Star Surgeon
A >> Alan Nourse >> Star SurgeonSTAR SURGEON
by
ALAN E. NOURSE
[Transcriber's note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the copyright on this publication was renewed.]
DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC.
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT (C) 1959, 1960 BY ALAN E. NOURSE
_All rights reserved_
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 60-7199
Manufactured in the United States of America
VAN REES PRESS . NEW YORK
_Typography by Charles M. Todd_
Sixth Printing, April 1973
Part of this book was published in _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_
CONTENTS
1 The Intruder 3
2 Hospital Seattle 15
3 The Inquisition 25
4 The Galactic Pill Peddlers 37
5 Crisis on Morua VIII 54
6 Tiger Makes a Promise 66
7 Alarums and Excursions 78
8 Plague! 98
9 The Incredible People 107
10 The Boomerang Clue 121
11 Dal Breaks a Promise 136
12 The Showdown 151
13 The Trial 165
14 Star Surgeon 175
STAR SURGEON
CHAPTER 1
THE INTRUDER
The shuttle plane from the port of Philadelphia to Hospital Seattle had
already gone when Dal Timgar arrived at the loading platform, even
though he had taken great pains to be at least thirty minutes early for
the boarding.
"You'll just have to wait for the next one," the clerk at the
dispatcher's desk told him unsympathetically. "There's nothing else you
can do."
"But I _can't_ wait," Dal said. "I have to be in Hospital Seattle by
morning." He pulled out the flight schedule and held it under the
clerk's nose. "Look there! The shuttle wasn't supposed to leave for
another forty-five minutes!"
The clerk blinked at the schedule, and shrugged. "The seats were full,
so it left," he said. "Graduation time, you know. Everybody has to be
somewhere else, right away. The next shuttle goes in three hours."
"But I had a reservation on this one," Dal insisted.
"Don't be silly," the clerk said sharply. "Only graduates can get
reservations this time of year--" He broke off to stare at Dal Timgar,
a puzzled frown on his face. "Let me see that reservation."
Dal fumbled in his pants pocket for the yellow reservation slip. He was
wishing now that he'd kept his mouth shut. He was acutely conscious of
the clerk's suspicious stare, and suddenly he felt extremely awkward.
The Earth-cut trousers had never really fit Dal very well; his legs were
too long and spindly, and his hips too narrow to hold the pants up
properly. The tailor in the Philadelphia shop had tried three times to
make a jacket fit across Dal's narrow shoulders, and finally had given
up in despair. Now, as he handed the reservation slip across the
counter, Dal saw the clerk staring at the fine gray fur that coated the
back of his hand and arm. "Here it is," he said angrily. "See for
yourself."
The clerk looked at the slip and handed it back indifferently. "It's a
valid reservation, all right, but there won't be another shuttle to
Hospital Seattle for three hours," he said, "unless you have a priority
card, of course."
"No, I'm afraid I don't," Dal said. It was a ridiculous suggestion, and
the clerk knew it. Only physicians in the Black Service of Pathology and
a few Four-star Surgeons had the power to commandeer public aircraft
whenever they wished. "Can I get on the next shuttle?"
"You can try," the clerk said, "but you'd better be ready when they
start loading. You can wait up on the ramp if you want to."
Dal turned and started across the main concourse of the great airport.
He felt a stir of motion at his side, and looked down at the small pink
fuzz-ball sitting in the crook of his arm. "Looks like we're out of
luck, pal," he said gloomily. "If we don't get on the next plane, we'll
miss the hearing altogether. Not that it's going to do us much good to
be there anyway."
The little pink fuzz-ball on his arm opened a pair of black shoe-button
eyes and blinked up at him, and Dal absently stroked the tiny creature
with a finger. The fuzz-ball quivered happily and clung closer to Dal's
side as he started up the long ramp to the observation platform.
Automatic doors swung open as he reached the top, and Dal shivered in
the damp night air. He could feel the gray fur that coated his back and
neck rising to protect him from the coldness and dampness that his body
was never intended by nature to endure.
Below him the bright lights of the landing fields and terminal buildings
of the port of Philadelphia spread out in panorama, and he thought with
a sudden pang of the great space-port in his native city, so very
different from this one and so unthinkably far away. The field below was
teeming with activity, alive with men and vehicles. Moments before, one
of Earth's great hospital ships had landed, returning from a cruise deep
into the heart of the galaxy, bringing in the gravely ill from a dozen
star systems for care in one of Earth's hospitals. Dal watched as the
long line of stretchers poured from the ship's hold with white-clad
orderlies in nervous attendance. Some of the stretchers were encased in
special atmosphere tanks; a siren wailed across the field as an
emergency truck raced up with fresh gas bottles for a chlorine-breather
from the Betelgeuse system, and a derrick crew spent fifteen minutes
lifting down the special liquid ammonia tank housing a native of
Aldebaran's massive sixteenth planet.
