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  “Why the transparent wall and remote handling equipment?” Cha Thrat asked quickly, as the Lieutenant turned to go. “An FOKT classification doesn’t sound like a particularly large or dangerous life-form.”

  “… To answer any questions not covered by your information tape,” it ended firmly. “Enjoy yourself.” The days that followed were not particularly enjoyable except in retrospect. The tri-di drawings and assembly instructions gave her a permanent headache during the first day and night but, from then on, Timmins’s visits to check on progress became less and less frequent. There were three visits from Charge Nurse Nay-drad, the Kelgian member of the medical team who, Tarsedth informed her, was an expert in heavy rescue techniques.

  Cha Thrat was polite without being subservient and Naydrad, in the manner of all Kelgians, was consistently rude. But it did not find fault with her work, and it an-, swered any questions that it did not consider either irrelevant or stupid.

  “I do not fully understand the reason for the transparent division in this compartment,” she said during one of its visits. “The Lieutenant tells me it is for psychological reasons, so that the patient will feel protected. But surely it would feel more protected by an opaque wall and a small window. Is the FOKT in need of a wizard as well as an obstetrician?”

  “A wizard?” said the Kelgian in surprise, then it went on. “Of course, you must be the ex-medical trainee they’re all talking about who thinks O’Mara is a witchdoctor. Personally, I think you’re right. But it isn’t just the patient, Khone, who needs a wizard, it’s the whole planetary population of Goglesk. Khone is a volunteer, a test case and a very brave or stupid FOKT.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Cha Thrat said. “Could you explain, please?”

  “No,” Naydrad replied. “I don’t have the time to explain all the ramifications of the case, especially to a maintenance technician who has a morbid curiosity but no direct concern, or who feels lonely and wants to talkinstead of work. Be glad you have no responsibility, this is a very tricky one.

  “Anyway,” it went on, pointing toward the viewer and reference shelves at the other side of the compartment, “our copy of the case-history tape runs for over two hours, if you’re that interested. Just don’t take it off the ship.”

  She continued working, in spite of a constant temptation to break off for a quick look at the FOKT tape, until the maintenance engineer who had been checking Control poked its Earth-human head into the casualty deck.

  “Time for lunch,” it said. “I’m going to the dining hall. Coming?”

  “No, thank you,” she. replied. “There’s something I have to do here.”

  “This is the second time in three days you’ve missed lunch,” the Earth-human said. “Do Sommaradvans have some kind of crazy work ethic? Aren’t you hungry, or is it just an understandable aversion to hospital food?”

  “No, yes very, and sometimes,” Cha Thrat said.

  “I’ve a pack of sandwiches,” it said. “Guaranteed nutritious, nontoxic to all oxy-breathers and if you don’t look too closely at what’s inside, you should be able to make them stay down. Interested?”

  “Very much,” Cha Thrat replied gratefully, thinking that now she would be able to satisfy her complaining stomach and spend the whole lunch period watching the FOKT tape.

  The muted but insistent sound of the emergency siren brought her mind back from Goglesk and its peculiar problems to the realization that she had spent much longer than the stipulated lunch period watchjng the tape, and that the empty ship was rapidly filling with people.

  She saw three Earth-humans in Monitor Corps greengo past the casualty deck entrance, heading toward Control, and a few minutes later the lumpy green ball that was Danalta rolled onto the casualty deck. It was closely followed by an Earth-human, wearing whites with Pathology Department insignia, who had to be the DBDG female, Murchison; then Naydrad and Prilicla entered, the Kelgian undulating rapidly along the deck and the insectile Cinrusskin empath using the ceiling. The Charge Nurse went straight to the viewer, which was still running the FOKT tape, and switched it off as two more Earth-humans came in.

  One of them was Timmins and the other, judging by the uniform insignia and its air of authority, was the ship’s ruler, Major Fletcher. It was the Lieutenant who spoke first.

  “How long will it take you to finish here?” it said.

