it went on. “Unless the Sommaradvan can give an unqualified assurance that there is no possibility of a recurrence of the Hudlar amputation, the’sommaradvan will not be allowed to assist.
“The healer-maintenance technician is being used for one reason only,” it continued, “because the close proximity of the more experienced healers is contraindicated for this patient. It will consider itself simply as an organic probe whose mind, sensors, and digits are under the direction of the Senior Physician, who accepts sole responsibility for treatment and subsequent fate of the patient. Is this clearly understood?”
The idea of sharing or, in this instance, completely relegating responsibility for her actions to another person was repugnant to a warrior-surgeon, even thoughshe could understand the reasons ror n. rmi than her feeling of shame was the sudden, warm upsurge of gratitude and pride at once again being called to work as a healer.
“It is understood,” she said.
Silently the empath indicated that it was changing from the probe frequency, so as not to be verbally hampered by having to use the listening Gogleskan’s impersonal mode of speech.
“Thank you, Cha Thrat,” it said quickly. “Use my Cinrusskin instruments, they are best suited to your upper digits and I would feel more comfortable directing you in their use. Fit the protective devices before trying to do anything else; you could not help the patient if you were to be paralyzed by its stings. When you are with Khone, make no sudden movements that might frighten it without first explaining the reason for them. I shall be monitoring friend Rhone’s emotional radiation from here, and will warn you if any action causes a sudden increase of fear. But you are well aware of the situation, Cha Thrat. Please hurry.”
Naydrad had her carrier pack already filled and waiting. She added the replacement power cell for Rhone’s scanner and began climbing from the top of the litter on to the hospital roof.
“Good luck,” Murchison said. Naydrad ruffled its fur and the others made untranslatable noises.
The roof sagged alarmingly under Cha Thrat’s weight, and one of her forefeet went right through the flimsy structure, but it was a much quicker route than crawling through a maze of low-ceilinged corridors. She dropped into the uncovered passageway leading to Rhone’s room, crouched awkwardly onto two knees and three of her medial limbs, and, with Prilicla warning the patient of her arrival, moved only her head and shouldersthrough the entrance. For the first time she was able to study a Gogleskan FOKT at close quarters.
“The intention,” Cha Thrat said carefully, “is not to touch the patient directly.”
“Gratitude is expressed,” Khone replied in a voice that was barely audible above the sound of the distorters.
The mass of unruly hair and spikes that covered the erect, ovoid body were less irregular in color and position than the probe pictures had suggested. The body hair had mobility, although not to the extent as that possessed by the Kelgians, and lying motionless amid the multicolored cranial fur were a number of long, pale tendrils that were used only during a joining to link the member minds of the group. Four small, vertical orifices, two for breathing and speaking and two for food ingestion, encircled its waist.
The spikes covering the body were highly flexible, grouped together into digital clusters, and were capable of fine manipulation, and the lower body was encircled by a thick apron of muscle, under which the four short legs could be withdrawn when the being wished to rest.
Now it lay on its side, a position from which even a fully fit and active Gogleskan would have difficulty in recovering.
Quietly Cha Thrat said, “Instruct the probe to bring the scanner here. When the power cell has been replaced, return it to within easy reach of the patient, then move the machine aside.”
To Khone she went on. “Unlike the visiting healers, the patient has been unaware of its own condition and an immediate self-examination is requested. Since the patient is also a healer with extensive knowledge of its own life processes, any comments or suggestions it cares to make would be helped to the off-planet colleagues.”
Prilicla’s voice came from her earpiece but not the probe’s speaker, which meant that the empath wanted to talk to her alone. It said, “That was well spoken, Cha Thrat. No patient, no matter how ill or injured, wants to feel completely useless and dependent. Otherwise well-intentioned healers sometimes forget that.”
That was one of the first lessons she had learned at the medical school on Sommaradva. Another, which had obviously been learned by Prilicla, was that junior medics facing a new and difficult job benefited from encouragement.”
