by James White
Before Lioren could think of a reply, Mannen said weakly, “I have been hurtful to a being who has not hurt me. The only recompense I can make is by helping you … with information on Seldal. When it visits me tomorrow morning … I shall ask it specific and very personal questions. I shall not mention … nor will it suspect your connection.”
“Thank you,” Lioren said. “But I do not understand how you can ask—”
“It is very simple,” Mannen said, its voice strengthening again. “Seldal is a Senior Physician and I was, until my summary demotion to the status of patient, a Diagnostician. It will be pleased to answer all my questions for three reasons. Out of respect for my former rank, because it will want to humor a terminal patient who wants to talk shop for what might well be the last time, and especially because I have not spoken a word to it since three days before the operation. If I cannot discover any helpful information for you after that exercise, the information does not exist.”
This terminally ill entity, in what might well be the last constructive act of its life, was going to help him with the Seldal assignment as no other person was capable of doing, simply because it had used a few impolite words to him. Lioren had always considered it wrong to become emotionally involved in a case, however slightly, because the patient’s interests were best served by the impersonal, clinical approach — and Mannen was not even his patient. But somehow it seemed that the investigation into the Nallajim Senior’s behavior was no longer his only concern.
“Thank you again,” Lioren said. “But I had been about to say that I cannot understand why you are hurting in ways that you did not believe possible when your medication should render you pain-free. Is it a nonmedical problem?”
Mannen stared up at him unblinkingly for what seemed a very long time in silence, and Lioren wished that he was able to read the expression on its wasted and deeply wrinkled features. He tried again.
“If it is nonmedical, would you prefer I send for O’Mara?”
“No!” Mannen said, weakly but very firmly. “I do not want to talk to the Chief Psychologist. He has been here many times, until he stopped trying to talk to a person who pretended to be asleep all the time and, like my other friends, stayed away.”
It was becoming clear that Mannen wanted to talk to someone, but had not yet made the decision to do so. Silence, Lioren thought, might be the safest form of questioning.
“In your mind,” Mannen said finally, in a voice which had found strength from somewhere, “there is too much that you want to forget. In mine there is even more that I cannot remember.”
“Still I do not understand you,” Lioren said.
“Must I explain it as if you were a first-day trainee?” the patient said. “For the greater part of my professional life I have been a Diagnostician. As such I have had to accommodate in my mind, often for periods of several years, the knowledge, personalities, and medical experience of anything up to ten entities at a time. The experience is of many alien personalities occupying and — because these tape donors were rarely timid or self-effacing people — fighting for control of the host mind. This is a subjective mental phenomenon which must be overcome if one is to continue as a Diagnostician, but initially it seems that the host mind is a battleground with too many combatants warring with each other until—”
“That I do understand,” Lioren said. “During my time here as a Senior I was once required to carry three tapes simultaneously.”
“The host is able to impose peace and order,” Mannen continued slowly, “usually by learning to understand and adapt to and make friends with these alien personalities without surrendering any part of his own mind, until the necessary accommodation can be made. It is the only way to avoid serious mental trauma and removal from the roster of Diagnosticians.”
Mannen closed its eyes for a moment, then went on. “But now the mental battlefield is deserted, emptied of the onetime warriors who became friends. I am all alone with the entity called Mannen, and with only Mannen’s memories, which includes the memory of having many other memories that were taken from me. I am told that this is as it should be because a man’s mind should be his own for a time before termination. But I am lonely, lonely and empty and cared for and completely pain-free while I spend a subjective eternity waiting for the end.
Lioren waited until he was sure that Mannen had finished speaking; then he said, “Terminally aged Earth-humans, indeed the members of the majority of species, find comfort in the presence of friends at a time like this. For some reason you have chosen to discourage such visits, but if you would prefer the company of donor entities who were your friends of the mind, this answer is to reimpress your brain with Educator tapes of your choosing. I shall suggest this solution to the Chief Psychologist, who might—”
“Tear you psychologically limb from Tarlan limb,” Mannen broke in. “Have you forgotten that you are supposed to be investigating Seldal, not one of its patients called Mannen? Forget about the tapes. If O’Mara ever found out what you, a psychology trainee, have been trying to do here, you would be in very serious trouble.”
“I cannot imagine,” Lioren said very seriously, “being in worse trouble than I am now.”
“I’m sorry,” Mannen said, raising one of its hands a few inches above the covers and then letting it fall again. “For a moment I had forgotten the Cromsag Incident. A tongue-lashing from O’Mara would be insignificant compared to the punishment you are inflicting on yourself.”