  “The rest of today,” Cha Thrat replied promptly, “and most of the night.”

  Fletcher shook its head.

  “I could bring in more people, sir,” Timmins said. “They would have to be briefed on the job, which would waste some time. But I’m sure I could shorten that to four, perhaps three hours.”

  The ship ruler shook its head again.

  “There is only one alternative,” the Lieutenant said.

  For the first time Fletcher looked directly at Cha Thrat. It said, “The Lieutenant tells me that you are capable of completing and testing this facility yourself. Are you?”

  “Yes,” Cha Thrat said.

  “Have you any objections to doing so during a three-day trip to Goglesk?”

  “No,” she said firmly.

  The Earth-human looked up at Prilicla, the leader of the ship’s medical team, not needing to speak.

  “I fee! no strong objections from my colleagues to this being accompanying us, friend Fletcher,” the empath said, “since this is an emergency.”

  “In that case,” Fletcher said as it turned to go, “we leave in fifteen minutes.”

  Timmins looked as if it wanted to say something, a word of caution, perhaps, or advice, or reassurance. Instead it held up a loosely clenched fist with the oppos-able thumb projecting vertically from it in a gesture she had not seen it make before, and then it, too, was gone. Cha Thrat heard the sound of its feet on the metal floor of the ship’s boarding tube and, in spite of the four widely different life-forms closely surrounding her, suddenly she felt ail alone.

  “Don’t worry, Cha Thrat,” Prilicla said, the musical triils and clicks of its native speech backing the translated words. “You are among friends.”

  “There’s a problem,” Naydrad said. “No acceleration furniture to suit that stupid shape of yours. Lie down on a casualty litter and I’ll strap you in.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The FOKT facility was completed and thoroughly tested, first by Naydrad and then, on the orders of Major Fletcher, by Rhabwar engineer officer, Lieutenant Chen. That, apart from brief meetings on the way to or from the combination dining area and recreationdeck, was her only direct contact with any of the ship’sofficers.

  It was not that they tried to discourage such contact between the officer-ruler level and a being of the lowest technical rank, or that they deliberately tried to make her feel inferior. They did neither. But all Monitor Corps personnel who passed the very high technical and academic requirements for service on interstellar ships were automatically considered, at least to the status-conscious mind of a Sommaradvan, to be as close to ruler status as made no difference. Without meaning to give offense they kept slipping into a highly technical and esoteric, language of their own, and they made her feel very uncomfortable.

  In any case she felt more at home with the civilian medics than with the beings who, apart from a few small but significant badges on their collars, wore the same uniform as she did. As well, it was impossible to be in the same company as Prilicla without feeling very comfortable indeed. So she made herself as inconspicuous as her physiology would permit, reminded herself constantly that she now belonged to the maintenance rather than the medical fraternity, and tried very hard not to join in while the others were discussing the mission.

  Goglesk had been a borderline case so far as the Cultural Contact people were concerned. Full contact with a technologically backward culture could be dangerous because, when the Monitor Corps ships dropped out of their skies, they could never be sure whether they were giving the natives evidence of a future technological goal at which they could
aim or a destructive inferiority complex. But the Gogleskans, in spite of their backwardness in the physical sciences and the devastating racial psychosis that forced them to remain so, were psychologi-cally stable, at least as individuals, and their planet had not known war for many thousands of years.

  The easiest course would have been for the Corps to withdraw and leave the Gogleskan culture to continue as it had been doing since the dawn of its history, and write their problem off as insoluble. Instead they had made one of their very few compromises by setting up a small base for the purposes of observation, investigation, and limited contact.

  Progress for any intelligent species depended on increasing levels of cooperation among its individuals and family or tribal groups. On Goglesk, however, any attempt at close cooperation brought drastically reduced intelligence, a mindless urge to destruction, and serious physical injury in its wake, so that the Gogleskans had been forced into becoming a race of individualists who had close physical contact only during the brief reproductive period or while caring for the very young.

