by James White
“If it is any consolation to you,” said Braithwaite, “I haven’t decided what to think.”
“All right, then,” Hewlitt said, feeling that this was going to be another waste of time. “For the first few days after I fell into the ravine I felt nauseated every time I ate something, but not badly enough to upchuck, and after that with reducing frequency until it went away altogether. It came back for a short time after I moved to my grandparents’ place on Earth, but I suppose that could have been due to the change of food and cooking. On Etla and on Earth, no medical cause could be found for these mild attacks of nausea, and I first began to hear the phrase ‘the condition has a psychological component.’ It hadn’t happened for years until I tasted my first synthesized meal on Treevendar, and then it was mild and happened only once. Obviously it was my imagination.”
Braithwaite ignored the sarcasm and said, “Would you really like to know that it was your imagination, or would you rather not be sure? Think very carefully before you answer.
“If I’m imagining things,” said Hewlitt sharply, “I don’t want to be the only one who doesn’t know it.”
“Fair enough,” Braithwaite replied. “How well do you remember that tree you say you climbed on Etla, and the appearance of the fruit you may have eaten?”
“Well enough to draw a picture of it,” said Hewlitt, “if I could draw. Do you want me to try?”
“No,” the psychologist replied. He leaned sideways until he could reach the communicator keyboard with one hand and tapped briefly. When the screen lit up with the Sector General emblem, he said, “Library, nonmedical, vocal input, visual and translated vocal output, subject former Etlan Empire, planet Etla the Sick.”
“Please wait,” said the cool, impersonal voice of the library computer.
Surprised, Hewlitt said, “I didn’t know I could get the library on that thing, just the nurses’ station and the so-called entertainment channels.”
“Without the correct access codes, you can’t,” said Braithwaite. “But if you ever feel so bored that you want to browse, I could probably get you authorization. You won’t be given the codes for the medical library, though. When a case is thought to include a degree of hypochondria, the patient concerned should not be allowed access to a virtually unlimited number of symptoms.”
Hewlitt laughed suddenly in spite of himself and said, “I can understand why.”
Before Braithwaite could respond, the library voice said, “Caution. The Etla data is accurate but not yet complete. Following the large-scale police action taken against the then-Etlan Empire by the Monitor Corps, and the subsequent acceptance of its planets as members of the Galactic Federation twenty-seven standard years ago, the required transfer of Etlan botanical information to Central Records has been given a low order of priority owing to an intervening period of social unrest. The current situation is stable, the native intelligent life-form is physiological classification DBDG and nonhostile, and visits by other Federation citizens are encouraged. Please state your area of interest.”
A large-scale police action, Hewlitt thought. There had been a savage and mercifully short interstellar war fought between the Etlan Empire and the Federation, brought about by the need of the ruling group to maintain itself in power while diverting the attention of its citizens from its own shortcomings. But the function of the Monitor Corps was to maintain the Federation’s peace and not fight wars, so the response to the Etlan invasion of a whole galactic sector was a police action rather than a war. The fact that peace and stability had returned to the Etlan worlds meant that the Federation had won it.
“Etlan native flora,” said Braithwaite, interrupting Hewlitt’s cynical train of thought. “Specifically, a listing of all large fruitbearing trees, ten meters tall or higher, found in the south temperate zone. Display for twenty seconds’ duration unless requested otherwise.”
For some reason Hewlitt was beginning to feel uneasy. He looked at Braithwaite and opened his mouth to speak, but the lieutenant shook his head, pointed at the viewscreen, and said, “You described your tree as being very tall, but it may have looked tall because at the time you were a very small child. I thought it better to start with ten meters.”
It was like one of his childhood botany lessons, Hewlitt thought, a steady succession of tree pictures which in the present situation he found anything but boring. Most of them were strange to him, both in shape and foliage and in the fruit they bore, while others resembled the large bushes he had seen growing outside the garden fence. But one of them…
“That’s it!” he said.
“Hold: replay and expand data on the Pessinith tree,” said Braithwaite into the communicator. Then he said to Hewlitt, “It certainly looks like the tree you described: thick, twisted branches, with four thinner ones without bark at the top bearing the fruit clusters. And the color of the foliage is right for late summer when you climbed it. Library, run and repeat close-ups of the fruit showing seasonal growth and color changes.”
For several minutes he watched while the screen showed the fruit going through its cycle of green bud to small, dark brown sphere to the fully ripe, green-and-yellow-striped pear shape. It was so familiar that he had a twinge of remembered stomach cramps, and the feeling was so strong that he missed hearing the library computer’s boring recitation of the relevant nonvisual information.
“That is it,” he said again. “Definitely. Now do you believe me?”
“Well,” said Braithwaite, shaking his head in a way that suggested confusion as much as negation, “I now have another reason why that monitor medic didn’t believe you. And you haven’t been listening. That tree doesn’t reach the fruit-bearing stage until it is fifteen to twenty meters tall, and the fruit hangs from the topmost branches. If the tree was overhanging a ravine, and you fell from the top, you should have broken your stupid little four-year-old neck. Instead you escaped without a scratch.
