HOSPITAL SEATTLE
It was a long way from the students' barracks to the pathology sector
where Black Doctor Arnquist lived. Dal Timgar decided not to try to go
to the barracks first. It was after midnight, and even though the
message had said "regardless of hour," Dal shrank from the thought of
awakening a physician of the Black Service at two o'clock in the
morning. He was already later arriving at Hospital Seattle than he had
expected to be, and quite possibly Black Doctor Arnquist would be
retiring. It seemed better to go there without delay.
But one thing took priority. He found a quiet spot in the waiting room
near the subway entrance and dug into his day pack for the pressed
biscuit and the canister of water he had there. He broke off a piece of
the biscuit and held it up for Fuzzy to see.
Fuzzy wriggled down onto his hand, and a tiny mouth appeared just below
the shoe-button eyes. Bit by bit Dal fed his friend the biscuit, with
squirts of water in between bites. Finally, when the biscuit was gone,
Dal squirted the rest of the water into Fuzzy's mouth and rubbed him
between the eyes. "Feel better now?" he asked.
The creature seemed to understand; he wriggled in Dal's hand and blinked
his eyes sleepily. "All right, then," Dal said. "Off to sleep."
Dal started to tuck him back into his jacket pocket, but Fuzzy abruptly
sprouted a pair of forelegs and began struggling fiercely to get out
again. Dal grinned and replaced the little creature in the crook of his
arm. "Don't like that idea so well, eh? Okay, friend. If you want to
watch, that suits me."
He found a map of the city at the subway entrance, and studied it
carefully. Like other hospital cities on Earth, Seattle was primarily a
center for patient care and treatment rather than a supply or
administrative center. Here in Seattle special facilities existed for
the care of the intelligent marine races that required specialized
hospital care. The depths of Puget Sound served as a vast aquatic ward
system where creatures which normally lived in salt-water oceans on
their native planets could be cared for, and the specialty physicians
who worked with marine races had facilities here for research and
teaching in their specialty. The dry-land sectors of the hospital were
organized to support the aquatic wards; the surgeries, the laboratories,
the pharmacies and living quarters all were arranged on the periphery of
the salt-water basin, and rapid-transit tubes carried medical workers,
orderlies, nurses and physicians to the widespread areas of the hospital
city.
The pathology sector lay to the north of the city, and Black Doctor
Arnquist was the chief pathologist of Hospital Seattle. Dal found a
northbound express tube, climbed into an empty capsule, and pressed the
buttons for the pathology sector. Presently the capsule was shifted
automatically into the pressure tube that would carry him thirty miles
north to his destination.
It was the first time Dal had ever visited a Black Doctor in his
quarters, and the idea made him a little nervous. Of all the medical
services on Hospital Earth, none had the power of the Black Service of
Pathology. Traditionally in Earth medicine, the pathologists had always
occupied a position of power and discipline. The autopsy rooms had
always been the "Temples of Truth" where the final, inarguable answers
in medicine were ultimately found, and for centuries pathologists had
been the judges and inspectors of the profession of medicine.
And when Earth had become Hospital Earth, with status as a probationary
member of the Galactic Confederation of Worlds, it was natural that the
Black Service of Pathology had become the governors and policy-makers,
regimenting every aspect of the medical services provided by Earth
physicians.
Dal knew that the medical training council, which would be reviewing his
application in just a few hours, was made up of physicians from all the
services--the Green Service of Medicine, the Blue Service of Diagnosis,
the Red Service of Surgery, as well as the Auxiliary Services--but the
Black Doctors who sat on the council would have the final say, the final
veto power.
He wondered now why Black Doctor Arnquist wanted to see him. At first he
had thought there might be special news for him, word perhaps that his
assignment had come through after all, that the interview tomorrow would
not be held. But on reflection, he realized that didn't make sense. If
that were the case, Doctor Arnquist would have said so, and directed him
to report to a ship. More likely, he thought, the Black Doctor wanted
to see him only to soften the blow, to help him face the decision that
seemed inevitable.
He left the pneumatic tube and climbed on the jitney that wound its way
through the corridors of the pathology sector and into the quiet,
austere quarters of the resident pathologists. He found the proper
concourse, and moments later he was pressing his thumb against the
identification plate outside the Black Doctor's personal quarters.
