Prostho Plus

by Piers Anthony

  "Certainly. There's a university for every subject. Transportation, Communication, Medicine, Music, Dentistry—"

  "Would this one—Dentistry—happen to have a school of Prosthodontics?"

  "I'm sure it would. These universities are big outfits. Each one has a planet-grant, and students from all over the galaxy attend. Their standards are exceedingly strict—but there is no finer training. Graduates are set up for life. Had I been eligible to attend the University of Diplomacy—"

  "Fascinating," Dillingham whispered. He would have to think about this. Meanwhile the immediate problem remained: instant cleansing of two thousand teeth.

  He thought of something. "Trach, what can the synthesizer produce besides greenchomp? Without risking a breakdown, that is?"

  "Oh, it turns out a number of mundane things. Several foodstuffs, yellow paint, mattress-stuffing, aromatic glue—"

  "Mattress-stuffing?"

  "For the acceleration couches. Sometimes they—"

  "I see. How does it do on plastic foam?"

  "I see no reason why it couldn't produce that. Of course the machine may not agree, but we can try." ,

  "Fine. I want soft foam that solidifies in two or three minutes to a firm but flexible texture. Non-toxic. Try for that."

  Trach obeyed, though there was obviously some question in his mind. After several tries he found a setting that produced a villainous purple goo that approximated the specifications.

  "Now run a gallon of fresh foam and pack it into your mouth while it is soft. Chew on it a little, but don't swallow any."

  Trach was alarmed. "In my mouth? What did I ever do to you? The stuff will harden—"

  "It certainly will. Uh, you can breathe through your nose?"

  Trach nodded dubiously. At Dillingham's insistence he crammed the foam into his oral orifice. "Tasheshts awrvul!" he muttered around the bubbles. "Hwath a hway to dhye!"

  "Now hold it there until it sets."

  "Urgh," Trach agreed reluctantly. After a few minutes Dillingham gave the next instructions:

  "Now open your mouth carefully... slowly—there. Now lift out the entire mass. Work it loose from the teeth—you may have to knock it a little—it's a foam impression, you see. A little harder. Oh-oh." The cast seemed to have set somewhat more securely than anticipated. Dillingham took his little prosthodontic mallet and tapped at the mass, finally dislodging it. "See all that green stuff embedded in it?" he asked the dinosaur, pointing. "That's the left-over greenchomp, all yanked out at once."

  Trach pointed in turn. "See those little white bits also embedded? Those are teeth."

  "Oh." He had forgotten how fragile the replaceable teeth were. No real harm had been done, but this was hardly a procedure that could be repeated several times a day. And he could still smell the green breath. "I think I'd better think again."

  "Well, it was worth the try." Trach opened a cabinet and withdrew a long-handled instrument. "While you cogitate, I'm going to clean up the ship. We'll be approaching Electrolus in a few hours."

  As the disc of the planet came into view on the screen, Dillingham still had no idea how to solve the problem. Idly he watched the dinosaur, a finicky housekeeper, running his cleaner over the control panel. A small attachment enabled him to get at even the daintiest knobs, and the grime vanished readily.

  Suddenly the obvious occurred to him. "Trach—is that an ultrasonic instrument?"

  The dinosaur paused. "Why yes. The handpiece operates at about 30,000 cycles per second, with a fine water spray. The cavitational action—"

  "In other words," Dillingham interrupted excitedly, "the vibration is on an ultrasonic level, and causes microscopic bubbles in the water that burst and scrub off the surface quite effectively. On Earth we use a similar instrument for cleaning teeth."

  "For cleaning teeth?" Then Trach caught on. "Why of course. I must have used this cleaner a thousand times, and on my most delicate equipment. I'm pretty handy with it, if I do say so myself. I could—"

  "You could, with a few hours of instruction, become competent at dental prophylaxis, since you are thoroughly familiar with the mechanism. If you have clean tips you can use for oral work, and a mirror—"

  "I can blast out every bit of left-over greenchomp! My breath will be pure, and—oh—oh!" He put aside the instrument, listening.