“I suppose it is possible that intervening branches slowed your fall,” he went on, “or you fell into a thick bush before hitting the side of the ravine and rolling down. Stranger accidents have happened before now, and it would explain why you, an intelligent and seemingly well balanced person, are sticking to this incredible story. But that isn’t all you say you did. Don’t talk, Patient Hewlitt, just listen.”
In the silence the calm, impersonal voice of the library computer sounded clear and almost loud.“… While the fruit is ripening,” it was saying, “the spongy internal mass absorbs all of the juice and grows to fill the striped envelope which, before parturition, becomes tough and flexible. When the semiliquid, sponged-filled fruit strikes the ground, it bounces or rolls a short distance until chemical sensors in the skin indicate an underlying soil type suitable for germination, whereupon the area of skin in contact with the ground decomposes, enabling the sponge to release its liquid content and seeds into the soil and begin its own slower process of decomposition. This has a twofold purpose, in that the rotting spongy material promotes initial growth in the seeds, while the juice permeates the surrounding soil and inhibits or kills off competing growths.
“Warning,” it went on. “The fruit of the Pessinith tree is highly toxic to all known warm-blooded oxygen-breathing physiological classifications as well as the native Etlan life-forms of all species. It has been investigated for possible medicinal use in trace quantities without success. Two cubic centimeters of the juice ingested by an entity of average body mass, such as an adult Orligian, Kelgian, or Earth-human, causes a rapid loss of consciousness and termination within one standard hour, and three cubic centimeters would have the same effect on a Hudlar or Tralthan. The effect is irreversible and there is no known antidote…
“Thank you, Library,” said Braithwaite. His voice was calm, his face expressionless, but he hit the communicator’s cutoff key so hard that it might have been a mortal enemy. For a long moment the lieutenant stared at him without blinking. Hewlitt told himself that it was going to happen again, that another med
ical person was about to tell him that he had imagined everything. But when the psychologist spoke there was curiosity rather than disbelief in his voice.
“A few drops of Pessinith fruit juice will kill a fully-grown man,” he said calmly, “and you were a four-year-old child who sucked dry the contents of a whole fruit. Can you explain that, Patient Hewlitt?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Neither can I,” said the lieutenant.
Hewlitt took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he trusted himself to speak. He said, “I have been talking to you for over four hours, Lieutenant. Surely that is long enough for you to establish whether or not I am a hypochondriac. Tell me-and be truthful, not polite.”
“I’ll try to be both,” said the psychologist. He sighed, then went on, “You are not a simple case. There are episodes in your childhood that could have led to severe emotional disturbance in later life, but so far I have found nothing to indicate that any lasting psychological damage was done. Your personality is well integrated, your intelligence is above average, and you appear to be coming to terms with your initial xenophobia. Apart from being hypersensitive and constantly on the defensive because up to now nobody has believed that there is anything wrong with you…
“Up to now?” Hewlitt broke in. “Does that mean you are beginning to believe me?’’
Braithwaite ignored the question and went on, “Your behavior is not characteristic of a hypochondriac who, as we know, produces imaginary medical symptoms for psychological reasons, such as a need to attract attention or gain sympathy, or to escape some deeply concealed, nonphysical problem or event that the hypochondriac refuses to face and where illness is the only perceived defense. If the latter, and you were able to hide it from yourself for most of your life, and from me during a four-hour interview, then it must be something pretty terrible that you have made yourself forget. But I cannot believe that you are hiding anything like that from me. But neither can I believe that you ate Pessinith fruit or fell from that tree. That escape was not just incredibly lucky, it was downright miraculous!”
Braithwaite stared at him without blinking for what seemed a long time. Then he said, “The medical profession is not comfortable with miraculous occurrences, and neither am I. That is Lioren’s area of expertise. But even the Padre is unhappy with them, because it believes that the advances in medicinal science have rendered them obsolete. Do you believe in miracles?”
“No,” said Hewlitt firmly. “I have never been a believer in anything.”
“Right,” said Braithwaite. “At least that gets one nonphysical factor out of the way. But there is another that we should eliminate as well-specifically your early xenophobia. That may have been caused by an incident involving an off-worlder so frightening that you now refuse to remember it. I would like to conduct a test.”
“Can I refuse to take it?” said Hewlitt.
“You must understand,” said Braithwaite, again ignoring his question, “that this is not a psychiatric hospital. My department is responsible for maintaining the mental health of a staff comprising sixty-odd different life-forms, and keeping that bunch happy and out of each other’s hair, or whatever, is more than enough for us. The test will help me to decide whether to hand you back to Medalont for further medical investigation or recommend your transfer to a planetary psychiatric facility.”
Hewlitt felt the old anger and embarrassment and despair welling up in him again. From the Galactic Federation’s leading hospital he had expected something better. Bitterly, he said, “What are you going to do to me?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Braithwaite, smiling again. “It will be uncomfortable for you, not life-threatening but with a high level of stress, and I’ll try not to allow things to get out of control.”
CHAPTER 9
A nightmare, Hewlitt told himself as he fought a sudden urge to hide his head under the blanket, was a nonphysical event from which he could expect to wake up. His problem was that he was not asleep.