  The problem had come about as the result of a solution forced on them in presapient times. They had been a food source for every predator infesting their oceans, but they, too, had evolved natural weapons of offense and defense — stings that paralyzed or killed the smaller life-forms and long cranial tendrils that gave them the faculty of telepathy by contact. When threatened by large predators they had linked bodies and minds together to the size required to neutralize any attacker with their combined stings.

  There was fossil evidence on Goglesk of a titanic struggle for survival between them and a gigantic and particularly ferocius species of ocean predator, a battle that had raged for many, many thousands of years. The FOKTs had won in the end, and had evolved into intelligent land-dwellers, but they had paid a terrible price.

  In order to sting to death one of those giant predators,physical and telepathic link-ups ot hundreds of individual FOKTs had been required. A great many of them had perished, been torn apart or eaten during every such encounter, and the consequent and oft-repeated death agonies of the slain had been shared telepathically by every single member of the groups. In an attempt to reduce their suffering, the effects of the group telepathy had been diluted by the generation of a mindless urge to destroy indiscriminately everything within reach. But even so, the mental scars inflicted during their prehistory had not healed.

  Once heard, the audible signal emitted by Gogleskans in distress that triggered the process could not be ignored ’ at either the conscious or unconscious levels, because that call to join represented only one thing — the threat of ultimate danger. And even in present times, when such threats were imaginary or insignificant, it made no difference. A joining led inevitably to the mindlessdestruction of everything in their immediate vicinity — housing, vehicles, mechanisms, books, or art objects — that they had been able to build or accomplish as individuals.

  That was why the present-day Gogleskans would not allow, except on very rare occasions, anyone to touch or come close to them or even address them in anything but the most impersonal terms, while they fought helplessly and, until Conway’s recent visit to the planet, hopelessly against the conditioning imposed on them by evolution.

  It was plain to Cha Thrat that the only subjects that the medical team wanted to discuss were the Gogleskan problems in general and Khone in particular, and they talked about them endlessly and without arriving anywhere except back to where they had started. Several times she had wanted to make suggestions or ask questions, but found that if she kept quiet and waited patiently, a form of behavior that had always been foreignto her nature, the ideas and the questions were suggested! and answered by one of the others.

  Usually it was Naydrad who asked such questions, although much less politely than Cha Thrat would have j done.

  “Conway should be here,” the Kelgian said, fur ruffling in disapproval. “It made a promise to the patient J There should be no excuses.”

  The yellow-pink face of Pathologist Murchison deepened in color. On the ceiling Prilicia’s iridescent wings were quivering in response to the emotional radiation being generated below, but neither the empath nor the female Earth-human spoke.

  “It is my understanding,” Danalta said suddenly, moving the eye it had extruded to regard the Kelgian, “that Conway was successful in breaching the conditioning of just one Gogleskan, by an accidental, dangerous, and unprecedented joining of minds. For this reason the Diagnostician is the only other-species being who has any chance of approaching the patient closely, much less of touching it before or during the birth. Even though the call came much earlier than expected, there must be many others in the hospital who are capable and willing to take over the Diagnostician’s workload for the few days necessary for the trip.

  “I, too, think that Conway should have come with us,” the shape-changer ended. “Khone is its friend, and it promised to do so.”

  While Danalta was speaking, Murchison’s face had retained the deep-pink coloration except for patches of whiteness around its lips, and it was obvious from Prilicla’s trembling that the Pathologist’s emotional radiation was anything but pleasant for an empath.

  “I agree with you,” Murchison said in a tone that suggested otherwise, ’’that nobody, not even the Diagnosti-cian-in-Charge of Surgery, is indispensable. And rm not defending him simply because he happens to be my life-mate. He can call for assistance from quite a few of the Senior Physicians who are capable of performing the work. But not quickly, not while surgery is actually in progress. And the briefings for his operating schedule would have taken time, two hours at least. The Goglesk call had the Most Urgent prefix. We had to leave at once, without him.”