“The patient,” Khone said suddenly, “is unable toguide the scanner.”
There was nothing in the Cinrusskin’s instrument pack long enough to reach Khone from Cha Thrat’s present position. Impersonally she asked, “Is it permitted to use the Gogleskan instruments?” “Of course,” Khone said.
On the side table there was a set of long, expanding tongs, made from highly polished wood and with hinges of a soft, reddish metal, used for bringing instruments or dressings to bear on the otherwise untouchable Gogleskan patients. Lying beside them was a thin, conical object that had been fashioned crudely from dried clay, with short twigs and straw stuck all over it. She had mistaken it at first for a piece of decorative or aromatic vegetation. Now that she knew what it was, Cha Thrat thought that its resemblance to the aesthetically pleasing Sommaradvan body shape was close only in the eyes of a very sick Gogleskan.
Awkwardly at first, she used the tongs to lift the scanner from the limp grasp of Khone’s digits and moved it over the abdominal area. While the patient was concentrating on the screen, she edged further into the room and closer to the patient. The unnatural position of herbent forelegs and spine, and the fact that virtually her entire body weight was being supported on medial limbs normally used only for manipulation, was threatening to send the associated muscles into spasm. To ease them she rocked very slowly from side to side, moving a little closer each time.
“The Sommaradvan healer is larger than was expected,” Khone said suddenly, looking up from the scanner. It did not take Prilicla to tell her that the Gogleskan was very frightened.
Cha Thrat held herself motionless for a moment, then said, “The Sommaradvan healer, despite its size, will no more harm the patient than the sculptured likeness lying on the floor. The patient must surely know this.”
“The patient knows this,” Khone agreed, with a distinct trace of anger in its voice. “But has the Sommaradvan healer ever suffered nightmares, in which it is haunted, and hunted, by dark and fearful creatures of the undermind intent on its destruction? And instead of fleeing in unreasoning fear, has it ever tried to stop in the midst of such a nightmare, and think through or around its terror, and turned to face these dreadful phantasms, and tried to look upon them as friends?”
Ashamed, Cha Thrat said, “Apologies are tendered, and admiration for the patient-healer who is trying to do, who is doing, that which the stupid and insensitive Sommaradvan healer would find impossible.”
Prilicla’s voice sounded in her earpiece. “You have irritated friend Khone, Cha Thrat, but its fear has receded a little.”
She took the opportunity of moving closer and said, “It is realized that the patient-healer’s intentions toward the Sommaradvan are friendly, and any harm that might befall it would be the result of a purely instinctive reac- tion or accident. Both the eventualities canbe avoided by rendering the stings harmless”
Khone’s emotional reaction to that suggestion had both Prilicla and Cha Thrat badly worried, but time was running out for this patient and, if anything was going to be done for it, there was no real alternative to capping those stings. The little Gogleskan knew that as well as they did. It was being asked to surrender its only re-maining weapon.
Cha Thrat dared not move a muscle other than her larynx, and that onewas being seriously overworked as she tried to convince Khone’s unconscious as well as its already half-convinced conscious mind that, in a truly civilized society, weapons were unnecessary. She told it that she, too, was a female, although she had yet to produce an offspring. She then spoke of her most personal feelings, many of them petty rather than praiseworthy, about her past life and career on Sommaradva and in Sector General, and of the things she had done wrong in bothplaces.
The team member waiting impatiently by the litter must be wondering if she had contracted a ruler’s disease and had lost contact with the reality of the situation, butthere was no time to stop and explain- Somehow she had to get through to the Gogleskan’s dark undermind and convince it that psychologically she was leaving herself as open and defenseless by what she was telling it as Khone was by relinquishing its only natural weapons.
She could hear Naydrad’s voice, which was being picked up by the Cinrusskin’s headset, demanding to know whether Khone was a psychiatrist as well as a healer, and if so, the stupid Sommaradvan had picked the wrong time to lie,on its couch! Prilicla did not speak and she went on talking unhurriedly to the patient whose voice, like