All about the field were physicians supervising the process of
disembarcation, resplendent in the colors that signified their medical
specialties. At the foot of the landing crane a Three-star Internist in
the green cape of the Medical Service--obviously the commander of the
ship--was talking with the welcoming dignitaries of Hospital Earth.
Half a dozen doctors in the Blue Service of Diagnosis were checking new
lab supplies ready to be loaded aboard. Three young Star Surgeons swung
by just below Dal with their bright scarlet capes fluttering in the
breeze, headed for customs and their first Earthside liberty in months.
Dal watched them go by, and felt the sick, bitter feeling in the pit of
his stomach that he had felt so often in recent months.
He had dreamed, once, of wearing the scarlet cape of the Red Service of
Surgery too, with the silver star of the Star Surgeon on his collar.
That had been a long time ago, over eight Earth years ago; the dream had
faded slowly, but now the last vestige of hope was almost gone. He
thought of the long years of intensive training he had just completed in
the medical school of Hospital Philadelphia, the long nights of studying
for exams, the long days spent in the laboratories and clinics in order
to become a physician of Hospital Earth, and a wave of bitterness swept
through his mind.
_A dream_, he thought hopelessly, _a foolish idea and nothing more. They
knew before I started that they would never let me finish. They had no
intention of doing so, it just amused them to watch me beat my head on a
stone wall for these eight years._ But then he shook his head and felt a
little ashamed of the thought. It wasn't quite true, and he knew it. He
had known that it was a gamble from the very first. Black Doctor
Arnquist had warned him the day he received his notice of admission to
the medical school. "I can promise you nothing," the old man had said,
"except a slender chance. There are those who will fight to the very end
to prevent you from succeeding, and when it's all over, you may not win.
But if you are willing to take that risk, at least you have a chance."
Dal had accepted the risk with his eyes wide open. He had done the best
he could do, and now he had lost. True, he had not received the final,
irrevocable word that he had been expelled from the medical service of
Hospital Earth, but he was certain now that it was waiting for him when
he arrived at Hospital Seattle the following morning.
The loading ramp was beginning to fill up, and Dal saw half a dozen of
his classmates from the medical school burst through the door from the
station below, shifting their day packs from their shoulders and
chattering among themselves. Several of them saw him, standing by
himself against the guard rail. One or two nodded coolly and turned
away; the others just ignored him. Nobody greeted him, nor even smiled.
Dal turned away and stared down once again at the busy activity on the
field below.
"Why so gloomy, friend?" a voice behind him said. "You look as though
the ship left without you."
Dal looked up at the tall, dark-haired young man, towering at his side,
and smiled ruefully. "Hello, Tiger! As a matter of fact, it _did_ leave.
I'm waiting for the next one."
"Where to?" Frank Martin frowned down at Dal. Known as "Tiger" to
everyone but the professors, the young man's nickname fit him well. He
was big, even for an Earthman, and his massive shoulders and stubborn
jaw only served to emphasize his bigness. Like the other recent
graduates on the platform, he was wearing the colored cuff and collar of
the probationary physician, in the bright green of the Green Service of
Medicine. He reached out a huge hand and gently rubbed the pink
fuzz-ball sitting on Dal's arm. "What's the trouble, Dal? Even Fuzzy
looks worried. Where's your cuff and collar?"
"I didn't get any cuff and collar," Dal said.
"Didn't you get an assignment?" Tiger stared at him. "Or are you just
taking a leave first?"
Dal shook his head. "A permanent leave, I guess," he said bitterly.
"There's not going to be any assignment for me. Let's face it, Tiger.
I'm washed out."
"Oh, now look here--"
"I mean it. I've been booted, and that's all there is to it."
"But you've been in the top ten in the class right through!" Tiger
protested. "You know you passed your finals. What is this, anyway?"
Dal reached into his jacket and handed Tiger a blue paper envelope. "I
should have expected it from the first. They sent me this instead of my
cuff and collar."
Tiger opened the envelope. "From Doctor Tanner," he grunted. "The Black
Plague himself. But what is it?"
