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monotone. And he expected to be listened to.
Digen could not listen. As internal organs were sutured back together, as
muscles were mended, and cells destroyed in the tedious process, Digen, whose
only responsibility was to stand perfectly still, pulling on a retractor at a
steady rate, drifted on her selyn field inexorably up into hyperconsciousness,
snapping rudely back down to duoconsciousness every time Thornton attacked a
high selyn-field zone.
The first few times that the transition to duoconsciousness hit him
involuntarily, it was an unpleasant shock. But then it didn't feel too bad,
and Digen congratulated himself on getting used to one phenomenon of the
surgical theater. After a time, he found himself waiting with anticipation for
the forced snap back to duoconsciousness. There was a certain electrifying
thrill to it that was totally different from anything he'd ever felt before.
After a while he let it happen and just ignored it. But toward the end he
suddenly found himself wishing to guide
Thornton's hands toward a zone of high-density selyn storage in the Gen's
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body there, right there anticipating the resounding snap to duoconsciousness
it would cause him.
Then he was thrown abruptly all the way down into hypoconsciousness, losing
all touch with the selyn fields.
The world stood out around him in stark, too bright colors that hurt his
eyes, with sounds that were merely dim clicks penetrating like needles in the
brain, and he could almost feel the polka-dot weave of the Sime Center
undershorts he was wearing. The stinging smell of the room seared through his
sinuses, bringing tears to his eyes.
He staggered under the impact of it, and swore silently,Shen! He suddenly
found that he was shaking, with real tears flooding his eyes now. The thick
walls of emotional callus that had held him since Im'ran's departure were
dissolved, gone as if they'd never been. For a few moments he thought he was
going to collapse in postsyndrome.
But Thornton's voice shocked him back to reality. "Dr. Farris!If you please!"
Digen realized that his retractor had become dislodged. Still swaying on his
feet, he replaced it and resumed his stance.It wasn't long before the surgeons
had completed the work and released the two interns from holding retractors.
During this time, Digen gradually faded back to duoconsciousness and stayed
there, not comfortable but less affected by the superficial suturing that
closed the wound. His internal balances had been badly disrupted, and he knew
that he required some time with a good Donor to set himself to rights.
Yet, he had given his word to stay with Ditana Amanso and Thornton had said
it might take eight hours or more in the recovery room before she regained
consciousness.
As they were all stripping off their gloves and gowns, Thornton said, "I
presume, Dr. Farris, that you intend to sit with her until she comes to?"
"Yes," said Digen. "I'd like to. I'm obligated to." . "Hmm," said Thornton.
"Well, since I'm having you two assigned to my staff, effective immediately, I
may as well send a couple of my interns down to cover for you, and let you get
some experience following post-surgery patients. Report to the recovery room "
He saw the surprise on Hogan's face and added, "Oh, you can take time out for
coffee first. I'm not a slave driver. You did well enough for green interns.
If Dr. Farris can learn to pay attention the way you do, and if you can learn
to stand still the way he does no, Dr. Farris, I don't blame you for freezing
up at first sight of a real, living incision I did, too nor for getting tired
and dropping your retractor even Simes must be human, sometimes well, we'll
see if we can make surgical residents out of you in five months."
At that, Thornton left, the swinging door flapping shut behind him. Digen and
Hogan looked at each other, then at Ditana Amanso being wheeled past. With one
accord, they eschewed the coffee and followed the stretcher off to the
recovery room.
There were actually three recovery rooms on the surgical floor. The most
critical patients, who were expected to linger for a day or more instead of
the usual hour or so, were taken to a special ward at the far end of the wing.
The particular four-bed ward where Ditana Amanso was taken had only one other
occupant, who was being removed deceased when Digen and Hogan followed the
nurse into the room.
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Digen slumped into a chair and let Hogan deal with the nurse and the assorted
routine traffic in the room. His head was ringing, and he was having periods
of acute hypoconsciousness again as if he were definitely post-, even though
there had been no selyn flow into his system. His internal circulations were
severely disrupted in some very odd ways that worried him; but there it was,
at last, the reaction that had begun after the transfer with Im'ran and been
shut off so abruptly.
He clenched his teeth, gripped the chair arms tightly, and forced himself to
stillness. Every Gen moving through the room was a screeching discord that
further disrupted his internal flows.
And there was something else, a throbbing ache, a gathering of tension at the
base of his skull that was still only a ghostly shadow. He wasn't sure how
long he'd been ignoring it when he finally named it.Entrant Shen! It's not
possible to be post- and entran at the same time !
He began to giggle at the ridiculous things happening inside him. Dimly, he
realized how it had happened. Entran, the prime nemesis of the Farris channel,
was a condition set off by not exercising a channel's secondary system
vigorously or frequently enough. Digen, during his first year after
changeover, when all physical capacities grow at their fastest rate, had had
his secondary system forced to maximum development, as did every channel.
After his accident he had become unable to work at that capacity, and as a
result lived in the constant shadow of entran.
Somehow, and he wasn't sure how, Ditana Amanso's field during the operation
had broken down some resistances, unblocked certain functional pathways, and
cross-connected his- primary and secondary systems. And now, the long-cramped
and abused primary system, rebelling against the transfers that had been
forced into him, was responding with both the postsyndromeand entran
symptoms a contradiction in terms, but there it was.
Giggling, Digen tried to invent a word to describe what was happening to him,
and his attempts were such atrocious puns or seemed so to him in his
giddiness that he laughed out loud.
The sound of the door closing sobered him momentarily. Hogan, standing by the
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