Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations by James White Page A

so-and-so’s
laziness and gluttony. Anybody knew that an exoskeletal life-form could not put on weight except from inside! Diagnosticians were not noted for their bedside manners.
    The Chalder became really ill only when it was in danger of being sent home, so the Hospital had acquired a permanent patient. But it did not mind. Visiting as well as Staff medics and psychologists had given it a going over, and continued to do so; also all the interns and nurses of all the multitudinous races represented on the hospital’s staff. Regularly and at short intervals it was probed, pried into and unmercifully pounded by trainees of varying degrees of gentleness, and it loved every minute of it. The hospital was happy with the arrangement and so was the Chalder. Nobody mentioned going home to it anymore.
    III
    Conway paused for a moment as he swam to the top of the great tank; he felt peculiar. His next call was supposed to be on two methane-breathing life-forms in the lower temperature ward of his section, and he felt strongly loath to go. Despite the warmth of the water and the heat of his exertions while swimming around his massive patient he felt cold, and he would have given anything to have a bunch of students come flapping into the tank just for the company. Usually Conway did not like company, especially that of trainees, but now he felt cut-off, alone and friendless. The feelings were so strong they frightened him. A talk with a psychologist was definitely indicated, he thought, though not necessarily with O’Mara.
    The construction of the hospital in this section resembled a heap of spaghetti—straight, bent and indescribably curved pieces of spaghetti. Each corridor containing an Earth-type atmosphere, for instance, was paralleled above, below and on each side—as well as being crossed above and below at frequent intervals—by others having different and mutually deadly variations of atmosphere, pressure and temperature. This was to facilitate the visiting of any given patient-species by any other species of doctor in the shortest possible time in case of emergency, because traveling the length of the hospital in a suit designed to protect a doctor against his patient’s environment on arrival was both uncomfortable and slow. It had been found more efficient to change into the necessary protective suit outside the wards being visited, as Conway had done.
    Remembering the geography of this section Conway knew that there
was a shortcut he could use to get to his frigid-blooded patients—along the waterfilled corridor which led to the Chalder operating theater, through the lock into the chlorine atmosphere of the Illensan PVSJs and up two levels to the methane ward. This way would mean his staying in warm water for a little longer, and he was definitely feeling cold.
    A convalescent PVSJ rustled past him on spiny, membraneous appendages in the chlorine section and Conway found himself wanting desperately to talk to it, about anything. He had to force himself to go on.
    The protective suit worn by DBDGs like himself while visiting the methane ward was in reality a small mobile tank. It was fitted with heaters inside to keep its occupant alive and refrigerators outside so that the leakage of heat would not immediately shrivel the patients to whom the slightest glow of radiant heat—or even light—was lethal. Conway had no idea how the scanner he used in the examinations worked—only those gadget-mad beings with the Engineering armbands knew that—except that it wasn’t by infrared. That also was too hot for them.
    As he worked Conway turned the heaters up until the sweat rolled off him and still he felt cold. He was suddenly afraid. Suppose he had caught something? When he was outside in air again he looked at the tiny tell-tale that was surgically embedded on the inner surface of his forearm. His pulse, respiration and endocrine balance were normal except for the minor irregularities caused by his worrying, and there