"Read it," Dal said.
"'You are hereby directed to appear before the medical training council
in the council chambers in Hospital Seattle at 10:00 A.M., Friday, June
24, 2375, in order that your application for assignment to a General
Practice Patrol ship may be reviewed. Insignia will not be worn. Signed,
Hugo Tanner, Physician, Black Service of Pathology.'" Tiger blinked at
the notice and handed it back to Dal. "I don't get it," he said finally.
"You applied, you're as qualified as any of us--"
"Except in one way," Dal said, "and that's the way that counts. They
don't want me, Tiger. They have never wanted me. They only let me go
through school because Black Doctor Arnquist made an issue of it, and
they didn't quite dare to veto him. But they never intended to let me
finish, not for a minute."
For a moment the two were silent, staring down at the busy landing
procedures below. A warning light was flickering across the field,
signaling the landing of an incoming shuttle ship, and the supply cars
broke from their positions in center of the field and fled like beetles
for the security of the garages. A loudspeaker blared, announcing the
incoming craft. Dal Timgar turned, lifting Fuzzy gently from his arm
into a side jacket pocket and shouldering his day pack. "I guess this is
my flight, Tiger. I'd better get in line."
Tiger Martin gripped Dal's slender four-fingered hand tightly. "Look,"
he said intensely, "this is some sort of mistake that the training
council will straighten out. I'm sure of it. Lots of guys have their
applications reviewed. It happens all the time, but they still get their
assignments."
"Do you know of any others in this class? Or the last class?"
"Maybe not," Tiger said. "But if they were washing you out, why would
the council be reviewing it? Somebody must be fighting for you."
"But Black Doctor Tanner is on the council," Dal said.
"He's not the only one on the council. It's going to work out. You'll
see."
"I hope so," Dal said without conviction. He started for the loading
line, then turned. "But where are _you_ going to be? What ship?"
Tiger hesitated. "Not assigned yet. I'm taking a leave. But you'll be
hearing from me."
The loading call blared from the loudspeaker. The tall Earthman seemed
about to say something more, but Dal turned away and headed across
toward the line for the shuttle plane. Ten minutes later, he was aloft
as the tiny plane speared up through the black night sky and turned its
needle nose toward the west.
* * * * *
He tried to sleep, but couldn't. The shuttle trip from the Port of
Philadelphia to Hospital Seattle was almost two hours long because of
passenger stops at Hospital Cleveland, Eisenhower City, New Chicago, and
Hospital Billings. In spite of the help of the pneumatic seats and a
sleep-cap, Dal could not even doze. It was one of the perfect clear
nights that often occurred in midsummer now that weather control could
modify Earth's air currents so well; the stars glittered against the
black velvet backdrop above, and the North American continent was free
of clouds. Dal stared down at the patchwork of lights that flickered up
at him from the ground below.
Passing below him were some of the great cities, the hospitals, the
research and training centers, the residential zones and supply centers
of Hospital Earth, medical center to the powerful Galactic
Confederation, physician in charge of the health of a thousand
intelligent races on a thousand planets of a thousand distant star
systems. Here, he knew, was the ivory tower of galactic medicine, the
hub from which the medical care of the confederation arose. From the
huge hospitals, research centers, and medical schools here, the
physicians of Hospital Earth went out to all corners of the galaxy. In
the permanent outpost clinics, in the gigantic hospital ships that
served great sectors of the galaxy, and in the General Practice Patrol
ships that roved from star system to star system, they answered the
calls for medical assistance from a multitude of planets and races,
wherever and whenever they were needed.
Dal Timgar had been on Hospital Earth for eight years, and still he was
a stranger here. To him this was an alien planet, different in a
thousand ways from the world where he was born and grew to manhood. For
a moment now he thought of his native home, the second planet of a hot
yellow star which Earthmen called "Garv" because they couldn't pronounce
its full name in the Garvian tongue. Unthinkably distant, yet only days
away with the power of the star-drive motors that its people had
developed thousands of years before, Garv II was a warm planet, teeming
with activity, the trading center of the galaxy and the governmental
headquarters of the powerful Galactic Confederation of Worlds. Dal could
remember the days before he had come to Hospital Earth, and the many
times he had longed desperately to be home again.
He drew his fuzzy pink friend out of his pocket and rested him on his
shoulder, felt the tiny silent creature rub happily against his neck. It
had been his own decision to come here, Dal knew; there was no one else
to blame. His people were not physicians. Their instincts and interests
lay in trading and politics, not in the life sciences, and plague after
plague had swept across his home planet in the centuries before Hospital
Earth had been admitted as a probationary member of the Galactic
Confederation.