Lioren did not acknowledge the other’s apology because the guilty did not deserve one and said instead, “You are right, reimpressing your Educator tapes is not a good solution. My knowledge of Earth-human psychology is meager, but would it not be better if at this time your mind was your own, and not filled with others whose mind records were taken before they even knew of your existence, and whose apparent friendship for you was a self-delusion aimed at making their alien presence more bearable? At this time should you not be ordering the contents of your own mind, its thoughts, experiences, right or wrong decisions, and its considerable accomplishments during your own lifetime? This would help to pass your remaining time, and if your friends were no longer discouraged from visiting you, that would also shorten—”
“I have yet to meet an intelligent being,” Mannen said, “who did not wish for a long life and an instantaneous death. But such wishes are rarely granted, are they, Lioren? My suffering does not compare with yours, but I will still have a long time to spend in a body deprived of all feeling and with a mind that is empty and alien and frightening because it is my own, a mind I can no longer fill.”
The ex-Diagnostician’s two recessed eyes were fixed on the one of Lioren’s that was closest to it. He returned the patient’s stare for several minutes, his mind recalling the words the other had spoken and searching everyone of them for unspoken meanings, but Mannen spoke before he did.
“I have not talked for so long in many weeks,” it said, “and I am very tired. Go now, or I will be so discourteous as to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.”
“Please don’t,” Lioren said quickly, “because I have one more question to ask of you. It is possible that you are thinking that an entity who has already committed the monstrous and multiple crime of genocide would not suffer additional distress if he were to commit a single and, relatively, more venial offense as a favor to a colleague. Are you suggesting that I shorten your time of waiting?”
Mannen was silent for so long that Lioren checked the biosensors to be sure that it had not lost consciousness with its eyelids open; then it said, “If that was my suggestion, what would your answer be?”
Lioren did not wait as long before replying. “The answer would be no. If it is possible, I must try to reduce my guilt, not increase it by however small an amount. The ethical and moral aspects might be argued, but I could not justify such an act on medical grounds because there is no physical distress of any kind. Your distress is subjective, the product of a mind that is empty of
all but one occupant, you, who is no longer happy there.
“But the experience is not new to you,” Lioren went on, “because it was your normal condition before you became a Senior Physician and then a Diagnostician. I have already suggested that you fill your mind with old memories, experiences or professional decisions which brought you pleasure, or problems which you enjoyed solving. Or would you prefer to continue exercising it with new material?”
What he was about to say would sound callous and selfish and might well anger the patient into total noncooperation, but he said it anyway.
“For example,” he added, “there is the mystery of Seldal’s behavior.”
“Go away,” Mannen said in a weak voice, closing its eyes, “go now.”
Lioren did not leave until the biosensor readings indicated the changes which told him that on this occasion the patient’s sleep was not a pretense.
When he returned to the office next morning, Lioren deliberately concentrated on the routine work so as to avoid having to discuss Mannen with Cha Thrat. He did not think that the words of a terminal patient should be judged too harshly, nor be repeated to others, especially when they had no direct bearing on the Seldal investigation.
Of the other three Seldal post-op patients he questioned, two were willing to talk to him at length — about themselves, the hospital food, the nurses whose ministrations were at times as gentle as the hands of a parent or as insensitive as a kick from a Tralthan’s rear leg, but about their Nallajim surgeon scarcely at all. During the little time Seldal spent with them, it listened more than it talked, which was a little unusual in a Senior but was not a character deviation serious enough to worry O’Mara. He was disappointed but not surprised when his general and necessarily vague questions brought no results.
The post-op care of the third patient was the responsibility of Tralthan and Hudlar nurses, who had been forbidden to discuss the case outside the ward. Seldal had likewise forbidden members of any physiological classification less massive than a Hudlar or Tralthan even to approach it. Lioren was curious about this mystery patient and decided to call up its medical record, only to find that the file was closed to him.
He was surprised and pleased when Charge Nurse Hredlichi contacted him to say that Mannen had left instructions that Lioren was to be allowed to visit it at any time. He was even more surprised at the patient’s opening words.
“This time,” it said, “we will talk about Senior Physician Seldal, your investigation and you yourself, and not about me.”
Mannen’s voice was slow, weak, and barely hovering above the limit of audibility, but there were no long pauses for breath, and its manner, Lioren thought, was that of an ailing Diagnostician rather than a terminal patient.
It had spoken to the Nallajim during its twice-daily ward round, and on both occasions Seldal had been pleased that the patient was talking to it again and showing interest in events and people other than itself. During the first talk it was obvious that Seldal was humoring its patient by answering Mannen’s deliberately nonspecific questions about the latest hospital gossip and its other patients, and the Nallajim Senior had spent much longer with it than was clinically necessary.
“Naturally,” Mannen continued, “that was simple professional courtesy extended to the person I once was. However, one of the people we discussed was the new Psychology Department trainee, Lioren, who seemed to be wandering about the hospital with no clear idea of what it was doing.”
Lioren’s medial limbs jerked outward instinctively into the Tarlan posture of defense, but the threat was removed by the patient’s next words.
“Don’t worry,” Mannen went on, “we talked about you, not your interest in Seldal. Charge Nurse Hredlichi, who has four mouths and cannot keep any of them closed, told it of your frequent visits to me, and it was curious to know why I had allowed them and what we talked about. Not wishing to tell an outright lie this close to my end, I said that we talked about our troubles, and said that your problems made my own seem small by comparison.”
