Free Sector General Omnibus 1 - Beginning Operations by James White

at the floor. His hulking companion showed similar concentration, but favored the ceiling because of the different position of his visual organs. Both wore their professional insignia on golden armbands, which meant that they were lordly Diagnosticians, no less. Conway refrained from saying good morning to them as he passed, or from making undue noise with his feet.
    Possibly they were deeply immersed in some medical problem, Conway thought, or equally likely, they had just had a tiff and were pointedly ignoring each other’s existence. Diagnosticians were peculiar people. It wasn’t that they were insane to begin with, but their job forced a form of insanity onto them.
     
     
    At each corridor intersection annunciators had been pouring out an alien gabble which he had only half heard in passing, but when it switched
suddenly to Terran English and Conway heard his own name being called, surprise halted him dead in his tracks.
    “ … To Admittance Lock Twelve at once,” the voice was repeating monotonously. “Classification VTXM-23. Dr. Conway, please go to Admittance Lock Twelve at once. A VTXM-23 …”
    Conway’s first thought was that they could not possibly mean him. This looked as if he was being asked to deal with a case—a big one, too, because the “23” after the classification code referred to the number of patients to be treated. And that Classification, VTXM, was completely new to him. Conway knew what the letters stood for, of course, but he had never thought that they could exist in that combination. The nearest he could make of them was some form of telepathic species—the V prefixing the classification showed this as their most important attribute, and that mere physical equipment was secondary—who existed by the direct conversion of radiant energy, and usually as a closely cooperative group or gestalt. While he was still wondering if he was ready to cope with a case like this, his feet had turned and were taking him toward Lock Twelve.
    His patients were waiting for him at the lock, in a small metal box heaped around with lead bricks and already loaded onto a power stretcher carrier. The orderly told him briefly that the beings called themselves the Telfi, that preliminary diagnosis indicated the use of the Radiation Theater, which was being readied for him, and that owing to the portability of his patients he could save time by calling with them to the Educator room and leaving them outside while he took his Telfi physiology tape.
    Conway nodded thanks, hopped onto the carrier and set it moving, trying to give the impression that he did this sort of thing every day.
    In Conway’s pleasurable but busy life with the high unusual establishment that was Sector General there was only one sour note, and he met it again when he entered the Educator room: there was a Monitor in charge. Conway disliked Monitors. The presence of one affected him rather like the close proximity of a carrier of a contagious disease. And while Conway was proud of the fact that as a sane, civilized and ethical being he could never bring himself actually to hate anybody or anything, he disliked Monitors intensely. He knew, of course, that there were people who went off the beam sometimes, and that there had to be somebody who could take the action necessary to preserve the peace. But with his abhorrence of violence in any form, Conway could not like the men who took that action.

    And what were Monitors doing in a hospital anyway?
    The figure in neat, dark green coveralls seated before the Educator control console turned quickly at his entrance and Conway got another shock. As well as a Major’s insignia on his shoulder, the Monitor wore the Staff and Serpents emblem of a Doctor!
    “My name is O’Mara,” said the Major in a pleasant voice. “I’m the Chief Psychologist of this madhouse. You, I take it, are Dr. Conway.” He smiled.
    Conway made himself smile in return, knowing that it looked forced, and that the other