“You must already have guessed that Creethar is ready for discharge,” it went on. “Apart from one immobilized lower limb, whose cast is timed to dissolve in two weeks’ time when the fractured bones have knitted fully and will support its weight, it has healed well. It should be happy, relieved and pleased at the prospect of returning to its normal life, but it is not. I am far from happy with our patient’s emotional state. Something is badly wrong, and I would like to know what it is before I send Creethar back to its friends. That will be no later than two days from now because there is no clinical reason for keeping it longer.”
Gurronsevas remained silent. The other was restating a problem, not asking a question.
Prilicla went on. “It may well be that returning Creethar to its people will solve all our problems. Hopefully, it will reduce their present hostility towards us, restore Remrath’s personal friendship with you and enable us to resume friendly contact. But there is something about them that we do not fully understand, something that causes inexplicable emotional responses in our patient. Unless we completely understand the reasons for its unnatural feelings, sending it home could be another and even greater mistake. I cannot tell you what to say or ask, because the most general and superficial remarks about its parent Remrath, its hunter friends, and life in the mine are met with a disproportionately severe emotional reaction, which resembles that of a fearing person whose deeply held beliefs are under attack.
“I know that you are not a trained psychologist, friend Gurronsevas,” Prilicla continued, “but do you think that you could spend the next two days talking to Creethar? Talk about safe generalities while listening, as we all will be, for the specific items of information which, in my own experience, many beings suffering emotional distress of this kind are secretly wanting to reveal. If, during the course of the dialogue there is anything that the team should do or refrain from doing, or an idea that might be helpful occurs to you, tell us. You will be in effective charge of the non-medical treatment.
“Creethar trusts you,” Prilicla ended. “It is more likely to tell its troubles to you than to any of us. Friend Gurronsevas, will you do this for me?”
“Haven’t I already been doing that,” said Gurronsevas, “unofficially?”
“And now,” the empath replied, “it is an official request by
For a moment Gurronsevas was silent, then he said, “I feel complimented, encouraged, reassured, and anxious to do everything that I can possibly do to help. But, being an empath, you already know my feelings, and I think it was your intention to make me feel this way.”
“You are right,” said Prilicla, and gave a short trilling, untranslatable sound that might have been Cinrusskin laughter. “But I have not been tinkering with your emotional radiation. The feeling of wanting to help was already there. Now I feel you wanting to say more.”
“A few suggestions, yes,” said Gurronsevas. “I think you should decide on the exact time and place of Creethar’s return and inform Remrath and the others, in case there are preparations they may want to make. We know they are anxious to have Creethar back, and telling them when would be a politeness that might reduce their hostility towards us. The best time would be in the early forenoon, I think, when the working parties and teachers are returning for their midday meal. That would ensure a large number of spectators and maximum effect, but whether the effect will be good or bad I cannot say.”
“Nor I,” said Prilicla. Quickly it gave the time and circumstances of Creethar’s discharge, then went on, “But how will you tell them, when they close their ears whenever we try to speak? Have you forgotten that problem? Because I cannot feel you worrying about it.”
Gurronsevas had always tried to avoid waste, whether of time, material, or breath. Instead of answering the question he stopped, rotated his massive body slightly so as to bring his speaking mouth to bear on the Wem work-party which was less than two hundred yards away, and filled his lungs.
“This is an announcement from the preservers on the off-world ship,” he said, slowly and distinctly and very loudly. “The hunter Creethar will be delivered to the mine entrance at one hour before noon on the day after tomorrow.”
He could see the Wem teacher’s ear flaps close at the first words, and hear the anger in its voice as it tried to make the students do the same while Gurronsevas repeated the announcement. But it was not succeeding because the young ones were hopping around their instructor in small circles and shouting excitedly to each other. He knew that the Wem adults had closed their ears to the off-worlders, but there was no way that they could stop listening to their own children.
The news about Creethar’s return would be all over the mine by nightfall.
“Well done,” said Prilicla, making a graceful, banking turn so that it again faced the ship. “But now you have a lot more talking to do. Let us return to our patient.”
It was almost as if Creethar had become Gurronsevas’s patient. They were left alone on the casualty deck for long periods while the medical team stayed in their quarters or on
He found it easy to talk to Creethar but difficult to remain on a topic which would not quickly cause it to stop talking back. Prilicla reported that its silences were invariably accompanied by severe emotional distress in which fear, anger and despair predominated. And still Gurronsevas and the listening empath could find no reason for these sudden bouts of reticence.
Talking about the Wem and their centuries-long fight for survival on a world brought close to death by the uncontrolled pollution of the distant past was a safe if not a pleasant subject, except when they disagreed about the importance of meat-eating for successful procreation. In the Old Times, Creethar said, the grasslands and forests were filled with tremendous herds of animals. The herds and teeming jungle creatures had long since vanished, but the eating of meat, even the small and infrequent morsels available after an unsuccessful hunt, had become a kind of non-spiritual religion.
In answer Gurronsevas agreed that the hunters were worthy of the meat they ate, since it was obtained after long periods of travel and hardship and great personal risk. But the growers of vegetation who stayed at home produced more food with fewer risks and none of the respect accorded the brave hunters. It was thus on Wemar now, just as it had been on countless worlds for many centuries.
Prompted by Prilicla, he told it that meat-eating in the far past had been a matter of availability, convenience and choice rather than a physiological necessity. He reminded it that as a general rule the vegetable-eating young and the very old Wem were healthier and better fed than the meat-eaters, who often starved themselves into unnecessary sickness because of their hunters’ pride. The result was an angry silence that lasted for nearly an hour.
Still Creethar was not fully convinced that meat was unnecessary for sexual potency, but after a few days of eating Gurronsevas’ Wem vegetable dishes its conditioning, he felt sure, was beginning to crumble.
Food was a fairly safe topic, especially the preparation and presentation of Gurronsevas’s most recent Wem dishes, but when he tried to veer off the subject to talk about Creethar’s hunter friends, or about Remrath or the good work that the young cook apprentices were doing in the mine, it stopped talking. Once it said angrily that the kitchen was not a suitable place nor was cooking proper work for a young Wem. When Gurronsevas asked why not, Creethar accused him of stupidity and lack of feeling.
Remrath had accused him of insensitivity, also without giving an explanation, just before Gurronsevas had been sent away from the mine. Feeling puzzled and intensely frustrated, he returned to the subject of food.
That was the one topic that he was able to discuss with complete authority. Gurronsevas could talk about food in all its multitudinous forms and flavors, and with it the weird and even more wonderful variety of beings who had been served his culinary creations. Of necessity this led into a discussion about off-worlders, their beliefs and philosophies and social practices, including the individual preferences and eating habits of the sixty-odd different species which together made up the Galactic Federation.
He was trying very hard to plant the idea in Creethar’s mind that Wemar was one inhabited planet of many
