Plot: 8/9. It’s oriented on an inexperienced doctor’s workday. He encountered aliens, made mistakes, treated patients, pondered over philosophical questions, argued with others, and killed the source of trouble. It’s a story of first contact and self-growth in the splendid cosmos with bountiful species. It made me feel real yet a bit lax structurally. Since it’s an excerpt from a novel, then the fault was excusable.
Conway worked in the hospital for only two months and had dealt with only cases requiring other than mechanical methods of treatment.
1st task
In order to cure his patients, he had to take Telfi physiology tape from O’Mara who was both a doctor and a monitor. Conway had been imbued with the hatred of violence and dislike of Monitors who possessed the highest violence in the universe from birth. So he was shocked at this fact.
After his treatment of Telfi, his heavily influenced mind felt reluctant to come back to Educator Room and have the Telfi tape erased. Instead, he checked his patients.
On the road he felt cold and lonely, so he said hello to Monitors eccentrically and then laid himself against a glowing oven in the kitchen. Luckily, one of the Monitors felt his behaviour was strange and borrowed a heat suit to save him in time.
It turned out his abnormality was caused by his inexperience with the tape for the first time. He felt awful when he was reproached by O’Mara and worse when he was consoled by his sympathetic rescuer. Conway’s innate prejudice irritated his rescuer, whose acerbic words, as well as O’Mara’s scorching denouncement, made him reflect on his own attitude towards Monitors. He also wondered why there would be the arrival of several companies of Monitors in the near future.
2nd task
Conway found Bryson, the Chaplain, was also a Monitor. So he had to resort to Dr. Mannon for advice on his views of Monitors. However, the annunciator disrupted his asking, for he was assigned to give shots to Monitors with stimulants. (By the way, was it not a job of nurses?) He wondered what caused so many casualties.
3rd task
He saw lots of ships waiting for treatment, and patients streamed into the hospital incessantly. Williamson, a Monitor and trained nurse, helped him to treat and appease patients.
So Conway felt obliged to communicate with Williamson about his issue. Williamson at first felt insulted, but he then treated Conway as one of a protected species after hearing about his confusion. He then told naive Conway that Dr. Lister, the director he admired, was also a Monitor. Williamson told him that the true mission of them was as to prevent some belligerent species from damaging other innocent species so as to preserve the universal peace. The casualties here demonstrated one of their failed attempts. Conway didn’t believe that for a long time what he knew about Monitors was a kind of prejudice.
4th task
A ship bumped into the hospital and dug a big hole. Worse, someone in that crashing section was moving around and damaging the gravity control mechanisms, causing havoc in the wards and more deaths than the mere air crash. Mannon sent him and Williamson to go in after a PVSJ.
Williamson was badly hurt by the influence of the gravity grid. The PVSJ, an Illensan padre, was also entrapped by this wrecked area. Lister asked him to abandon patients, go further, and stop the target first. Then, after another fluctuation of gravity, PVSJ was luckily held by a springy surface and came along with Conway.
They finally found the troublemaker was AACL floundering in the grid control centre. But it didn’t speak to them and killed PVSJ. Since members were currently occupied in getting through blockages, Mannon had to command Conway to kill AACL, but Conway rejected the mission because of his principle or pride as a doctor in not killing intelligent creatures but preserving them.
Williamson with his broken arms, came to the room by kicking with his feet doggedly. He tried to coax Conway into killing the AACL. Conway rescued Williamson who couldn’t help stopping by his own from the attack of AACL. Williamson told him that people were suffering and dying due to his irresolution and rejection. Conway pulled away from contact in rage, but his resolution was shaken when he found Williamson seemingly dead. He knew if he did nothing to AACL, people would die in this hospital, and no one could come to rescue them once they were out of oxygen.
Williamson then persuaded him that if Conway had been in AACL’s place, he would have wanted to sacrifice himself for more people’s lives. Conway then took Williamson’s gun and shot at AACL. He was shocked at the fact that this gun was the type with explosive bullets and a continuous automatic firing system, because he just wanted to hamper AACL’s motion and then treat it immediately. After witnessing his homicide against his principle, he was about to commit suicide.
Then Engineers came in and carried both of the heroes to O’Mara who told Conway that AACL was not an intelligent creature and therefore Conway didn’t break his principle.
Aftermath
After Conway’s sound sleep, O’Mara told him that Williamson was fine. This time when Conway treated DBLF, he found himself somewhat agreeing with the Monitors’ corrective psychiatry, and he couldn’t tell if it was a moral degeneration or individual development. He even thought Monitor Corps was too damned soft with some people in working on patients of his own species.
He was taken off ward duty completely and transferred to a course of lectures in ship rescue. Out of worry, he consulted O’Mara whether it’s okay to not see any patients for six weeks. O’Mara said a job was waiting for him, and therefore Conway had to take advantage of the time to learn useful stuff. Throughout these courses, Conway changed his previous negative opinions on O’Mara gradually.
Character: 8/9. At least I could memorize Conway, O’Mara, and Williamson.
Conway: He’s somewhat over-idealistic and immature, but also an honourable and responsible doctor. If a person is willing to die for his principle, you have to admire their action.
Williamson: He’s younger than Conway but was an excellent soldier who tried his best to fulfill his task. Without movable hands, he kicked to his destination doggedly and persuaded Conway to fire by wit. He’s the true hero here.
O’Mara: He’s a good leader who scorched mistakes but praised feats of his inferiors. Though I don’t think he is a qualifiable psychologist since typical psychologists are gentler than others. No patients were willing to communicate with him if he kept this attitude.
World and Others: 7/9. The inner structure and facilities of the hospital and various aliens were vividly depicted. Though I doubted the world as follows.
- Was it somewhat irresponsible to call for an inexperienced doctor who had to learn the tape before treating his dying patients at such a big hospital?
- Was it not better that every alien had their own hospital and doctors? They didn’t even need to travel long to get rescued.
- Could the wars among species be depicted in more detail?
- Were Monitors made up of humans merely? And what was their history and their construction?
- Why were Conway and his fellows so mean about Monitors? Since people are naturally respectful of power from youth like police and soldiers, it’s questionable.
- Why were there so many Monitors in the hospital who took up high positions? What’s the origin of the hospital?
- Was it more sensible to put the classification of alien species at the beginning of the article rather than the end?