"James White - SG 06 - Star Healer" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

to render their superiors redundant. He decided that he would keep a close watch
on DanaltaтАЩs progress, for purely selfish reasons.
тАЬSince it is possible,тАЭ Conway said dryly, тАЬthat a number of your
colleagues are less well-informed on this subject than you, I shall outline very
briefly the system of life-form identification which we use here. Your various
specialist tutors will take you through it in more detail.тАЭ
He looked for Danalta, but the trainees had changed their positions and
Conway could no longer tell which of the two identical Melfans was which. He
went on, тАЬUnless you have already been attached to a multienvironment hospital,
you will normally have encountered off-world patients one species at a time,
probably on a short-term basis as the result of a ship accident or some
emergency, and you would refer to them by their planets of origin. But hereтАФ
where rapid and accurate identification of incoming patients is vital because
all too often they are in no condition to furnish physiological data themselvesтАФ
we have evolved a four-letter physiological classification system. It works like
this.
тАЬThe first letter denotes the level of physical evolution reached by the
species when it acquired intelligence,тАЭ he continued. тАЬThe second indicates the
type and distribution of limbs, sense organs, and body orifices, and the
remaining two letters refer to the combination of metabolism and food and air
requirements associated with the home planetтАЩs gravity and atmospheric pressure,
which in turn gives an indication of the physical mass and protective tegument
possessed by the being.тАЭ
Conway smiled, although he knew that a long time would elapse before any
of the trainees would be able to recognize that peculiarly Earth-human facial
grimace for what it was. тАЬUsually I have to remind some of our extraterrestrial
candidates at this point that the initial letter of their classification should
not be allowed to give them feelings of inferiority, because the degree of
physical evolution is controlled by environmental factors and bears little
relation to the level of intelligence . .
Species with the prefix A, B, or C, he went on to explain, were water-
breathers. On most worlds life had originated in the sea, and these beings had
developed intelligence without having to leave it. D through F were warm-blooded
oxygen-breathers, into which group most of the intelligent races of the
Federation fell, and the G and K types were also oxygen breathing, but
insectile. The Ls and Ms were light-gravity, winged beings.
Chlorine-breathing life-forms were contained in the 0 and P groups, and
after these came the more exotic, the more highly evolved physically and the
downright weird types. Into these categories fell the radiation-eaters, the
cold-blooded or crystalline beings, and entities capable of modifying their
physical structures at will. However, those beings possessing extrasensory
powers sufficiently well developed to make ambulatory or manipulatory appendages
unnecessary were given the prefix V regardless of their size or shape.
тАЬThere are anomalies in the system,тАЭ Conway went on, тАЬand these must be
blamed on a lack of imagination and foresight by the originators. The AACP life-
form, for instance, has a vegetable metabolism. Normally the A prefix denotes a
water-breather, there being nothing lower on the evolutionary scale than the
piscatorial lifeforms, but the AACPs are intelligent vegetables and plant-life
came before the fish.тАЭ
Conway pointed suddenly at a nurse who was spraying nutrient onto a young