  "It won't be easy the first few times, even so," Dillingham warned. "But at least—"

  "Overdrive shiftback!" Trach cried. He leapt for Dillingham.

  The ship turned inside out as they were dumped into the corner, but both were smiling.

  "But I'm not a dentist!" Judy told the transcoder. "I'm a dental assistant and hygienist and light book-keeper, as you must know." The transcoder typed her words on to a stick in the form of indentations, and the North Nebulite took this. He poked it into the orifice beneath his triple-slit nose and chewed gently.

  What jaw-motions constituted reading, as opposed to writing (typing?) she couldn't tell, and she was sure they could read by sight too. They had their own little ways of doing things. In a moment the creature fed the talk-stick back into the transcoder. "You are Dr. Dillingham's assistant. Extremely competent but aloof. We searched for you. We obtained you. This is his laboratory. So assist."

  She peered around at the alien paraphernalia. It had been a substantial education, finding out exactly what had happened to Dillingham. Horrible as the purple-lipped, double-jointed North Nebulites—Enens, according to Dillingham's invented information coded into the machine—appeared, they were pleasant enough when understood. The two designated to show her around were Holmes and Watson, though either answered (or failed to answer) to either name. "I never worked in the lab itself. Not that way. I can't make a reconstruction. I'm not allowed to perform dentistry on a patient—not by myself. I assist the dentist while he works. Where is Dr. Dillingham?"

  Holmes assimilated the new stick and bit off a reply. The Enens had been cagey about late news on Dillingham, apart from vague assurances that he was doing well. She kept inserting the question in the hope that one of them would slip and give her an answer.

  This time it worked. "Dr. Dillingham? We sold him to the high muck-a-muck of Gleep."

  Judy started to laugh at the grotesque designation Dillingham had hung on that entity. He must have enjoyed himself hugely as he programmed the transcoder! On Earth he had always been serious.

  She sobered abruptly. "Sold him?"

  "He was on contract, same as you. Hostage against the expense of his procurement and shipment. Perfectly regular."

  "I'm on—?! You advertised for a job, not a slave! You can't buy and sell human beings!"

  "Why not?"

  She was not the spluttering type. She spluttered. "It just isn't done! Not on Earth."

  Both Enens masticated that. "We aren't on Earth," Holmes pointed out. "Your ballbase players are bought and sold on Earth," Watson said. "Everything is in order according to Galactic codes," they both said—or else the machine had choked over the pair of sticks and read the same message off twice.

  "But Dr. Dillingham and I aren't ballbase—baseball! players! And it isn't the same. This is kidnapping."

  The Enens nibbled sticks, not understanding what all the fuss was about. "Everything is in order. We told you that. Now will you assist?"

  Judy dropped that tack for the moment. The Enens had not mistreated her, after all, and it was rather exciting being on another world, and she could never have afforded passage on her own. At least she was on Dillingham's trail, and that alone just about made up for the rest of it. It wasn't as though she had had any particularly inviting future back on Earth.

  "Well, how about letting me talk to the muck-a-muck? I can't accomplish much here by myself."

  "But you applied for a position at North Nebula!"

  "I changed my mind."

  It took her several more days to establish that her mind, once changed, was absolutely set. She did convince them that their own technicians were far mo
re competent in the laboratory than she, though far less competent than supposed at the time Dillingham had been sold. She suspected that Earth was about to sustain another dental raid, and she felt sorry for the innocent DOS that would be nabbed, but it was every ballbase player for himself. She was on her way to Gleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "I am informed you are a tooth-healer," the amorphous blob said. It spoke through a transcoder, since its natural mode of communication was via modulations in an internally generated electronic signal. The only way Dillingham could tell it was talking was by hearing the translation—which actually simplified things comfortably.

  The creature was about four feet high and shaped like a rock when it came to a standstill. Its surface had the lustre of polished metal, yet it was flexible enough to make ambulation possible. There were no arms or legs; it seemed to move by wormlike undulations of its underside as well as the constant shifting of balance that brought about a controlled rolling.

