reason to go on living instead of existing in pain and self-loathing and cut off from friends and families until a usually self-inflicted death ended it.
“With me,” she went on, the undamaged parts of her fur writhing at the memories, “you began by morally blackmailing Kledenth into tracing the whereabouts of this Retreat through my old hospital. Then you talked. And talked. It was cruel at first, but you reminded me of the great medical future that had streched in front of me before the accident ended it, except that you insisted that the mind inside my deformed body had a future, too, one that did not depend on visual contact and social interaction with my undamaged colleagues. Then over the years, without allowing anyone outside to know of your presence here or what you were doing for us, you reorganized this place of the living dead and, instead of it being a trash can filled with social outcasts that our people preferred not to think about, you gradually changed it into a consultancy that uses the newly healed and multidisciplined minds of its occupants to perform services that are increasingly in demand. The outgoing vision channels are switched off, naturally, so that nobody has to look at the experts they are consulting, but our clients are used to that now. I don’t know what type of mind-changing therapy you used on the others, because their former specialties aren’t medicine and they won’t talk about it, but with me you talked about nothing but Sector General.
“You told me about the wonderful and often dangerous events that took place there,” Marrasarah went on, “and the strange beings who work there, and the even stranger entities and conditions that they are called on to treat, and the challenging problems and ingenious solutions that were and are a daily routine. The staff and patients you described with the feeling of a great and dedicated psychiatrist while the events were related with the medical insight and purely Kelgian viewpoint possible only to one who shares my mind. In the beginning I, too, wanted an excuse to die and leave this deformed body. Instead I began counting the days until your next leave so as to hear more of your life. And now you want me to share that life by copying all of your memories into my mind, including this strange attraction you feel for me. I am greatly honored that you should offer this, but I don’t think I want to share all the knowledge and innermost secrets and the true, unspoken thoughts of the psychologist O’Mara’s mind.
“I am afraid.”
O’Mara tried not to look at the pitifully few mobile patches of fur that were reflecting her fear. Even though it would not alter their future together or his feelings for her, he was becoming afraid, too, of her rejecting a gift that would lead to her full understanding of the rough, untutored, and complex person that was himself.
“Of what?” he said gently.
“I know you through your words and actions” she replied. “They were healing words and kindly actions spread out over many years. But now you are giving me the chance to know the true thinking and reasons behind those words and actions, and of that I am afraid. I am afraid of discovering a small selfishness or imperfection in a being I have long regarded with respect, admiration, and deep affection, or of discovering in you a strange, psychological abnormality that your Earth-human words have unwittingly concealed from me. I–I am afraid of being disappointed.”
O’Mara smiled, knowing that over the years she had learned to understand the meaning behind that Earth- human grimace, and ordered his thoughts for a moment before speaking. He had been looking forward to this moment ever since he had illegally impressed himself with the Marrasarah mind tape to aid the therapy oh the then-young trainee, Thornnastor, and he was afraid, too, but of the disappointment of rejection.
He said, “My words and actions toward you have been those of a therapist with one physically impaired, emotionally disturbed, and professionally challenging patient who, for many years, has ceased to require therapy or be a patient. So I admit that I am selfish and imperfect and not admirable or worthy of respect, and there isn’t a psychologist in the Federation who would not consider me as anything but abnormal because I do need your affection, and more than that.
“Within the first few hours of taking your mind tape” he went on, ‘I formed a strong, emotional attachment to you. It was love at first meeting, but it was a nonphysical love that had nothing to do with sexual attraction because, if it had, that really would have been abnormal. I loved, and love, the Marrasarah personality who had worked and studied hard to rise to the top of a profession which, even on enlightened Kelgia, is predominantly male. I loved the unselfish way you helped your fellow students, your most difficult patients, and eventually your colleagues who had professional or personal problems, and the larger the problems the more you strove to solve them. In spite of your youth when you donated the mind tape, you were widely respected and loved because you couldn’t help being a counselor and friend and at times a mother to everyone who needed help. If I had met an Earth-human who was like you, my early life would have been different and certainly happier. But instead you became my mind partner. Everything about you became part of me and I was more contented and happy than I could have believed possible.
“Since that time,” he continued when she seemed about to interrupt, “your experience has helped me in my work, given me a greater understanding in my professional dealings with otherspecies patients, and generally kept me emotionally stable under stress, especially during my last job with Tunneckis, which as yet you don’t know about.
“But long before I realized how much you were helping me, he continued, “I was angry at the way that cruel accident to your fur had ended an extremely promising career. So I decided to attempt something that the psychiatric source material in our library computer insisted was impossible. I tried to rebuild the otherwise brilliant mind of a fur-damaged Kelgian from the inside, and over half our lifetimes that is what we did. I say ‘we’ because you helped me by controlling the anger and fighting the bitter despair that was pulling you toward the inevitable ending of your own life.
“I owe you for that, too, because I could not have borne losing you as person even though your mind will be in mine as long asllive.
“Many times when I was telling you about Sector General,” he went on, “I tried to tell you everything about me in poor, limping, inadequate words. But now, if you will agree to take my mind tape, you can discover the complete truth about me. I have had faults, bad habits, no social skills, secret fears, and phobias since a very early age, and now you can learn about them all. The result may be uncomfortable, frightening, even mentally repugnant to you. If you find it so, the mind tape can be erased again in a few minutes. But be warned. The result will be much deeper and more intimate than the lying together of two people during the act of physical mating, because it will be a true marriage of minds. I have known and will always know you in that way, Marrasarah, and I want you to know me. Please say yes. Or do you need more time to consider?”
“No.” she said.
Without hesitation she moved to the relaxer beside the table holding his equipment container. He didn’t trust himself to speak while he assembled and double-checked and calibrated the equipment for an Earth-human to Kelgian mind transfer. Still without speaking, he fitted the helmet comfortably onto her delicate, coneshaped head and switched on. A few minutes later he removed the helmet again, thinking that this had been the first and hopefully the only physical contact he would have with her. If there was a second contact it would be because she wanted the contents of his mind to be erased from hers. But all she did was look up at him while the small patches of still-mobile fur rippled in slow, even waves. He let the silence run for as long as he could.
“Is there a problem?” he blurted out finally. “Are you all right? Do you want an erasure?”
“No, yes, and no,” she replied. “I know you now, O’Mara, and everything you have ever experienced and thought about yourself, the others in your life, and especially about me. Your mind lies close and comfortably with mine, and I want it to do so until the day I die. But there is something about you that I will never understand.”
“What?” he said, feeling the wave of happiness that her earlier words had sent sweeping through him check itself suddenly as if it might be about to collapse and ebb away. “You know and should understand everything. What don’t you understand about me?”
“I don’t understand, mind partner O’Mara” she replied, “how you are able to balance yourself on just two feet.”
