Prostho Plus

by Piers Anthony

  Two plus two might equal four—but so did one plus three. And the goblin audience was suspiciously silent.

  But what else...?

  He took the probe and checked around the tooth again. It remained firm, and the gum line was stable. He looked at the X-ray once more. The metal of the restoration shadowed it, one projection extending along the distal surface adjacent to the next tooth. No trouble there.

  Two plus two...

  Interesting coincidence that the Hobgoblin chief should send him two occlusion problems in a row. He would have expected something more devious.

  He poked the tip of the probe between the two teeth, verifying that the metal of each restoration touched there. The space was narrow; there was no way he could reach it except by forcing the wire point down, causing the patient momentary discomfort—

  "Ouch!" Kite yelped, jumping.

  The probe broke through into something soft.

  "Equals four!" Dillingham cried. He had found it! A thin cavity just under the metal, concealed from direct view by its location and the overhanging restoration. Its shadow in the X-ray had been hidden by the configuration of the metal itself. Truly, an invisible deterioration—that squished. Sometimes.

  Miss Thousandlegs had almost led him astray by her too-ready diagnosis. Had he corrected the occlusion and sent the patient home, the decay could have continued for months. By the time it received proper attention, the tooth could have been lost. All because the primary symptom seemed to match the wrong condition.

  Two plus two did equal four. But that was not the whole story.

  And the devilish goblin dental chief must have known it—setting the University representative up with a valid occlusion case first. Then the seeming occlusion case... what a trap!

  "Anaesthetic," Dillingham said. He had had a close call.

  Miss Thousandlegs brought the loaded needle. He injected the flinching patient. Oops—it had been so long since he'd used anything this primitive that he'd forgotten to apply a surface anaesthetic before giving the shot, and his assistant hadn't reminded him. Not her fault; she just wasn't familiar with his procedures, his little lapses.

  He readied the drill. "Vacuum," he said.

  Miss Thousandlegs applied the vacuum, sucking the saliva and moisture left from the water-cooled drill.

  "Other side," he murmured, as her instrument obstructed his view. He began cutting away the overhang of the tooth.

  He finished and removed the drill. "Mallet," he said, picking up the chisel. She held it up, but his hand missed contact. The mallet bounced off his fingers and fell to the floor. The goblins guffawed.

  Dillingham's ears were burning. Again—not her fault, he reminded himself. She just wasn't adjusted to his gestures. But it was inconvenient and embarrassing, particularly on stage.

  He knocked off the metal crown, exposing the decay. He fished for the gold chunk before the patient could choke on it—and banged into one of his assistant's insect-like arms. She had been reaching for it also.

  Dillingham stopped and counted to ten mentally. Miss Thousandlegs was competent and co-operative—but it just wasn't working out. He could not operate effectively with her.

  "Miss—" he started. And blinked. Miss Thousandlegs was gone. She had been replaced by a humanoid biped.

  He was tired of this long-distance sleight-of-hand. Miss Tarantula might enjoy tugging on interplanetary threads and changing his assistants in mid-operation, but he did not. "Vacuum," he said abruptly, taking up the drill again.

  Assistant number four, the biped, applied the vacuum. Her arms terminated in quintuple, jointed digits that pinched together to hold the tube. He had seen more effective appendages for this work, but at least she did not get in his way or obstruct his vision.

  He finished his excavation. "Hydrocolloid," he snapped. This assistant would have to stand on her own couple of feet; he was out of patience.

  She already had the metal form and cold water ready for the hydrocolloid impression. He made the cast without difficulty, and she took it away. He put a temporary covering over the tooth.

  "A new restoration will have to be made," he told Kite. "I have prepared the tooth and taken an impression, but it will be some time before the restoration is ready. Your local prosthodontists are perfectly capable of doing it, and I commend you to their services. You were quite correct about your problem, and fortunately we have diagnosed it in time to save the tooth."

  "Doctor," the new assistant said.

  "What?" He was tired, and there was something strange about the way she spoke.

  "Will you check the other restorations now?"

  "The other—" He paused. "You're right! A good restoration does not go wrong without cause. I'll have to have a look." It was a dismal prospect, but he could not risk the same kind of oversight the local dentists had made.

  He hammered off the adjacent cap. It came away easily—too easily. He scraped at the exposed cement. "Soft," he muttered. "No wonder there was trouble."

  The goblin chief was about to be snared in his own prosthodontic trap.

  The assistant took the gold cap and cleaned out the debris. Dillingham hammered at the next restoration. This one was stiffer, but finally came off. The binding cement was similarly soft. "Brother!" he muttered. "They must all be defective. The cement is deteriorating. Real trouble coming up."

