Major Operation

At this stage of his career, Conway has gotten over the shyness that once drove him to socialize almost exclusively with ETs, to the extent that he and pathologist Murchison are now married, but he retains his old friendships. The common theme among these stories is that they are connected with the establishment of first contact with the various inhabitants of the planet Drambo (a.k.a. Meatball). In a reversal of the usual pattern, the water-breathing members of Sector General's staff, even the Hudlars, are quite comfortable with the assignment, while the Earth-humans need special gear. "Invader" - Senior Physician Mannon (a.k.a. Mannen, depending on which edition of which volume you have), Conway's old mentor, has had at least 5 distinct accidents during surgery, when some weird incident has nearly resulted in serious damage to a patient. O'Mara has assigned Conway to find out what's going on - not to look for psych problems O'Mara is assured don't exist, but for any outside agency affecting Mannon's performance. Mannon himself thinks they're wasting their time. (If "Trouble with Emily" from HOSPITAL STATION left you wondering how a pet dog would cope with a Diagnostician as a master, wonder no more, by the way.) O'Mara nearly has hysterics at the results of Conway's questioning of the junior staff - they almost think the place is haunted afterwards - which turns up an unusual number of weird and silly mistakes. :) "Vertigo" - Introducing one of the intelligent species of Drambo, originally a gift from White's friend Bob Shaw. The Monitor Corps has rescued a very sick alien from Drambo's first attempt at launching a spacecraft. "Blood Brother" - Conway, now assigned to help the survey team establishing contact with Drambo, participates in the first encounter with the Drambon equivalent of a medic. Let's face it, White has a sick sense of humor. :) "Meatball" - That's what the survey people named Drambo, before discovering that it held intelligent life. This picks up where "Blood Brother" left off, as the staff at Sector General itself attempts to communicate with the healer encountered in the previous story. "Major Operation" - The operation in question is the massive one planned in the preceding stories: coping with the treatment of the members of Drambo's second intelligent species, who may not be numerous but may still entail *very* large logistical and diplomatic problems.

Sector Twelve General Hospital is a mulit-leveled, multi-species facility hanging like a misshapen christmas tree in space near the galactic rim. But all is not well. *Something* is causing the staff of Sector General, including a respected Senior Physician, to make small ridiculous errors - very dangerous in the delicately balanced multi-enviroment of the the Station. And it's up to Dr. Conway to find out who, or what, is behind it. No sooner is this problem solved then the Monitor Corp rescues the occupant of a malfunctioning experimental space capsule and bring it to Sector General but the patient keeps getting worse dispite the best efforts of the staff. And finally Conway joins a Monitor mission to a world called Meatball. He's had some odd patients in his time but he's never been called upon to treat an entire planet before!