spoke.
“I agree, Doctor,” he said. “His misfortunes are many, and the worst among them is that he came to Keida uninvited. Can you suggest a treatment?”
“None that will guarantee a cure,” the doctor replied. “I would not risk a surgical investigation even if he was a Keidi and not the physiological and clinical puzzle that he is, because my specialty is concerned with the other end of the anatomy, and the female anatomy at that. The only treatment I can suggest is pallative; a cold, wet pad might help reduce the local discomfort. Regarding the psychological condition, more positive treatment is possible but a cure is not guaranteed.”
“If you were guaranteeing results, Doctor,” the First said, “I would be concerned about your own psychological condition. Go on, what can be done for him?”
“In my opinion,” the doctor resumed, “the condition will be alleviated by withdrawing the patient, for the longest periods allowable to a prisoner, from the present stressful environment and surrounding him as much as is possible in the present circumstances, with familiar, reassuring objects, and allowing personal contact which is sympathetic rather than that of the hostile Estate people.
“The patient trusts me,” he went on. “If I am not his friend, he senses that at least I am not an enemy. He should be allowed to speak to me and I to reassure him, in privacy, without the presence of hostile listeners. His original clothing should be returned to him, he should be given the opportunity to exercise in the open, under my supervision, naturally, and be allowed to see his ship. He should also be allowed…”
“To escape?” the First finished for him in a sarcastic voice. “You ask too much!”
“I ask nothing,” the doctor said quietly. “It is you who ask how the patient may be rendered more cooperative and mentally coherent, so that your negotiations can proceed. Naturally, I would expect you to post guards, at a distance but close enough to prevent an escape to the ship if, as is doubtful, he is physically and mentally capable of attempting it. But this is an unimportant detail. The important thing to understand is that the patient has had a severe physical and emotional shock, that there is evidence of increasing mental dysfunction. Being able to wear his own clothing and see his ship, even at a distance which you consider safe, should renew and reinforce his knowledge of who and what he is, and perhaps enable him to adapt to the pressures of imprisonment on an alien planet.
“If no action is taken,” the doctor added, “there is a serious risk of the patient’s knowledge and capabilities and, I suspect, those of the life-mate and their vessel, being lost to you.”
The First’s focusing muscles were bunching like clumps of yellow seaweed around his horn. “No!” he said. “Your prescription is too risky for us. We confined these Galactics, an unprecedented action to take during the preliminaries of an important negotiation, because we cannot trust them…”
It was the strangest argument that Martin had ever experienced, and if he had been feeling better he would have enjoyed it, because the First talked angrily and continuously while the doctor retained a clinical impassivity and total silence, and won.
“Very well,” the First said finally, making no attempt to hide his displeasure. “You may exercise and talk with the patient outside. But you will be guarded at a distance, a short distance, and you will hold the translation device in clear sight at all times. If the off-worlder tries to free it from its cage to call for help, or even looks as if he might be doing so, or dies physically to escape, whether or not the attempt is successful, his life-mate will be severely chastised. Do you both understand that?”
Without waiting for a reply, the Keidi leader added, “Your clothing will be returned to you,” and stamped out of the cell.
Although he remembered every step of the journey, the return to the ground-level entrance seemed three times longer, and the stairs much steeper, than they had been on the way in. Outside the building they began walking slowly and silently along the road leading toward the landing area, while Keidi guards kept their distance ahead, behind, and on both flanks.
The rain had stopped some time ago and the ground was drying out. The rising, or perhaps setting, sun illuminated the low buildings and the distant hull of the lander with the warm, orange tones of a theater spotlight. When Martin finally broke the silence, he knew that he was taking an incredibly stupid risk.
“I am deeply obligated to you for arranging this temporary freedom,” he said, “but it shames me to admit that I was not completely honest with you, and you should know that the description of some of my symptoms was, well, exaggerated.”
The doctor made an untranslatable sound and said, “I have been long enough in the profession to know when a patient, regardless of his species, is lying to me. And you should know, off-worlder, that in spite of the dramatization of your symptoms, your condition is worse than you yourself realize. That is why I argued for you to be allowed out here, so that you would at least have the opportunity of escaping, if your condition eventually allows it. You and your life-mate must try to protract the negotiations with the First until you are feeling better. Also, I consider myself partly responsible for your involvement with this fanatical and untrustworthy being. This and my other personal obligations to you must be discharged.”
Martin continued walking, not knowing what to say.
“But I can only give you the opportunity, off-worlder,” the doctor went on, “not actively support any future escape attempt. The First is unforgiving of those who oppose him. His triple obligation to me for attending his granddaughter, and your share of it for bringing me to her quickly, would be argued away. I have no wish to spend the rest of my life in the First’s labor camp.”
Does he know? Martin wondered. Is he aware of what is going on? Aloud, he said, “What is it like in the labor camp?”
Chapter 25
THEY had reached the perimeter and the lander lay, enclosed by the semicircular halo of its repulsion field, less than a quarter of a mile away. One of the First’s ground vehicles, filled with guards, was already positioning itself between them. Nearby there was a cylindrical mass of rust which might once have been a fuel tank. Martin sat down heavily on it, feeling as if he had just run a mile.
The doctor remained standing as he replied, “I don’t know what the labor camp is like. Nobody has ever returned to talk about it, and I would rather not find out. You look distressed, and plainly you are in no condition for an escape attempt. We may need a litter to get you back to your cell.”
“No, wait,” Martin said urgently. “Have you ever treated a patient suffering from radiation sickness?”
“What sort of question is that?” the doctor asked impatiently. “Are you feeling confused again?”
“No,” Martin said. “Have you?”
“Never,” the doctor replied. “I was an obstetrician, off-worlder, and did not deal with such cases. And after the Exodus all fissionable materials, civil, military, or medical, were taken from us. Thankfully, that particular scourge no longer exists on Keida.”
“You are wrong,” Martin said.
“And you,” the doctor said quietly, “are mentally confused.”
“Not about this,” Martin said fiercely. “As soon as we put our sensors on the First we knew that he had been exposed to radiation, although the dosage was small. The mother ship was able to detect the original source.”
The doctor looked away from him and did not speak.
“You are the only Keidi that I feel I can trust,” Martin went on. “From the beginning you did not behave toward us like an…”
“Careful,” the doctor said.
“All right,” Martin said impatiently, “I will not risk insulting you by using that word. But surely you are not, well, not at all like the First.”
The doctor made another untranslatable sound and said, “That is a compliment.”
“There must be many others on Keida like yourself,” Martin went on. “People who could have gone to the Federation World, but chose to remain because of self-imposed responsibilities, for parents, life-mates or loved ones, or in your case patients. In the city your people were, worried, not about losing you to the Estate, but of you leaving them for the Federation World with us. I’m sure that many of the Keidi could qualify for citizenship now and
