by James White
“Go away,” Khone had said when Conway’s misguided attempt to help had resulted in the near-devastation of a town, and had probably caused untold psychological damage as well. And “You can’t do anything,” the Lieutenant had said.
But he was no longer a frightened, grieving young boy. He refused to believe that there was nothing he could do.
He thought about the situation as he bathed, dressed, and converted the room into its daytime mode, but ended by feeling angry with himself and even more helpless. He was a medic, he told himself, not a Cultural Contact specialist. The majority of his contacts were with extraterrestrials who were immobilized by disease or injury or examination-room restraints, and when close physical contact and investigative procedures were taken for granted. But not so on Goglesk.
Wainright had warned him about the phobic individualism of the FOKTs, and he had seen it for himself. Yet he had allowed his Earth-human instincts and feelings to take over when he should have controlled them-at least until he had understood a little more about the situation.
And now the only being who could have helped him understand the problem, Khone, would not want to meet him again except, perhaps, to offer physical violence.
Maybe he could try with another Gogleskan in a different area, presupposing that Wainright agreed to Conway’s borrowing the base’s only flyer for a lengthy period, and that the FOKTs had no means of long-distance communication. Certainly there had been nothing detected on the radio frequencies, and no evidence of visual or audible signaling systems or of messages carried by intelligent or nonintelligent runners or flyers.
But was it likely, he was thinking when his communicator beeped suddenly, that a species which so fanatically avoided close contact would be interested in keeping in touch over long distances?
“Your room sensors say that you’re up and moving around,” Wainright said, laughing. “Are you mentally awake as well, Doctor?”
Conway did not feel like laughing at anything, and he hoped the well-meaning Lieutenant was not intent on cheering him up. Irritably, he said, “Yes.”
“Khone is outside,” Wainright said, as if he was having trouble believing his own words. “It says that an obligation exists to return our visit of yesterday, and to apologize for any mental or physical distress the incident may have caused us. Doctor, it particularly wants to talk to you.
Extra terrestrials, thought Conway, not for the first time, are full of surprises. This one might have some answers, as well. As he left the room his pace could never have been described as the confident, unhurried tread of a Senior Physician. It was more like a dead run.
CHAPTER 7
In spite of the painfully slow and impersonal style of speech and the lengthy pauses between the sentences, it was obvious that Khone wanted to talk. What was more, it wanted to ask questions. But the questions were extraordinarily difficult for it to verbalize because they were of a kind which had never before been asked by a member of its species.
Conway knew of many member species of the Galactic Federation whose viewpoints and behavior patterns were utterly alien and even repugnant to an Earth-human, even to an Earth-human medic with wide extraterrestrial experience like himself. He could imagine the tremendous effort Khone was putting into trying to understand this frightful off-wonder who, among other peculiarities, thought nothing of actually touching another being for purposes other than mating and infant care. He had a lot of sympathy and patience for a being engaged in such a struggle.
During one of the seemingly endless pauses he had tried to move the conversation along by taking the blame for what had happened, but Khone dismissed the apology by saying that if the offwonders had not precipitated the calamity then some Gogleskan combination of events would have done so. It gave details of the damage which had been done. This would be repaired and the ship rebuilt in time, but it would not be surprised if a similar disaster overtook them before the work was completed.
Every time a joining occurred they lost a little ground, were left with less of their technology simple though it was by off worlder standards-so that the minor advances they had been able to achieve were being slowly eroded away. It had always been thus, according to the stories which had been handed down from generation to generation and in the scraps of written history which had somehow survived their regular orgies of self-destruction.
“If any assistance can be given,” Conway said in impersonal Gogleskan fashion, “whether it is in the form of information, advice, physical help, or mechanisms capable of furnishing such help, a simple request is all that is necessary for it to be made available.”
“The wish,” Khone said slowly, “is that this burden be lifted from our race. The initial request is for information.”
If yesterday’s events could be so graciously forgiven, surely Khone would not be too bothered by Conway omitting the cumbersome verbal niceties which were a part of the barrier between them. He said, “You may ask any question on any subject without fear of offending me.
Khone’s hair twitched at being addressed directly, but the healer’s reply was immediate. “Information is requested regarding other off-world species of your experience who have similar problems as those encountered on Goglesk. Particular interest is felt in those species who have solved them.”
The healer, too, had become slightly less impersonal in its mode of speech. Conway marveled at the effort it must have cost the other to break, or at least bend a little, its lifelong conditioning. The trouble was that he did not have the information required.
To give himself time to think, Conway did not reply directly, but began by describing some of the more exotic life-forms who made up the Federation-but not as he had described them earlier. Now he drew on his hospital experience to describe them as patients undergoing surgical or nonsurgical treatments for an incredible variety of diseases. He was trying to give Khone hope, but he knew that he was doing little more than stalling by describing clinical pictures and procedures to a being, albeit a doctor of sorts, who could not even touch its patients. Conway had never believed in misinforming his patients, by word or deed or omission, and he did not want to do so to another medic.
