A burst of fear, a premonition of tragedy, suddenly overwhelmed Nicole and plunged her into terror. Something terrible is going to happen, her mind was saying. She took several deep breaths and tried to calm herself but the eerie feeling would not go away. On the little stage King Duncan had just been greeted by his gracious hostess for the evening. To her left Nicole saw Francesca offer General Borzov the last sips of the wine. Nicole could not quell her panic.
“Nicole, what’s the matter?” Janos asked. He could tell she was distressed.
“Nothing,” she said. She gathered all her strength and rose to her feet. “Something I ate must have disagreed with me. I think I’ll go to my room.”
“But you’ll miss the movie after dinner,” Janos said humorously. Nicole
forced a pained smile. He helped her stand up. Nicole heard Lady Macbeth berating her husband for his lack of courage and one more wave of premonitory fear surged through her. She waited until the adrenaline burst had subsided and then excused herself quietly from the group. She walked slowly back to her room.
17
DEATH OF A SOLDIER
In her dream Nicole was ten years old again and playing in the woods behind her home in the Paris suburb of Chilly-Mazarin. She had a sudden feeling that her mother was dying. The little girl panicked. She ran toward the house to tell her father. A small snarling cat blocked her path. Nicole stopped, She heard a scream. She left the path and went through the trees. The branches scraped her skin. The cat followed her. Nicole heard another scream. When she awakened a frightened Janos Tabori was standing over her. “It’s General Borzov,” Janos said. “He’s in excruciating pain.”
Nicole jumped swiftly out of bed, threw her robe around her, grabbed her portable medical kit, and followed Janos into the corridor, “It looks like an appendicitis,” he mentioned as they hurried into the lobby, “But I’m not certain.”
Irina Turgenyev was kneeling beside the commander and holding his hand. The general himself was stretched out on a couch. His face was white and there was sweat on his brow. “Ah, Dr. des Jardins has arrived.” He managed a smile. Borzov then tried to sit up, winced from the pain, and let himself lie back down. “Nicole,” he said quietly, “I am in agony. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life, not even when I was wounded in the army.”
“How long ago did it start?” she asked. Nicole had pulled out her scanner and biometry monitor to check all his vital statistics. Meanwhile Francesca and her video camera had moved over right behind Nicole’s shoulder to film the doctor performing the diagnosis. Nicole impatiently motioned for her to back away.
“Maybe two or three minutes ago,” General Borzov said with effort. “I was sitting here in a chair watching the movie, laughing heartily as I recall, when there was an intense, sharp pain, here on my lower right side. It felt as if something were burning me from the inside.”
Nicole programmed the scanner to search through the last three minutes of detailed data recorded by the Hakamatsu probes inside Borzov. She located the onset of the pain, easily identifiable in terms of both heart rate and endocrine secretions. She next requested a full dump over the time period of interest from all channels. “Janos,” she then said to her colleague, “go over to the supply room and bring me the portable diagnostician.” She handed Tabori the code card for the door.
“You have a slight fever, suggesting your body is fighting some infection,” Nicole told General Borzov. “All the internal data confirms that you are feeling severe pain.” Cosmonaut Tabori returned with a small electronic array shaped like a box. Nicole extracted a small data cube from the scanner and inserted it into the diagnostician. In about thirty seconds the little monitor blinked and the words 94% likely appendicitis appeared. Nicole pressed a key and the screen displayed the other possible diagnoses, including hernia, internal muscle tear, and drug reaction. None were, according to the diagnostician, more than 2 percent probable.
I have two choices at this juncture, Nicole was thinking rapidly as General Borzov winced again from the pain. I can send all the data down to Earth for a complete diagnostic, per the procedure… She glanced at her watch and quickly computed twice the round-trip light time plus the minimum duration of a physician’s conference after the electronic diagnosis was completely which time it might be too late.
“What does it say, Doctor?” the general was asking. His eyes were entreating her to end the pain as quickly as possible.
“Most likely diagnosis is appendicitis,” Nicole answered.
“Dammit,” General Borzov responded. He looked around at all the others. Everyone was there except Wilson and Takagishi, both of whom had skipped the movie. “But I won’t make the project wait. We’ll go ahead with the first and second sorties while I’m recuperating.” Another sharp pain jolted him and his face contorted,
“Whoa,” said Nicole. “It’s not certain yet. We need a little more data first.” She repeated the earlier data dump, now using the extra two minutes of information that had been recorded since she arrived in the lobby. This time the diagnosis read 92% likely appendicitis. Nicole was about to routinely check the alternative diagnoses when she felt the commander’s strong hand on her arm.
“If we do this quickly, before too much poison builds up in my system, then this is a straightforward operation for the robot surgeon, isn’t it?”
Nicole nodded.
“And if we spend the time to obtain a diagnostic concurrence from the Earth — ouch — then my body may be in deeper trauma?”
He is reading my mind, Nicole thought at first. Then she realized that the general was only displaying his thorough knowledge of the Newton procedures.
“Is the patient trying to give the doctor a suggestion?” Nicole asked, smiling despite Borzov’s obvious pain.
“I wouldn’t be that presumptuous,” the commander answered with just a trace of a twinkle in his eye.
Nicole glanced back at the monitor. It was still blinking 92% likely appendicitis. “Do you have anything to add?” she said to Janos Tabori.
“Only that I have seen an appendicitis before,” the little Hungarian answered, “once, when I was a student, in Budapest. The symptoms were exactly like this.”
“All right,” Nicole said. “Go prepare RoSur for the operation. Admiral Heilmann, will you and cosmonaut Yamanaka help General Borzov to the infirmary please?” She turned around to Francesca. “I recognize that this is big news. I will allow you in the operating room on three conditions. You will scrub like all the surgical staff. You will stand quietly over against the wall with your camera, And you will absolutely obey any order that I give you.”
“Good enough,” Francesca nodded. “Thank you.”
Irina Turgenyev and General O’Toole were still waiting in the lobby after Borzov left with Heilmann and Yamanaka. “I’m certain that I speak for both of us,” the American said in his usual sincere manner. “Can we help in any way?”
“Janos will assist me while RoSur performs the operation. But I could use one more pair of hands, as an emergency backup.”
“I would like to do that,” O’Toole said. “I have some hospital experience from my charity work.”
“Fine,” replied Nicole. “Now come with me to clean up.”
RoSur, the portable robot surgeon that had been brought along on the Newton mission for just this kind of situation, was not in the same class, in terms of medical sophistication, as the fully autonomous operating rooms at the advanced hospitals on Earth. But RoSur was a technological marvel in its own right. It could be packed in a small suitcase and weighed only four kilograms. Its power requirements were low. And there were more than a hundred configurations in which it could be used.