  "Now just a moment," a voice objected. It was the chief dentist of Hobgoblin. "I did that work myself. There is nothing wrong with it!"

  Dillingham glanced at him tiredly. So this was a personal matter with the goblin now. An excellent opportunity to embarrass the chief before his entire profession, to torpedo his planetary prestige.

  He was tempted. The chief had tried to trick him, and had almost succeeded, and the audience had been thirsty for his blood right along. He could get even with the whole species of Hobgoblin and make its dentistry the laughing stock of the galaxy.

  He saw that the Jann was back in his booth. That made it safe: he could tell off the planet with impunity, for the huge robot would vaporize anyone who dared attack. There would be blood and carnage and flame—

  Dillingham shook himself. What was he thinking of! He was here to make friends for the university, not to incite riot. He really needed an assistant, if his nerves were this tight. Someone to cool him off...

  "The work is excellent," he said. "I could not do better myself. The cement is defective. Give it time and every restoration will come loose. This entire mouth will have to be re-done. And every case where you used this type of cement. They are all suspect."

  The goblin dentist looked. He pried off another cap and saw the condition of the underlying cement. He sagged. "You are right, Doctor. It was a new variety—not time-tested, but with the highest recommendations. We used it on our special patients—tourists, visitors, persons of note—"

  "Not your fault," Dillingham said graciously, suddenly seeing the answer to those vague off-planet complaints. That same highly-touted new cement had been used on all of them! "Perhaps there is some quality of the local environment that affects the cement as it is being applied. The University will be happy to run tests for you. It's a shame to have work this good undermined by something this small."

  "Doctor," the goblin chief said with surprising politeness, "you have made your point. University training is beneficial. We shall act accordingly."

  Somehow this did not seem to be the proper time to confess that he had almost missed the key cavity—or that only the timely reminder by his bipedal assistant had prompted him to perform the routine check that had led to the major discovery.

  His assistant—she had been perfect! She had done everything just right without intruding. This was the one he wanted to keep.

  "What is your name and planet?" he asked her as he finished his preparations on the patient.

  "Miss Galland—Earth," she said.

  "Very good, Miss Galland of Earth. I want you to—" He stopped. He had suddenly realized what was
strange about her voice. She wasn't speaking through the translator! "Earth?"

  "Yes, Doctor," she said as she cleaned up the patient's ugly face.

  Dillingham straightened up and looked directly at her for the first time. She was a young, aesthetic, female human being.

  "Judy!" he exclaimed, amazed. "Judy Galland—my old assistant!"

  "I thought you'd never notice, Doctor," she said, smiling.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Why, I'm assisting you. I thought you knew."

  "I mean, here in the galaxy! I left you on Earth, back when—"

  She smiled again, very prettily. "That's a long story, Doctor. Let's just say that I needed a position, and there was an opening. After that it got complicated. Deep space, and all that. Frankly, your robot rescued me from an unfortunate situation."

  He saw now that there were some ugly marks on her arms, as though she had been burned, and she looked as though she had not slept in days. "Unfortunate situation" could mean almost anything, short of an execution. She was not the expressive type. But she certainly was competent, and he was extraordinarily glad to have her here.

  "The Jann brought you?" he asked, picking up the thread. "But he was supposed to be protecting me! I thought Miss Taran—"

  "None but I shall do thee die!" the Jann boomed from his booth, startling them both and causing a ripple of dismay to pass through the massed goblins. "But thy skein will be too brief without a proper assistant. I perceived thou couldst not endure even forty years in thy solitary condition, and I wouldst not have age and wear compromise the letter of mine oath."

  Judy guided the patient out of the chair. "So you see, Doctor, two plus two—"

  "Equals four!" He gripped her by the arm. "Come on—let's get out of here before Miss Tarantula sends Number Five. I'll settle for Four."

  "And a married man is far more likely to live to ninety-two," the Jann observed, rising grandly from the booth. "Had I but my Janni with me..."

  Fortunately Dr. Dillingham was not listening. But the goblin audience was, and catcalls resounded.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Piers Anthony's five books—Chthon, Sos the Rope, Omnivore, Macroscope and Prostho Plus—have established him as a writer of great talent, on a par with the best of the new young generation of sf novelists. In an interview with the Washington Post, Arthur C. Clarke equated him with Delany and Algis Budrys. From the very first Mr. Anthony has been admired for his originality and inventiveness in both his serious sf tales and in his entertaining satirical novels.