At Lock Six a Tralthan Diagnostician was deep in conversation with two Monitors. Conway felt a sense of outrage at the sight of the highest and the lowest being so chummy together, then reflected with a touch of bitterness that nothing about this place could surprise him anymore. There were two more Monitors beside the Lock’s direct vision panel.
“Hello, Doctor,” one of them said pleasantly. He nodded toward the view port. “They’re unloading at Locks Eight, Nine and Eleven. We’ll be getting our quota any minute now.
The big transparent panel framed an awesome sight: Conway had never seen so many ships together at one time. More than thirty sleek, silver needles, ranging from ten-man pleasure yachts to the gargantuan transports of the Monitor Corps wove a slowly, complicated pattern in and around each other as they waited permission to lock-on and unload.
“Tricky work, that,” the Monitor observed.
Conway agreed. The repulsion fields which protected ships against collision with the various forms of cosmic detritus required plenty of space. Meteorite screens had to be set up a minimum of five miles away from the ship they protected if heavenly bodies large and small were to be successfully deflected from them — further away if it was a bigger ship. But the ships outside were a mere matter of hundreds of yards apart, and had no collision protection except the skill of their pilots. The pilots would be having a trying time at the moment.
But Conway had little time for sight-seeing before three Earth-human interns arrived. They were followed quickly by two of the red-furred DBDGs and a caterpillar-like DBLF, all wearing medical insignia. There came a heavy scrape of metal against metal, the lock tell-tales turned from red to green indicating that a ship was properly connected up, and the patients began to stream through.
Carried in stretchers by Monitors they were of two kinds only:
DBDGs of the Earth-human type and DBLF caterpillars. Conway’s job, and that of the other doctors present, was to examine them and route them through to the proper department of Casualty for treatment. He got down to work, assisted by a Monitor who possessed all the attributes of a trained nurse except the insignia. He said his name was Williamson.
The sight of the first case gave Conway a shock — not because it was serious, but because of the nature of the injuries. The third made him stop so that his Monitor assistant looked at him questioningly.
“What sort of accident was this?” Conway burst out. “Multiple punctures, but the edge of the wounds cauterized. Lacerated punctures, as if from fragments thrown out by an explosion. How …
The Monitor said, “We kept it quiet, of course, but I thought here at least the rumor would have got to everybody.” His lips tightened and the look that identified all Monitors to Conway deepened in his eyes. “They decided to have a war,” he went on, nodding at the Earth-human and DBLF patients around them. “I’m afraid it got a little out of control before we were able to clamp down.”
Conway thought sickly, A war …! Human beings from Earth, or an Earth-seeded planet, trying to kill members of the species that had so much in common with them. He had heard that there were such things occasionally, but had never really believed any intelligent species could go insane on such a large scale. So many casualties …
He was not so bound up in his thoughts of loathing and disgust at this frightful business that he missed noticing a very strange fact — that the Monitor’s expression mirrored his own! If Williamson thought that way about war, too, maybe it was time he revised his thinking about the Monitor Corps in general.
A sudden commotion a few yards to his right drew Conway’s attention. An Earth-human patient was objecting strenuously to the DBLF intern trying to examine him, and the language he was using was not nice. The DBLF was registering hurt bewilderment, though possibly the human had not sufficient knowledge of its physiognomy to know that, and trying to reassure the patient in flat, Translated tones.
It was Williamson who settled the business. He swung around on the loudly protesting patient, bent forward until their faces were only inches apart, and spoke in a low, almost conversational tone which nevertheless sent shivers along Conway’s spine.
Listen, friend,” he said. “You say you object to one of the stinking crawlers that tried to kill you trying to patch you up, right? Well, get this into your head, and keep it there — this particular crawler is a doctor here. Also, in this establishment there are no wars. You all belong to the same army and the uniform is a nightshirt, so lay still, shut up and behave. Otherwise I’ll clip you one.
Conway returned to work underlining his mental note about revising his thinking regarding Monitors. As the torn, battered and burnt life forms flowed past under his hands his mind seemed strangely detached from it all. He kept surprising Williamson with expressions on his face that seemed to give the lie to some of the things he had been told about Monitors. This tireless, quiet man with the rock-steady hands — was he a killer, a sadist of low intelligence and nonexistent morals? It was hard to believe. As he watched the Monitor covertly between patients, Conway gradually came to a decision. It was a very difficult decision. If he wasn’t careful he would very likely get clipped.
O’Mara had been impossible, so had Bryson and Mannon for various reasons, but Williamson now …
“Ah … er, Williamson,” Conway began hesitantly, then finished with a rush, “have you ever killed anybody?”
The Monitor straightened suddenly, his lips a thin, bloodless line. He said tonelessly, “You should know better than to ask a Monitor that question, Doctor. Or should you?” He hesitated, his curiosity keeping check on the anger growing in him because of the tangle of emotion which must have been mirrored on Conway’s face, then said heavily, “What’s eating you, Doc?”
Conway wished fervently that he had never asked the question, but it was too late to back out now. Stammering at first, he began to tell of his ideals of service and of his alarm and confusion on discovering that Sector General — an establishment which he had thought embodied all his high ideals-employed a Monitor as its Chief Psychologist, and probably other members of the Corps in positions of responsibility. Conway knew now that the Corps was not all bad, that they had rushed units of their Medical Division here to aid them during the present emergency. But even so, Monitors …!
“I’ll give you another shock,” Williamson said dryly, “by telling you something that is so widely known that nobody thinks to mention it. Dr. Lister, the Director, also belongs to the Monitor Corps.
“He doesn’t wear uniform, of course,” the Monitor added quickly, “because Diagnosticians grow forgetful and are careless about small things. The Corps frowns on untidiness, even in a Lieutenant-General.”
Lister, a Monitor! “But, why?” Conway burst out in spite of himself. “Everybody knows what you are. How did you gain power here in the first place …
“Everybody does not know, obviously,” Williamson cut in, “because you don’t, for one.