* * * * *
Black Doctor Thorvold Arnquist looked older now than when Dal had last
seen him. His silvery gray hair was thinning, and there were tired lines
around his eyes and mouth that Dal did not remember from before. The old
man's body seemed more wispy and frail than ever, and the black cloak
across his shoulders rustled as he led Dal back into a book-lined study.
The Black Doctor had not yet gone to bed. On a desk in the corner of the
study several books lay open, and a roll of paper was inserted in the
dicto-typer. "I knew you would get the message when you arrived," he
said as he took Dal's pack, "and I thought you might be later than you
planned. A good trip, I trust. And your friend here? He enjoys shuttle
travel?" He smiled and stroked Fuzzy with a gnarled finger. "I suppose
you wonder why I wanted to see you."
Dal Timgar nodded slowly. "About the interview tomorrow?"
"Ah, yes. The interview." The Black Doctor made a sour face and shook
his head. "A bad business for you, that interview. How do you feel about
it?"
Dal spread his hands helplessly. As always, the Black Doctor's questions
cut through the trimming to the heart of things. They were always
difficult questions to answer.
"I ... I suppose it's something that's necessary," he said finally.
"Oh?" the Black Doctor frowned. "But why necessary for you if not for
the others? How many were there in your class, including all the
services? Three hundred? And out of the three hundred only one was
refused assignment." He looked up sharply at Dal, his pale blue eyes
very alert in his aged face. "Right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you really feel it's just normal procedure that your application is
being challenged?"
"No, sir."
"How _do_ you feel about it, Dal? Angry, maybe?"
Dal squirmed. "Yes, sir. You might say that."
"Perhaps even bitter," the Black Doctor said.
"I did as good work as anyone else in my class," Dal said hotly. "I did
my part as well as anyone could, I didn't let up once all the way
through. Bitter! Wouldn't you feel bitter?"
The Black Doctor nodded slowly. "Yes, I imagine I would," he said,
sinking down into the chair behind the desk with a sigh. "As a matter of
fact, I do feel a little bitter about it, even though I was afraid that
it might come to this in the end. I can't blame you for your feelings."
He took a deep breath. "I wish I could promise you that everything would
be all right tomorrow, but I'm afraid I can't. The council has a right
to review your qualifications, and it holds the power to assign you to a
patrol ship on the spot, if it sees fit. Conceivably, a Black Doctor
might force the council's approval, if he were the only representative
of the Black service there. But I will not be the only Black Doctor
sitting on the council tomorrow."
"I know that," Dal said.
Doctor Arnquist looked up at Dal for a long moment. "Why do you want to
be a doctor in the first place, Dal? This isn't the calling of your
people. You must be the one Garvian out of millions with the patience
and peculiar mental make-up to permit you to master the scientific
disciplines involved in studying medicine. Either you are different from
the rest of your people--which I doubt--or else you are driven to force
yourself into a pattern foreign to your nature for very compelling
reasons. What are they? Why do you want medicine?"
It was the hardest question of all, the question Dal had dreaded. He
knew the answer, just as he had known for most of his life that he
wanted to be a doctor above all else. But he had never found a way to
put the reasons into words. "I can't say," he said slowly. "I _know_,
but I can't express it, and whenever I try, it just sounds silly."
"Maybe your reasons don't make reasonable sense," the old man said
gently.
"But they do! At least to me, they do," Dal said. "I've always wanted to
be a doctor. There's nothing else I want to do. To work at home, among
my people."
"There was a plague on Garv II, wasn't there?" Doctor Arnquist said. "A
cyclic thing that came back again and again. The cycle was broken just a
few years ago, when the virus that caused it was finally isolated and
destroyed."
"By the physicians of Hospital Earth," Dal said.
"It's happened again and again," the Black Doctor said. "We've seen the
same pattern repeated a thousand times across the galaxy, and it has
always puzzled us, just a little." He smiled. "You see, our knowledge
and understanding of the life sciences here on Earth have always grown
hand in hand with the physical sciences. We had always assumed that the
same thing would happen on _any_ planet where a race has developed
intelligence and scientific methods of study. We were wrong, of course,
which is the reason for the existence of Hospital Earth and her
physicians today, but it still amazes us that with all the technology
and civilization in the galaxy, we Earthmen are the only people yet
discovered who have developed a broad knowledge of the processes of life
and illness and death."