There were fifteen of them walking and tapping and slithering in procession down the ward and, he knew with a dreadful inevitability, they were heading for his bedside. Three members of the group were familiar, he saw as they halted in a semicircle around him: his Hudlar nurse, Lieutenant Braithwaite, and Senior Physician Medalont. The nurse’s speaking membrane remained still, the psychologist smiled in silent reassurance, and everyone else joined in maintaining the silence until Medalont broke it.
“As you may already know, Patient Hewlitt,” said the senior physician, “Sector General is a teaching hospital. This means that at any given time a proportion of its medical staff is composed of trainees who hope one day to qualify as multispecies doctors and nurses who may choose to practice here, or as medical officers attached to one of the Federation’s space construction projects. Long before that stage is reached the trainees must gain basic experience of other-species’ physiology, which is where you come in. You are not obliged to submit to physical examination by trainees, but most of our patients do so willingly because they know that we have their best interests at heart.”
Hewlitt forced himself to look at the trainees one by one. He identified two Kelgians, another Melfan, who differed from Medalont only in the markings on its carapace, three Nidians, and a six-legged elephantine Tralthan similar to one of the patients in the ward, but the rest of them were strange and therefore frightening. He wanted to shake his head but it would not move and his mouth was too dry to say “No.”
“To be accepted for training here,” the senior physician went on, “the entities around you must first have demonstrated a particular aptitude for advanced surgical and medical work and possess wide experience in their former planetary hospitals. I mention this so that you will know that they are not complete medical idiots in spite of what some of their tutors may say about them.”
A quiet cacophony of alien sounds that did not translate emanated from the members of the group. Probably, Hewlitt thought, it was a dutiful response to their superior’s little joke.
Medalont ignored them and said, “You have already been examined and had physical contact with your other-species nurse and myself without any accompanying physical discomfort. I can further assure you that if any of the trainees do or say anything to cause you distress, I shall have very harsh words to say to them afterward. May we proceed, Patient Hewlitt?”
They were all staring at him with far too many eyes. Braithwaite and the nurse moved closer. The lieutenant was frowning and smiling at the same time in a strange expression that combined worry with reassurance, Hewlitt thought, and all the other expressions were unreadable. He opened his mouth, but the sound that came out was not even translatable by himself.
“Thank you,” said Medalont; then, to the others, “Well, who wants first crack?”
Inevitably it was the biggest one present, the Tralthan, who lumbered forward to stand by his bedside. One of the eyes projecting from its domelike, immobile head curved down to regard his face; another was directed at Medalont and the other two somewhere behind it. Two of the four tentacles growing from its massive shoulders were lowered to within a few inches of his chest, one of them holding a scanner, and he did not know where the surprisingly quiet voice was coming from when it spoke.
“Please do not be alarmed, Patient Hewlitt,” it said as he tried vainly to burrow backward into his bed. “The examination will be verbal or physically noninvasive, unless my questions should invade your privacy, in which case I shall not expect an answer. My intended specialty is other-species intercranial surgery, so I shall be concentrating the scanner examination in that area. I would like to begin at the rear base of the cranium where the nerve trunks enter the upper vertebrae.
“Could you please sit up,” it went on, “and rest the front of your head on the joints midway along your ambulatory appendages? I think the nonmedical words for them is knees. Is this so?”
“Yes,” said Hewlitt and Medalont together.
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��Thank you,” it said. With one eye still fixed on the senior physician it continued, “The Earth-human DBDG classification is fortunate in that the length of the nerve connections between the visual, aural, olfactory, and tactual sensors and the brain proper are shorter than in the majority of other intelligent life-forms, including my own, and the advantage in reaction times during the presapient stage of their evolution undoubtedly led to species dominance. But the cranial contents are densely packed so that the charting of neural pathways is difficult, and precise work is required if a surgical intervention becomes necessary. When you open and close your upper and lower mandibles, Patient Hewlitt, is there subjective evidence of compression effects on the brain stem?”
“No,” said Hewlitt and the senior physician together. Medalont gave the impression that it considered the question a stupid one, and added, “Enough. Who’s next?”
The creature who came forward had a narrow, tubular body covered by brown and yellow stripes and supported by six long, very thin limbs. Two sets of wings sprouted from the sides of its body, but they were so tightly folded that he could not be sure which color predominated, and two long, black, furry antennae projected from the top of its insectile head. It raised itself almost upright by placing its middle limbs on the edge of his bed and looked down at him with enormous, lidless eyes.
His first impulse was to swat it the way he swatted all large insects that came too close, but he stopped himself. To a creature as fragile as this one, any kind of blow would be sure to inflict serious injury, which meant that he had nothing to fear from it. Besides, he had never ever swatted a butterfly, even though he had never been faced with a specimen as big as this one.
“I am a Dwerlan, Patient Hewlitt,” it said, taking a scanner from the equipment pouch strapped to its body. “Since I am the only member of my species currently attached to the hospital and we are not a well-traveled race, I hope this first meeting with one of us will cause you the minimum of emotional distress. My interest is in other-species general surgery and so, with your permission, I shall examine you from the head to the nonmanipulatory digits on your feet…