But as long as Dal could remember, he had wanted to be a doctor. From
the first time he had seen a General Practice Patrol ship landing in his
home city to fight the plague that was killing his people by the
thousands, he had known that this was what he wanted more than anything
else: to be a physician of Hospital Earth, to join the ranks of the
doctors who were serving the galaxy.
Many on Earth had tried to stop him from the first. He was a Garvian,
alien to Earth's climate and Earth's people. The physical differences
between Earthmen and Garvians were small, but just enough to set him
apart and make him easily identifiable as an alien. He had one too few
digits on his hands; his body was small and spindly, weighing a bare
ninety pounds, and the coating of fine gray fur that covered all but his
face and palms annoyingly grew longer and thicker as soon as he came to
the comparatively cold climate of Hospital Earth to live. The bone
structure of his face gave his cheeks and nose a flattened appearance,
and his pale gray eyes seemed abnormally large and wistful. And even
though it had long been known that Earthmen and Garvians were equal in
range of intelligence, his classmates still assumed just from his
appearance that he was either unusually clever or unusually stupid.
The gulf that lay between him and the men of Earth went beyond mere
physical differences, however. Earthmen had differences of skin color,
facial contour and physical size among them, yet made no sign of
distinction. Dal's alienness went deeper. His classmates had been civil
enough, yet with one or two exceptions, they had avoided him carefully.
Clearly they resented his presence in their lecture rooms and
laboratories. Clearly they felt that he did not belong there, studying
medicine.
From the first they had let him know unmistakably that he was unwelcome,
an intruder in their midst, the first member of an alien race ever to
try to earn the insignia of a physician of Hospital Earth.
And now, Dal knew he had failed after all. He had been allowed to try
only because a powerful physician in the Black Service of Pathology had
befriended him. If it had not been for the friendship and support of
another Earthman in the class, Tiger Martin, the eight years of study
would have been unbearably lonely.
But now, he thought, it would have been far easier never to have started
than to have his goal snatched away at the last minute. The notice of
the council meeting left no doubt in his mind. He had failed. There
would be lots of talk, some perfunctory debate for the sake of the
record, and the medical council would wash their hands of him once and
for all. The decision, he was certain, was already made. It was just a
matter of going through the formal motions.
Dal felt the motors change in pitch, and the needle-nosed shuttle plane
began to dip once more toward the horizon. Ahead he could see the
sprawling lights of Hospital Seattle, stretching from the Cascade
Mountains to the sea and beyond, north to Alaska and south toward the
great California metropolitan centers. Somewhere down there was a
council room where a dozen of the most powerful physicians on Hospital
Earth, now sleeping soundly, would be meeting tomorrow for a trial that
was already over, to pass a judgment that was already decided.
He slipped Fuzzy back into his pocket, shouldered his pack, and waited
for the ship to come down for its landing. It would be nice, he thought
wryly, if his reservations for sleeping quarters in the students'
barracks might at least be honored, but now he wasn't even sure of that.
In the port of Seattle he went through the customary baggage check. He
saw the clerk frown at his ill-fitting clothes and not-quite-human face,
and then read his passage permit carefully before brushing him on
through. Then he joined the crowd of travelers heading for the city
subways. He didn't hear the loudspeaker blaring until the announcer had
stumbled over his name half a dozen times.
"_Doctor Dal Timgar, please report to the information booth._"
He hurried back to central information. "You were paging me. What is
it?"
"Telephone message, sir," the announcer said, his voice surprisingly
respectful. "A top priority call. Just a minute."
Moments later he had handed Dal the yellow telephone message sheet, and
Dal was studying the words with a puzzled frown:
CALL AT MY QUARTERS ON ARRIVAL REGARDLESS OF HOUR STOP
URGENT THAT I SEE YOU STOP REPEAT URGENT
The message was signed THORVOLD ARNQUIST, BLACK SERVICE and carried the
priority seal of the Four-star Pathologist. Dal read it again, shifted
his pack, and started once more for the subway ramp. He thrust the
message into his pocket, and his step quickened as he heard the whistle
of the pressure-tube trains up ahead.
Black Doctor Arnquist, the man who had first defended his right to study
medicine on Hospital Earth, now wanted to see him before the council
meeting took place.
For the first time in days, Dal Timgar felt a new flicker of hope.
CHAPTER 2
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.