“… However,” he went on, “to my own certain knowledge the problem afflicting your species is unique. If a similar case had been encountered, it would have been thoroughly investigated and discussed in the literature and be required reading for the staff of a multispecies hospital.
“I am sorry,” he continued, “but the only helpful suggestion I can make is that the condition be studied as closely as possible by me, with the cooperation of an entity who is both a patient and a doctor, you.”
As he waited for Khone’s reaction, Conway heard Wainright moving behind him, but the Lieutenant did not speak.
“Cooperation is possible, and desirable,” the Gogleskan said finally, “but not close cooperation.”
Conway gave a relieved sigh. “The structure behind me contains a compartment designed for the confinement and study of local fauna under conditions of minimum physical restraint. For the protection of observers, the compartment is divided by an invisible but extremely hard wall. Would a close approach for purposes of physical examination be possible in those conditions?”
“Provided the strength of the invisible wall is demonstrated,” the Gogleskan said cautiously, “a close approach is possible.”
Wainright cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, Doctor. Until now there has been no need to use that room and I’ve been storing fuel cells in it. Give me twenty minutes to tidy up.”
While Khone and Conway walked slowly around to the rear of the building, he explained that the compartment had, as the healer could see, an external opening which allowed confined life-forms to return to their own environment quickly after release. No restraints whatsoever would be placed on Khone, Conway reassured the other, and it could break off any discussion or examination at will.
His intention was to try to find some explanation for the Cogleskan b
ehavior by a close study of the physiology of the species, with particular emphasis on the cranial area, which displayed features completely new to Conway and which, for this reason, might suggest a line of investigation. But it was not his intention to cause physical or mental distress.
“Some discomfort is expected,” the FOKT said.
To further reassure Khone, Conway entered the compartment first, and while the Gogleskan watched from the external entrance, he demonstrated with his fists and feet the strength of the transparent wall. Indicating the ceiling, he briefly described the purpose of the two-way communicator and the projectors of the nonmaterial restraining and manipulation devices, which would be used only with Khone’s express permission. Then he went through the small door, outlined in white for visibility in that totally invisible wall, and left the FOKT to get used to the place.
Wainright had already moved the fuel cells from the observer’s half of the compartment, and had replaced them with a tri-di projector, recordings made the previous day as well as basic information tapes of the type used during other-species first contacts, and all of Conway’s medical equipment.
“I’ll monitor and record from the comm center next door,” Wainright said, pausing for a moment in the internal entrance. “Khone has already seen the information tapes, but I thought you might want to rerun the five-minute sequence on Sector General. If you need anything else, Doctor, let me know.”
They were left alone in the compartment, separated only by a thin, transparent wall and about three meters of distance, which was much too far.
Conway placed the palm of one hand against the transparent surface at waist level, and said, “Please approach as closely as possible and try to place a manipulatory appendage on the other side of the transparent wall occupied by mine. There is no urgency. The purpose is to accustom you to close proximity to me without actual physical contact.
He went on talking reassuringly as Khone came closer and, after several attempts and withdrawals, placed its cluster of digits opposite Conway’s hand. They were now separated by less than half an inch. Slowly he used his other hand to bring out his scanner and place that, too, against the wall on a level with the FOKT’s cranium. Without being asked, the Gogleskan pressed the side of its head section against the invisible surface.
“Excellent!” Conway said, refocusing his scanner. He went on. “While there are elements of the Gogleskan physiology which are completely strange to me, as a whole the life-form is similar to many warm-blooded oxygen-breathing species. The differences are centered in the cranial area, and it is this which requires examination and an explanation which might not have a purely physical basis.
“In short,” he went on, “we are examining a fairly normal lifeform that occasionally behaves abnormally. Now, if we accept that behavior patterns are established by environmental and evolutionary factors, we should begin by examining your past.”
He gave Khone a moment to think, then continued. “Lieutenant Wainright, who admits to being a fairly good amateur archeologist, tells me that your world has been remarkably stable since the time your presapient ancestors evolved. There have been no orbital changes, no major seismic disturbances, no ice ages or any marked alterations in the climatology. All of which indicates that your particular behavior pattern, the one which is presently hampering your progress as a culture, was evolved in response to a very early threat from natural enemies. What are, or were, these enemies?”
“We have no natural enemies,” Khone replied promptly. “There is nothing on Goglesk which threatens us except ourselves.”
Conway had trouble believing that. He moved his scanner to one of the areas where a sting lay partially hidden by cranial hair and then followed its connections to the poison sac while an enlarged picture of the process was projected onto the screen for Khone’s benefit. He said, “That is a potent natural weapon whether it was used for attack or defense, and it would not have evolved without reason. Are there any memories, any written or spoken history, any fossil remains of a life-form so ferocious that it caused such a deadly defense to evolve?”
