It was Dr. Hamilton.
“Sorry I won’t be able to answer your questions in person, Dr.
Prilicla,” he said. “Stillman will have told you that I’m visiting the
Vespara establishment on Yunnet right now. One of the joys of
being an other-species peripetetic dentist on this world. How can
I help you?”
While Prilicla was explaining what it wanted, the two Tralthans, not wanting to eavesdrop on what might be a private conversation, moved to a corner of the room and raised their hush field. Hewlitt stared hard at the screen, trying to remember the other’s face and voice, but the only memory that came was of shining instruments and hands projecting from white cuffs. Perhaps he had not looked at the other’s face long enough for it to register.
“I remember the incident,” said the dentist, “not because it was important but because it was the first and only time I was asked to extract teeth that would have detached themselves naturally. At the time I decided that the child was overimaginative, timid, and unwilling to inflict what he believed would be serious pain on himself by pulling out the teeth with his fingers, as most children do, and his mother had taken him to me to sort out the problem. It was too minor a procedure to require an anesthetic and, I remember now, there was a note in his med file warning against the use of painkilling medication because of a then unidentified allergy.”
“We are still having trouble identifying it,” said Murchison. “What happened to the teeth? Did you keep or examine them following the extraction?”
“There was no reason to do that,” said Hamilton, and laughed. “They were just ordinary children’s first teeth. Besides, if you are unfamiliar with the tooth-fairy myth current among young Earthchildren, he insisted on having them back for financial reasons.
“Is there anything else you can remember about the incident, friend Hamilton?” said Prilicla. “No matter how odd or unimportant it may have seemed at the time.”
“Sorry, no,” the dentist replied. “I never saw the child again, so presumably the rest of his baby teeth detached normally.”
Hewlitt barely heard the end of the conversation, because he was remembering something else about those teeth, something he had almost forgotten until the dentist’s words brought it back. He had not told anyone about it, then or later, because they would have said that it was all his imagination. Even as a child he had hated people telling him that he was imagining things.
“Friend Hewlitt,” said Prilicla, drifting closer, “your emotional radiation, comprising minor levels of irritation, caution, and expected embarrassment, suggests that you are hiding something from us. Please tell us about it. We will not laugh or embarrass you. Any new datum on this case could turn out to be important.
“I doubt that,” he said, “but here it is…”
Apart from one loud, untranslatable sound from Naydrad, they watched him until he had finished speaking. It was Prilicla who broke the incredulous silence.
“Dr. Hamilton made no mention of this,” said the empath. “Did you show the teeth to or discuss them with anyone?”
“He didn’t examine the teeth before he gave them back to me,” Hewlitt replied. “They were fine and very hard to see, anyway. There were five or six of them, pale grey in color and about an inch long, on each tooth. They were in my hand all the way home, but I didn’t show it to my grandmother because she was a bit irritated with me over what she thought was an unnecessary visit to the dentist. By the time we got back to the house they were gone. They must have dropped off or been blown away by the groundcar’s airconditioning. I know, none of you believe me.
Murchison laughed, then shook her head and said, “I’m sorry. But it is difficult to believe you when you keep telling us about so many strange, unsupported, unrelated, and completely incredible symptoms. Do you blame us?”
Prilicla’s spidery limbs were trembling again. It said, “I promised that we would not cause embarrassment to friend Hewlitt, who feels that it is telling the truth.”
“I know he thinks he is telling the truth, dammit,” said Murchison. “But I ask you, hairy teeth!”
This time it was Stillman who exercised the diplomacy characteristic of a cultural contact specialist by changing the subject.
“Dr. Prilicla,” he said. “Would you like to visit the ravine now?”
Hewlitt waited until they were outside before he said, “I knew that was Fudge the instant I saw it, and I know it recognized me at the same time. I can’t describe… It was a really strange feeling.”
“Your feeling of recognition toward your nonsapient little friend was complex,” said the empath. “I have never before encountered an emotional response quite like it, and I would not have been surprised if you had asked the Tralthans for the animal to be returned to you. I am pleased at your response to the situa… Friend Murchison, you are feeling confused and dissatisfied about something. What is it?”
“That cat,” she replied, glancing behind her at the house. “My parents liked cats and never had less than two of them at home, so I’m familiar with the species. For example, the life span of a healthy cat is twelve to fourteen Earth years, not double that period, so Snarfe has no business being alive. Dr. Stillman, how sure are you that it is an Earth cat and not a more long-lived Etlan or otherspecies look-alike?”
“Very sure,” the surgeon-captain replied. “When the culturalcontact people came to Etla, and it was clear that they would be staying here for a long time, the Corps leaned over backward in the matter of bringing out their personal effects, including, in one case, a pet cat. A few weeks after arrival it produced a litter of six kittens who were all found foster homes. Snarfe was one of them.”
“Then why,” said Murchison, “should an ordinary Earth cat double its life span here?”
Stillman walked several paces before he said, “I’ve often wondered about that myself, ma’am. My theory is that on Etla the cat was not exposed to any of the feline diseases it would normally have encountered on Earth and, as we know, Etlan pathogens have no effect on off-world species. Here it was isolated from all lifethreatening or physically debilitating diseases and should die only from accident or old age, after using up all nine of its long and very healthy lives.”
Murchison smiled. “We know that Fudge had one bad accident and survived it,” she said. “That is a nice theory, Doctor, but is there supporting evidence? What about the other kittens from the same litter?”
“I was afraid you would ask that,” said Stillman. “One lost an argument with a log transporter. Ml five of the others died naturally, so far as I know from old age, about ten years ago.
“Oh,” said Murchison.
CHAPTER 19
Prilicla broke the long silence that followed by saying, “Friend Hewlitt, we would like to begin retracing your path from the position of the old hole in the garden enclosure where you escaped to the tree from which you fell. If you are ready, please lead the way.
On the other side of the garden fence he began half walking, half wading through the long, thick growth that looked like Earth grass unless one looked at it more closely, ignoring the insects that were too small for the differences to show, and staring up at the hot, blue sky with its scattered cloud shapes that were too irregular and normal to look alien. Stillman kept pace with him but did not speak, and the others were lagging too far behind for him to hear what they were saying. They were probably talking about him, he thought angrily, and discussing the clinical and psychological implications of his latest flight of fancy.
“I wasn’t sure at first, Dr. Stillman,” he said, trying to start a conversation that might change his mental subject, “but I recognized you, too. You seemed to be much taller then, but I suppose all adults are giants to a four-year-old. Apart from that you haven’t changed much.”
“I didn’t recognize you at all,” said Stillman. He smiled and patted his ample waistline. “You have grown up while I grew out.”
“It was lucky finding you still here,” Hewlitt went on. “I thought the Monitor Corps moved its people all over the galaxy.”
