"James White - SG 03 - Major Operation" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

three sandwiches so's I won't see what it is...."
While they were waiting for the food to arrive Mannon spoke quietly,. the normality of his
tone belied by the fact that his emotional radiation was making Prilicla shake like a leaf. He
said, "The grapevine has it that you two are trying to get me out of this trouble I'm in. It's
nice of you, but you're wasting your time.
"We don't think so and neither does O'Mara," said Conway, shading the truth considerably.
"O'Mara gives you a clean bill of mental and physical health, and he said that your behavior was
most uncharacteristic. There must be some explanation, some environmental influence, perhaps, or
something whose presence or absence would make you behave, if only momentarily, in an
uncharacteristic fashion...
Conway outlined what little they knew to date, trying to sound more hopeful than he really
felt, but Mannon was no fool.
"I don't know whether to feel grateful for your efforts or concerned for your respective
mental well-beings," Mannon said when he had finished. "These peculiar and rather vague mental
effects are.., are.. . at the risk of offending Daddy-longlegs here I would suggest that any
peculiarities there are lie in your own minds-your attempts to find excuses for me are becoming
ridiculous!"
"Now you're telling me I have a peculiar mind," said Conway.
Mannon laughed quietly, but Prilicla was trembling worse than ever. "A circumstance, person or
thing," Conway repeated, "whose presence or absence might effect your- "Ye Gods!" Mannon burst
out. "You're not thinking of the dog!" Conway had been thinking about the dog, but he was too much
of
a moral coward to admit it right then. Instead he said, "Were you thinking about it during that
op, Doctor?"
"No!" said Mannon.
There was a long, awkward silence after that, during which the service panels slid open
and their orders rose into view. It was Mannon who spoke first.
"I liked that dog," he said carefully, "when I was myself, that is. But for the past four
years I've had to carry MSVK and LSVO tapes permanently in connection with my teaching duties, and


file:///F|/rah/James%20White/White,%20James%20...tor%20General%2003%20-%20Major%20Operation.txt (5 of 72) [5/21/03 10:25:09 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/James%20White/White,%20James%20-%20Sector%20General%2003%20-%20Major%20Operation.txt

recently I've needed the Hudlar and Melfan tapes for a project Thornnastor invited me to join.
They were in permanent occupation as well. With my brain thinking that it was five different
people, five very different people... Well, you know how it is..."
Conway and Prilicla knew how it was only too well.
The Hospital was equipped to treat every known form of intelligent life, but no single
person could hold in his brain even a fraction of the physiological data necessary for this
purpose. Surgical dexterity was a matter of ability and training, but the complete physiological
knowledge of any patient was furnished by means of an Educator Tape, which was simply the brain
record of some great medical genius belonging to the same or a similar species to that of the
patient being treated. If an Earth human doctor had to treat a Kelgian patient he took a DBLF
physiology tape until treatment was completed, after which it was erased. The sole exceptions to
this rule were Senior Physicians with teaching duties and the Diagnosticians.
A Diagnostician was one of the elite, a being whose mind was considered stable enough to
retain permanently six, seven or even ten physiology tapes simultaneously. To their data-crammed
minds was given the job of original research in xenological medicine and the treatment of new
diseases in hitherto unknown life-forms.