  "I am a dentist, yes," Dillingham agreed. "But I'm afraid neither my training nor my equipment would be of any benefit to you. My practical experience had been confined to—"

  "We have verified your references," the blob replied. "If you would be of service, come."

  Verified his references! Dillingham had not known he had any, on a galactic scale. This Electrolyte must have queried Trach and received a diplomatically optimistic report.

  "You are asking me to look at—one of your people? I really don't know anything about—"

  "We have made proper allowance for your appealing modesty. Come."

  That was Trach's handiwork, certainly. The dinosaur had entirely too much confidence in Dillingham's ability—or too vested an interest in the worth of Dillingham's contract.

  Well, he was tired of idleness. He could at least accompany this creature, though any professional service was out of the question. Automatically he picked up his bag of equipment and the transcoder and followed the blob outside.

  Electrolus was an interesting world, for persons who liked the type. The plants were crystalline and the animals metallic, with a metamorphic slant. Trach had said something about a silicon basis for life here, but the details had not been at all clear.

  Trach had also arranged for a private duplex with appurtenances suitable to reptilian and mammalian needs. Dillingham was happy to share this with the diplomat. Trach might resemble a grade C nightmare out of Earth's past, but he was as familiar as a brother compared to some of the other galactic creatures encountered.

  Although Dillingham's contract was a euphemism for slavery, he retained certain inalienable galactic rights: life, compatible environment, and the pursuit of liberty. The first was too often precarious and the second a matter of opinion, but the third vested him with a standard interstellar credit rating. His prior prosthodontic services had accrued normal commissions to his account, and even his transfer from one owner to another had added a percentage fixed by nebulactic law. He was handsomely solvent—but still a long way from the wealth required to purchase his own contract.

  On Electrolus it was more than normally apparent that money—or frump or stiggle or whatever—wasn't everything. He could not enjoy the local cuisine: stewed silicate crystals hampered his digestion, no matter how succulent the grade. Trach's creaky synthesizer produced the only food available to him here—greenchomp, with constitution of leather and taste of hay. He could not enjoy the companionship of his own kind because he was, to the best of his knowledge, the only member of his species within a hundred light-years, or a thousand. He could not even relax with an informative text, since the Electrolytes had other, nonvisual, means of recording data.

  He could admire the view, as he tramped after the serenely rolling blob. It was spectacular. The sunlight glinted and refracted and diffused amid the towering crystalline structures, kaleidoscoping colour. The entire countryside was jewel-like, with rising spires, steeples and minarets of brilliance along every azimuth.

  Dillingham would have given almost anything for the sight of a green tree or a human face. He wondered what his former assistant, Miss Galland, was doing now, but cut off that speculation. A competent girl like her would have found another position immediately; even if he managed to return to Earth tomorrow, she would no longer be available.

  Trach, at least, was fully absorbed in his business and didn't have to worry about homesickness. Every day he went forth to meet important personages and to arrange new liaisons, working diligently to solve whatever diplomatic problems Electrolus had hired him for. But Dillingham had no vital mission here. He had to wait, and hope that the dinosaur was successful, so that his own contract did not wind up in the tentacles of a radium mining foreman on Ra, or some even less enticing location. Lots of terrible places in the galaxy had standing offers for medical and dental specialists, because no one went there voluntarily...

  They had arrived. The native rolled into a gracious cave-like residence, and Dillingham accompanied it cautiously. He knew almost nothing about the custom of this culture, and could not guess how such featureless creatures had achieved space travel.

  The occupant of the domicile greeted him with what he presumed was warmth: "Contortions, O Toothman. Can you snog the dentifrice?"

  Dillingham looked askance at his transcoder. It was supposed to render the alien signal-wave into intelligible English. If it went awry now, he would be in serious trouble.

  "This, you understand, is the problem," his guide said. "Your instrument is not out of order."