  Danalta did not reply, but Naydrad’s fur made discontented waves as the Kelgian said, “Is this the only excuse Conway gave you for breaking its promise to the patient? If so, it is unsatisfactory. We have all had expe-’rience with emergencies arising that necessitated people doing other people’s work, without notice or detailed briefings. There is a lack of consideration being shownfor its patient—”

  “Which one?” Murchison asked angrily. “Khone or the being presently under his knife? And an emergency, in case you’ve forgotten, occurs spontaneously or because a situation is out of control. It should not be caused deliberately simply because someone feels hon-orbound to be somewhere else.

  “In any case,” it went on, “he was in surgery and did not have time to say more than a few words, which were that we should leave at once without him, and not worryabout it.”

  “Then it is you who is making excuses for your life-niate’s misbehavior …” Naydrad began when Prilicla, speaking for the first time, interrupted it.

  “Please,” it said gently, “I feel our friend Cha Thrat wanting to say something.”

  As a Senior Physician and leader of Rhabwar’s medical team it would have been quite in order for Prilicla to tell them that their continued bickering was causing itdiscomfort, and that they should shut their speaking orifices forthwith. But she also knew that the little empath. Would never dream of doing any such thing, because the resultant feelings of embarrassment and guilt over the pain they had caused their inoffensive, well-loved, and emotion-sensitive team leader would have rendered it even more uncomfortable.

  It was therefore in Prilicla’s own selfish interests to give orders indirectly so as to minimize trie generation of unpleasant feelings around it. If it felt her wanting to speak, it was probable that it could also feel that she, too, was wanting to reduce the current unpleasantness.

  They were all staring at her, and Priiicla had ceased trembling. Plainly the emotion of curiosity was much less distressing than that which had gone before.

  “I, too,” Cha Thrat said, “have studied the Goglesk tape, and in particular the material on Khone …”

  “Surely this is no concern of yours,” Danalta broke in. “You are a maintenance person.”

  “A most inquisitive main
tenance person,” Naydrad said. “Let it speak.”

  “A maintenance person,” she replied angrily, “should be inquisitive about the being for whose accommodation she is responsible!” Then she saw Priiicla begin to tremble again, and controlled her feelings as she went on. “It seems to me that you may be concerning yourselves needlessly. Diagnostician Conway did not speak to Pathologist Murchison as if it felt unduly concerned. What exactly did the message from Goglesk say about the condition of the patient?”

  “Nothing,” Murchison said. “We know nothing of the clinical picture. It isn’t possible to send a lengthy message from a small, low-powered base like Goglesk. A lot of energy is needed to punch a signal through hyperspace so that—”

  “Thank you,” Cha Thrat said politely. “The technical problems were covered in one of my maintenance lectures. What did the message say?”

  Murchison’s face had deepened in color again as it said, “The exact wording was ‘Attention, Conway, Sector General. Most Urgent. Khone requires ambulance ship soonest possible. Wainright, Goglesk Base.’”

  For a moment Cha Thrat was silent, ordering her thoughts, then she said, “I am assuming that Healer Khone and its other-species friend have been keeping themselves informed regarding each other’s progress. Probably they have been exchanging lengthier, more detailed and perhaps personal messages carried aboard the Monitor Corps courier vessels operating in this sector, which would avoid the obvious disadvantages of information transmitted through hyperspace.”

  Naydrad’s fur was indicating that it was about to interrupt. She went on quickly. “From my study of the Gogleskan material, I am also assuming that Khone is, within the limits imposed by its conditioning, an unusually thoughtful and considerate being who would be unwilling to inconvenience its friends unnecessarily. Even if Conway had not mentioned the subject directly, Khone would already have learned from its sharing of the Earth-human’s mind the full extent of the duties, responsibilities, and workload carried by a Diagnostician. And Conway, naturally, would be equally well informed about Khone’s mind and its probable reaction to that knowledge.