The answer was again no, but Conway had to ask the help of Wainright to explain fossils to the Gogleskan. It transpired that Khone had seen fossil remains from time to time but had not realized what they were or considered them of any importance. As a science archeology was unknown to its people. But now that Khone knew what the odd-shaped marks and objects in certain rocks signified, it seemed likely that the healer would father a new science.
“Have you experienced any dreams or nightmares about such a beast?” Conway asked, without looking up from his scanner.
“Only the phantasms of childhood,” Khone said quickly, giving Conway the impression that it wanted to change the subject. “They rarely trouble adult minds.”
“But when you do dream about them,” Conway persisted, “is it possible to remember and descril — e this creature or creatures?”
Almost a full minute passed before the Gogleskan replied, and during that time Conway’s scanner showed a perceptible bunching of the muscles surrounding the poison sac and at the base of the stings. Plainly he was moving into a very sensitive area. This answer, he thought, was going to be an important one.
But when it came the answer was disappointing, and seemed to invite only more questions.
“It is not a creature with a definite physical form,” the FOKT said. “In the dreams there is a feeling of great danger, a formless threat from a fast-moving, ferocious entity which bites and tears and engulfs. It is a phantasm which frightens the young, and the thought of it distresses adults. The young may give way to their fears and join together for mutual comfort, because they lack the physical strength to inflict major damage to their surroundings. But adults must avoid such mental bad habits and remain mentally and physically apart.”
Baffled, Conway said, “Are you telling me that young Gogleskans may link together at will, but not the adults?”
“It is difficult to stop them doing so,” the FOKT replied. “But it is discouraged lest a habit develops which would be too difficult to break in adulthood. And while I realize that you are anxious to study the joining process without subjecting our artifacts to damage, to closely observe a joining between children without causing mental distress in the parents concerned, followed by an involuntary adult joining, would be impossible.”
Conway sighed. Khone was way ahead of him, because that would have been his next request. Instead, he said, “Does my race in any way resemble this phantasm of your youth?”
“No,” Khone replied. “But your close approach of yesterday, and in particular your physical contact with a Gogleskan, appeared to be a threat. The reaction and emission of the distress call was instinctive, not logical.”
Helplessly, Conway said, “If we knew exactly what was responsible for what is clearly a species-wide panic reaction, we could try to negate it. But what is this bogeyman of yours?”
The lengthy silence which followed was broken by Wainright clearing his throat. Hesitantly, he said, “Considering the vague description, the speed and silence of its approach, and the fact that it rends and engulfs its prey, could it have been a large, airborne predator?”
Conway thought about that while he charted the nerve connections between the thin, shining tendrils lying in the coarser hair and the small, mineral-rich lobe at the center of the brain where they originated. He said, “Is there fossil evidence for such a creature? And isn’t it possible, if this memory goes back to presapient times to the period when the FOKTs were sea-dwellers, that the predator was a swimmer rather than a flyer?”
The communicator was silent for a moment; then Wainright said, “I found no evidence of large avians on the few sites I examined, Doctor. But if we are going really far back to the time when all Gogleskan life was in the oceans, then some of it was very large indeed. There is an area of seabed which was thrown up fairly recently, in geological terms, about twenty miles south of here. I deepprobed a fossil-ric
h section which was once a deep subsea valley, meaning to work up a computer reconstruction whenever I had a few hours to spare. It made a very confusing picture, because a large number of the fossil remains are damaged or incomplete.”
“Distortion due to seismic activity, do you think?” Conway asked.
“It’s possible,” the Lieutenant said doubtfully. “But my guess would be that it was inflicted by a contemporary agency. But the tape is in my room, Doctor. Shall I fetch it and see if the pictures, confusing as they are to me, jog our friend’s racial memory?”
“Yes, please,” Conway said. To Khone he went on. “If the recollection is not too distressing, can you tell me the number of times you have joined with other adults in response to a real or imagined threat? And can you describe the physical, mental, and emotional stages before, during, and subsequent to a joining? I do not wish to cause you pain, but it is important that this process be studied and understood if an answer to the problem is to be found.”
It was obvious that the recollection was causing discomfort to Khone, and equally plain that the healer was going to cooperate to the best of its ability. Before yesterday, it told Conway, there had been three previous joinings. The sequence of events was, firstly, the accident or sudden surprise or physical threat which caused the being endangered to emit an audible distress signal which drew all of its fellows within hearing to it as well as placing them in the same emotional state. If one being was threatened then everyone within audible range was threatened and was under the same compulsion to react, to join and overcome the threat. Khone indicated the organ which produced the signal, a membrane which could be made to vibrate independent of the respiratory system.