The old man looked up at his visitor, and Dal felt his pale blue eyes
searching his face. "How badly do you want to be a doctor, Dal?"
"More than anything else I know," Dal said.
"Badly enough to do anything to achieve your goal?"
Dal hesitated, and stroked Fuzzy's head gently. "Well ... almost
anything."
The Black Doctor nodded. "And that, of course, is the reason I had to
see you before this interview, my friend. I know you've played the game
straight right from the beginning, up to this point. Now I beg of you
not to do the thing that you are thinking of doing."
For a moment Dal just stared at the little old man in black, and felt
the fur on his arms and back rise up. A wave of panic flooded his mind.
_He knows!_ he thought frantically. _He must be able to read minds!_ But
he thrust the idea away. There was no way that the Black Doctor could
know. No race of creatures in the galaxy had _that_ power. And yet there
was no doubt that Black Doctor Arnquist knew what Dal had been thinking,
just as surely as if he had said it aloud.
Dal shook his head helplessly. "I ... I don't know what you mean."
"I think you do," Doctor Arnquist said. "Please, Dal. Trust me. This is
not the time to lie. The thing that you were planning to do at the
interview would be disastrous, even if it won you an assignment. It
would be dishonest and unworthy."
_Then he does know!_ Dal thought. _But how? I couldn't have told him, or
given him any hint._ He felt Fuzzy give a frightened shiver on his arm,
and then words were tumbling out of his mouth. "I don't know what you're
talking about, there wasn't anything I was thinking of. I mean, what
could I do? If the council wants to assign me to a ship, they will, and
if they don't, they won't. I don't know what you're thinking of."
"Please." Black Doctor Arnquist held up his hand. "Naturally you defend
yourself," he said. "I can't blame you for that, and I suppose this is
an unforgivable breach of diplomacy even to mention it to you, but I
think it must be done. Remember that we have been studying and observing
your people very carefully over the past two hundred years, Dal. It is
no accident that you have such a warm attachment to your little pink
friend here, and it is no accident that wherever a Garvian is found, his
Fuzzy is with him, isn't that so? And it is no accident that your people
are such excellent tradesmen, that you are so remarkably skillful in
driving bargains favorable to yourselves ... that you are in fact the
most powerful single race of creatures in the whole Galactic
Confederation."
The old man walked to the bookshelves behind him and brought down a
thick, bound manuscript. He handed it across the desk as Dal watched
him. "You may read this if you like, at your leisure. Don't worry, it's
not for publication, just a private study which I have never mentioned
before to anyone, but the pattern is unmistakable. This peculiar talent
of your people is difficult to describe: not really telepathy, but an
ability to create the emotional responses in others that will be most
favorable to you. Just what part your Fuzzies play in this ability of
your people I am not sure, but I'm quite certain that without them you
would not have it."
He smiled at Dal's stricken face. "A forbidden topic, eh? And yet
perfectly true. You know right now that if you wanted to you could
virtually paralyze me with fright, render me helpless to do anything but
stand here and shiver, couldn't you? Or if I were hostile to your
wishes, you could suddenly force me to sympathize with you and like you
enormously, until I was ready to agree to anything you wanted--"
"No," Dal broke in. "Please, you don't understand! I've never done it,
not once since I came to Hospital Earth."
"I know that. I've been watching you."
"And I wouldn't think of doing it."
"Not even at the council interview?"
"Never!"
"Then let me have Fuzzy now. He is the key to this special talent of
your people. Give him to me now, and go to the interview without him."
Dal drew back, trembling, trying to fight down panic. He brought his
hand around to the soft fur of the little pink fuzz-ball. "I ... can't
do that," he said weakly.
"Not even if it meant your assignment to a patrol ship?"
Dal hesitated, then shook his head. "Not even then. But I won't do what
you're saying, I promise you."
For a long moment Black Doctor Arnquist stared at him. Then he smiled.
"Will you give me your word?
"Yes, I promise."
"Then I wish you good luck. I will do what I can at the interview. But
now there is a bed for you here. You will need sleep if you are to
present your best appearance."