curiosity. It wants something from us, possibly only information. But it does not, as your colorful but anatomically inexact Earth saying has it, want our guts for garters. Please return to translation mode or Tawsar will think we are talking about it.”
Prilicla and Tawsar resumed talking, with occasional interjections from the other team members, but their conversation was becoming too medical to hold Gurronsevas’s interest. He moved over to the windows to look down on
The ship had not yet reported the incident. Lacking Gurronsevas’s greater elevation, the watch-keeping officer would not have seen them.
He bent an eye to look behind him where Prilicla and Murchison were demonstrating the uses of the litter’s handheld scanner on Naydrad and each other, but not on Danalta whose internal organs were voluntarily mobile and far too confusing for a simple first lesson in other-species anatomy. Surprisingly, for a being of its advanced age and the inflexible habits of thought which usually accompanied that condition, Tawsar was quick to grasp the idea of making a non-invasive and painless internal investigation of a living body. It stared entranced at the internal organs, the beating hearts, the lungs in their different respiration cycles and the complex skeletal structures of the Cinrusskin Senior Physician, the Earth-human Pathologist and the Kelgian Charge Nurse.
It was inevitable that Tawsar became curious and wanted to look into its own internal workings, which gave Prilicla the opening it needed to ask more personal medical questions.“… If you look closely at the hip and knee, here and here,” the Senior Physician was saying, “you can see the layers of cartilage which separate the joints and which are supposed to form a thin, frictionless pad between them. In your case, however, the joint interfaces are no longer smooth. The bone structure has deteriorated and become uneven, and the movement of the limb, combined with the pressure of your body weight on surfaces which are no longer smooth, has torn and inflamed the cartilage and generally worsened the condition, making physical movement both restricted and painful …”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Tawsar.
“I will,” Prilicla replied gently. “But before I do that you must be told something that you do know, that your condition is due to the aging process that is common to all species. In time, in varying lengths of time, because our life-expectancies are not the same, all of the beings you see around you will age, our physical and sometimes mental capabilities will deteriorate until eventually we will die. None of us can reverse the natural aging process, but with the proper medication and treatment the symptoms can be reduced, or their onset delayed, and the physical discomfort removed.”
Tawsar did not respond for a moment, and Gurronsevas did not need to be an empath to feel the Wem’s disbelief, then it said, “Your medication would poison me, or give me some foul, off-world disease. My body must remain healthy and clean, despite its infirmities. No!”
“Friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla, “we would not even try to help if there was the slightest risk to yourself. You do not realize, because until now you had no way of knowing, that there are many similarities between the Wem and the off-worlders represented here. With minor differences in composition we breathe the same air and eat the same basic types of food …”
The Cinrusskin’s pipe-stem legs and slow-beating wings began quivering, but only for a moment. It did not stop talking.“… Because of this, the ways that our bodies work, the processes of respiration, ingestion and waste elimination, procreation, and physical growth are all very similar. But there is one important and unique difference: we cannot catch a disease from you or from each other, or you from one of us. This is because the pathogens, the germs, which have evolved on one world are powerless to affect life-forms from another. After centuries of close and continuous contact on many worlds, this is a rule to which we have found no exception.”
Prilicla bypassed the translator again and said quickly, “There was a strong emotional reaction to the mention of food. I detected the same feelings of shame, curiosity and intense hunger. Why should a native of a famine- stricken world be ashamed of feeling hungry?”
Switching back to Tawsar it went on, “We cannot promise that you will be able to run and hop like a young Wem. If we are able to treat you, there will be a marked alleviation of your discomfort. If not, no change in your condition or additional pain will be apparent. Withdrawal of the specimens we need to ensure that our medication will not harm you is also painless.”
It was not just another therapeutic lie, Gurronsevas knew, because in this case the doctor was feeling everything that its patient felt. Judging from the faint tremor visible in Prilicla’s limbs, it was also feeling the patient coming to a difficult decision.
“I must be damaged in the head,” said Tawsar suddenly. “Very well, I agree. But don’t take too long about it or I may change my mind.”
The medical team gathered around the Wem who was still lying on the litter. Prilicla said, “Thank you, friend Tawsar, we will not waste time.” Murchison said, “The scanner is on record,” and after that the conversation became densely technical. Gurronsevas turned his back on the massively boring medical proceedings and returned to the windows.
The four most distant working or teaching parties had merged on their way back to the mine and presumably their midday meal, and the closer groups would join them so that they would all arrive at the same time. They were maintaining the slow walking pace of their teachers rather than running and hopping ahead, and he estimated their arrival time at just under an hour.
He became suddenly aware that Prilicla was talking about him.“… It moving away from us means no disrespect,” the empath was saying. “Because of its specialty Gurronsevas is more curious about what you put into your body than in what we are taking out and, whenever you can spare the time, it would be much more interested in investigating the Wem cooking arrangements than in—”
“It is welcome to look at our kitchen now,” Tawsar broke in. “The First Cook knows of the visit by off- worlders and will be pleased to see Gurronsevas. Does it require guidance?”
“Thank you, no,” said Gurronsevas. Silently, he added, “I can follow my nose.”
“I shall join you in the kitchen,” said Tawsar, “as soon as this strange activity is over.”
He was already moving towards the exit tunnel when Prilicla switched from the translator channels to say, “Friend Gurronsevas, I was talking about you simply to give Tawsar something other than the examination to think about. But suddenly there was an emotional response of the type I detected earlier. Feelings of hunger, curiosity and intense shame or embarrassment, but much more intense. Be very careful, and observant, because I have the feeling that you could discover something important to us. Maintain voice contact at all times and please take care.”
“I will be careful, Doctor,” said Gurronsevas impatiently as he continued his erratic journey between the desks. Who better than himself knew how many accidents could occur in a kitchen, and how to avoid them.
Prilicla resumed its attempts to take Tawsar’s mind off what Murchison and Naydrad were doing to it. Their voices sounded clearly in his earpiece.
“For the best results,” the empath was saying, “we should also investigate a healthy and active young Wem, ideally one close to maturity. It would be for purposes of comparison only, not for treatment. Would this be possible?”
“Anything is possible,” Tawsar replied. “Children are prone to take risks, for a dare or out of curiosity or to prove themselves better than other children. Maybe that is the reason I am subjecting myself to this experience, I was too stupid to realize that I have long since entered my second childhood.”
“No, friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla firmly. “There is a young and adaptable mind inside your aging body, but it is not a stupid one. There can be few others of your kind who could have faced a group of off-worlders, beings who must appear completely alien and visually horrendous to you, and help us with our investigation as you have been doing. That was and is a very brave act. But were you simply curious about us or were there other reasons for inviting us here?”
There was a long pause, then Tawsar said, “I am not a unique person. There are others here who are equally brave or stupid. Most of them are willing to meet and make whatever use of you that they can, and a few others, the majority of the absent hunters, refuse to have any part of you. As First Teacher it was my responsibility for inviting you into the mine. I was surprised that you did not need more coaxing, so perhaps you, too, are brave or
