respectful.”
“I’m sorry,” said the senior physician. “I had assumed your equipment brought the patient back. Well done, Charge Nurse. I hope the patient was not too disrespectful.”
“I have been called worse names,” said Leethveeschi, “and I was relieved rather than insulted by its response.
“Indeed, yes,” said Medalont. To the Kelgian it went on, “Continue, please.”
“When it was clear that Patient Hewlitt was fully conscious,” it replied, “we joined the charge nurse in asking it questions aimed at discovering whether or not there had been a loss of cerebration. We were still doing that when you returned to ask it more of the same questions. The rest you know.”
“Yes,” said the senior physician. “And after two hours of questioning there was no detectable memory or speech dysfunction or loss of physical coordination. Patient Hewlitt’s monitor registered optimum levels on all life signs, just as it is doing now.”
“But now,” Leethveeschi said, with a wet, floppy gesture toward the ward clock, “it is four and a half minutes beyond the time that elapsed between the original blood withdrawal and the onset of the first cardiac episode.”
While the medics were talking, Hewlitt had been trying to think of a way of both apologizing to the charge nurse and thanking it for saving his life, but the meaning of what the loathsome creature had just said drove all thoughts of gratitude from his mind.