Mannen closed its eyes for a moment, and Lioren wondered if the effort of that long, unbroken conversation had exhausted it, but then it opened them again and said, “During its second ward round I asked about its Educator tapes. Stop jerking your arms about like that, you’ll knock over something. It is shortly to undergo the medical and psychological examinations for Diagnostician, and I know that any advice coming from an ex-Diagnostician with decades of experience would be welcomed. The questions regarding its methods of accommodating and adapting to its present mind-partners were expected and aroused no suspicion. Whether or not the information given so far will help your investigation I cannot say.
By the time Mannen had finished speaking, its voice was so low that Lioren had collapsed himself awkwardly onto his knees to bring his head close to the other’s lips. He did not know if the information was helpful, but it had certainly given him a lot to think about.
“I am most grateful, Doctor,” he said.
“I am doing you a favor, Surgeon-Captain,” Mannen said. “Are you willing to do one in return?”
Without hesitation, Lioren replied, “Not that one.”
“And if I was to … withdraw cooperation?” the other asked in a voice which carried only a few inches from its lips. “Or go back to pretending to be asleep? Or if I were to tell Seldal everything? ”
Their heads were so close together that Lioren had to extend three of his eyes to cover the full length of the patient’s incredibly emaciated body. “Then I would suffer embarrassment, distress, and perhaps punishment,” he said. “It would be as nothing to the punishment I deserve. But you are suffering distress, of a kind that I can barely imagine, which is not deserved. You say that you find solace neither in the company of friends nor in preterminal contemplation of your past life. It may be that your empty mind is terrifying, not because it is empty but because its only occupant has become a stranger to you. But this mind is a valuable resource, the most valuable resource that was ever in your possession, and it should not be wasted by a premature termination, however accomplished. For as long as possible your mind should be used.”
A long exhalation of the patient’s breath pressed gently against Lioren’s face, and then Mannen said weakly, “Lioren, you are … a cold fish.”
Within a few minutes it was asleep and Lioren was on the way back to the office. Several times he collided with other life-forms, fortunately without injury on either side, because his mind was on the patient he had left rather than the ever-present problem of corridor navigation.
He was using the remaining hours or days of an emotionally distressed and terminal patient as a means of furthering a simple, unimportant, and nonurgent investigation, as he would use any suitable tool that came to hand which would enable him to complete a job. If in the process he altered or increased the efficiency of the tool, that was not an important consideration. Or was it?
He was remembering that on Cromsag he had been involved in solving a problem. On that occasion, too, he had considered the solution to be more important than any of the individuals involved, and his intellectual pride and his impatience had depopulated a planet. On his native Tarla that pride and high intelligence had been a barrier that none could penetrate, and he had had superiors and subordinates and family but no friends. Perhaps Mannen’s singularly inaccurate physiological description, which he had put down to the mental confusion of fatigue, had been correct and Lioren was a cold fish. But it might not be entirely correct.
Lioren thought of the wasted and barely living entity he had just left, the pitiful and fragile tool that was performing exemplary work, and he wondered at the strange feelings of hurt and sadness that arose in him.
Was his first experience of friendship, like his first friend, to be short-lived?
As soon as Lioren entered the office he knew that something was wrong, because both Cha Thrat and Braithwaite swung round to face him. It was the Earth-human who spoke first.
> “O’Mara is at a meeting and is not to be disturbed and, frankly, I have no idea how to advise you about this,” Braithwaite said in a rapid, agitated voice. “Dammit, Lioren, you were told to be discreet in your enquiries. What have you been saying about your assignment, and to whom? We have just had a message from Senior Physician Seldal. It wants to see you in the Nallajim staff flocking lounge on Level Twenty-three.”
Cha Thrat made the Sommaradvan gesture of deep concern, and added, “At once.”
CHAPTER 12
SlNCE the Nallajim LSVOs often entertained other-species colleagues, their lounge was spacious enough not to cause Lioren any physical inconvenience, but he wondered at the choice of meeting place. In spite of their fragile, low-gravity physiology, the birdlike species could be as abrasive in their conversational manner as any Kelgian, and if this one had found cause for complaint against Lioren, the expected course would have been for it to present itself in the Psychology Department and demand to see O’Mara.
Of one thing he felt very sure, Lioren thought as he moved between the nestlike couches filled with sleeping or quietly twittering occupants toward Seldal, this would not be a social occasion.
“Sit or stand, whichever is more comfortable for you,” the Senior Physician said, lifting a wing to indicate the couch’s food dispenser. “Can I offer you anything.”
It was wrong, Lioren told himself as he lowered his body into the downy softness of the couch, to feel sure about anything.
“I am curious about you,” the Nallajim Senior said, the rapid twittering of its voice making an impatient background to the slower, translated words. “Not about the Cromsag Incident because that has become common knowledge. It is your behavior toward my patient Mannen that interests me. Exactly what did you say to him, and what did he say to you?”
If I told you that, Lioren thought, this meeting would not long remain a social occasion.