  That was a relief. "This appears to be a—a psychological matter. I certainly can't—"

  "On the contrary, Doctor. It is a tooth matter. Our healers are baffled. The situation is getting out of hand. A number of our most prominent individuals, this one foremost among them, are baffled, yet nothing is done."

  "But I work on teeth, not speech problems!"

  "Of course. That is why we hope you can help us. Anyone who can cure a Gleep toothache—"

  Should he try to explain that dumping twenty tons of gold into the monster Gleep cavity in no way qualified him as a galactic psychiatrist? No doubt they would find the distinction plebian. Better a polite demurral.

  He addressed the patient: "Sir, I am not at all certain I can snog the dentifrice, but I return your contortions."

  The surface of the Electrolyte sparkled. "Joy and rapturations! You clank the concordance!"

  The guide rippled a lava-like furrow in Dillingham's direction and settled three inches. "You comprehend him?"

  "Well, not exactly—but I've had some experience recently with alien dialects. He was obviously wishing me well, and inquiring whether I could help him. My patients always say something like that, so I reply in kind."

  "I perceive your reputation was well-earned! Half of what he says is gibberish to us. It's frightful."

  Dillingham looked at the patient. "Doesn't he mind this clinical discussion in his presence?"

  "He can't understand us any more than we understand him. He's quite normal in most other respects, and healthy—but he seems to be speaking another language. If only we knew what it was, we could programme a transcoder, but—"

  Something jogged Dillingham's memory. "Can he speak to the other afflicted Electrolytes?"

  "No. They have even more trouble understanding each other. It's worse when they try to—"

  "I suspected as much. I once had a patient on Earth who had asphasia." He paused, wondering whether he should try to clarify that it had been the teeth he had worked on, not the asphasia. That's a kind of distortion of speech brought about by injury or disease. The patient thinks he's making sense, but the words are all confused. He has to learn the language all over again."

  That's it!" the guide agreed. "Truly, your cognizance is remarkable. Can you fix it quickly?"

  What a living a huxter could make on this trusting planet! "I'm afraid not. I know almost nothing about such aberrations among my own kind, let alone—"

  "But surely, now that
you have diagnosed it—"

  Dillingham made one more attempt. "I am neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist. I am a dentist. I repair teeth and try to restore the natural health of the mouth. What you need is someone who specializes in speech, or mental health."

  "Of course, Doctor. That is what our tooth healers do. How could it be otherwise?"

  And in the past on Earth, barbers had practised medicine... Would his refusal to consider the matter further be taken as a mortal insult that would prejudice Trach's diplomatic mission and lead to...?

  Dillingham decided to have a look at the teeth. That much, at least, was theoretically within his competence. He hadn't yet observed any trace of a mouth, but that was minor.

  "I shall try to snog the dentifrice," he said matter-of-factly to the patient. "Please open your mouth."

  The polish lost some of its lustre. "Mooth?"

  Oh-oh. Another missing word. "Show me your tooth-container. Your oral aperture. Your—"

  "Ah. My clank units."

  That made sense. "Clank the concordance" might have meant "speak the language". The mouth would naturally be the speaking-place, the teeth the speech units.

  "Right. I have to look at your clank units." Then he addressed the guide: "How do your teeth make speech?"

  "They—talk. How else could it be?"

  "But not quite the way mine do. You don't use sound. And surely the communication signal isn't generated directly by your teeth. It's electronic!"

  "But isn't that the way everyone speaks?"

  Ask a foolish question! The Electrolyte obviously had no conception of sound or vocal mechanisms.

  But electronic teeth? He knew even less about electronics than he did about psychiatry.

  Meanwhile the patient still hadn't got the idea, which might be a blessing. There was no mouth in evidence. "Show me your dentifrice, please," he said.

  That was the formula. The upper section of the blob lifted, lidlike. Inside was a ceramic chamber with a dozen genuine, conventional teeth. They were arranged in opposing vertical semi-circles, and each was a sturdy molar adapted to the crushing and grinding of tough crystal.