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"I I had no intention of jeopardizing a contract," he faltered. "Perhaps not," the Black Doctor said. "But you were the doctor on the spot, and you were so obviously incompetent to handle the situation that even these clumsy Moruan surgeons could see it. Their faith in the doctors from Hospital Earth has been severely shaken.
They had already found ways to grow replacement organs from embryonic grafts, the Moruan said, and by copying the techniques used by the surgeons of Hospital Earth, their own surgeons had attempted the delicate job of replacing a diseased organ with a new, healthy one in a young male afflicted with cancer. Dal looked up at the Moruan doctor. "What organ were you replacing?" he asked suspiciously.
"Your technique was flawless, except for the tiny matter you have just observed." It was not until they were outside the operating room and beyond earshot of the Moruan doctors that the Four-star surgeon turned furiously to Dal. "Didn't you even bother to examine the operating field, Doctor? Where did you study surgery? Couldn't you tell that the fools had practically finished the job themselves?
"We'd better get this crate airborne before the people here come and cart it away." They moved then, and the subject was dropped. Half an hour later the Lancet lifted through the atmospheric pull of the Moruan planet and moved on toward the next contact point, leaving the recovering patient in the hands of the native physicians.
"Do you have any micro-surgical instruments at all?" "Oh, yes," the Moruan rumbled proudly. "We made them ourselves, just for this case." "You mean you've never attempted this procedure before?" "This was the first time. We don't know where we went wrong." "You went wrong when you thought about trying it," Dal muttered. "What anaesthesia?" "Oxygen and alcohol vapor." This was no surprise.
Very few races under contract with Hospital Earth ever attempted their own major surgery. If a Moruan surgeon had walked into a tight spot in the operating room, it could be a real test of skill to get him and his patient out of it, even on a relatively simple procedure. But organ-transplantation, with the delicate vascular surgery and micro-surgery that it entailed, was never simple.
If this race has its own doctors, they'd only be hollering for help if they're up against a tough one." Tiger settled down with earphones and transmitter to try to make contact with the Moruan planet, while Jack went forward to control and Dal started to work with the tape reader. There was no argument now, and no dissension.
It took him exactly fifteen seconds to scan the entire operating field through the viewer, discussing the anatomy as the Moruan surgeon watched on a connecting screen. Then, without hesitation, he began manipulating the micro-instruments. Once or twice he murmured something to Tiger at the anaesthesia controls, and occasionally he nodded reassurance to the Moruan surgeon.
In incompetent hands, it could turn into a nightmare. Dal took a deep breath and began running the anatomical atlas tapes through the reader, checking the critical points of Moruan anatomy. Oxygen-transfer system, circulatory system, renal filtration system at first glance, there was little resemblance to any of the "typical" oxygen-breathing mammals Dal had studied in medical school.
He knew now that it was going to be bad; he didn't realize just how bad until he walked into the operating room. The patient was barely alive. Recognizing too late that they were in water too deep for them, the Moruan surgeons had gone into panic, and neglected the very fundamentals of physiological support for the creature on the table.
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