“On second thought, don’t tell me,” O’Mara said angrily. “I’ll tell you what I know about the patient first, then you can try to reduce my level of ignorance. That way we will avoid repetition and save time. I don’t know how much time it will give us to talk without anotherinterruption. Not a lot, I suspect, so I’ll have to speak quickly …”
Patient AUGL-One Sixteen was a long-stay patient whose time in Sector General exceeded that of many of the medical staff. The clinical picture had been and still remained obscure. Several of the hospital’s top Diagnosticians had examined it, finding signs of strain in certain areas of the patient’s body plating that partly explained its discomfort — a being who was largely exoskeletal, lazy, and something of a glutton could only put on weight from the inside. The generally agreed diagnosis was hypochondria and the condition incurable.
The Chalder had become seriously ill only when there was talk of sending it home, and so the hospital had acquired a permanent patient. It did not mind. Visiting as well as hospital medics and psychologists had given it a going over, and continued to do so, as did the interns and nurses of all the life-forms represented on the staff. It had been probed, pried into, and unmercifully pounded by trainees of varying degrees of gentleness, and it loved every minute of it. The hospital’s teaching staff were happy with the arrangement and so was the Chalder.
“Nobody mentions going home to it anymore,” O’Mara ended. “Did you?”
“Yes,” Cha Thrat said.
O’Mara made another untranslatable noise and she went on quickly. “This explains why the nurses ignored it when other patients needed treatment, and supports my own diagnosis of an unspecified ruler’s disease that—”
“Listen, don’t speak!” the Earth-human said sharply. The patient seemed to be drifting closer. “My depart-mep^has tried to get to the root causes of One Sixteen’s hypochondria, but I was not required to solve its problem so it remained unsolved. This sounds like an excuse,and it is. But you must understand that Sector General is not and can never be a psychiatric hospital. Can you imagine a place like this where a large proportion of the multispecies patients, the mere sight of which gives sane people nightmares, are physically fit and mentally disturbed? Can you imagine the problems of other-species treatment and restraint? It is difficult enough to be responsible for the mental well-being of the staff without adding disturbed patients, even a harmlessly disturbed patient like One Sixteen, to my load. When a medically ill patient displays signs of mental instability it is kept under close observation, restrained if necessary, and returned to its own people for the appropriate treatment as soon as it is physically well enough to be discharged.”
“I understand,” Cha Thrat said. “The explanation excuses you.”
The Earth-human grew pinker in the face, then said, “Listen carefully, Cha Thrat, this is important. The Chalders are one of the few intelligent species whose personal names are used only between mates, members of the immediate family, or very special friends. Yet you, an other-species stranger, have been told, and have spoken aloud, One Sixteen’s personal name. Have you done this in ignorance? Do you realize that this exchange of names means that anything you may have said to it, or any future action you may have promised, is as binding as the most solemn promise given before the highest imaginable physical or metaphysical authority?”
“Do you realize now how serious this is?” O’Mara went on in a tone of quiet urgency. “Why did it tell you its name? What, exactly, was said between you?”
She could not speak for a moment because the patient had moved very close, so close that she could see the individual points of its six rows of teeth. A strangely detached and uncaring portion of her mind wonderedwhat evolutionary imperative had caused the upper three rows to be longer than the lower set. Then the jaw snapped shut with a boney crash that was muffled by the surrounding water, and the caring part of her mind wondered what it would sound like if a limb or her torso were between those teeth.
“Have you fallen asleep?” O’Mara snapped. “No,” she said, wondering why an intelligent being had asked such a stupid question. “We talked because it was lonely and unhappy. The other nurses were busy with a post-op patient and I was not. I told it about Som-maradva and the circumstances that led to me coming here, and some of the things I would be able to do if I qualified for Sector General. It said that I was brave and resourceful, not sick and old and increasingly fearful likeitself.
“It said that many times it dreamed of swimming free in the warm ocean of Chalderescol,” she went on, “instead of this aseptic, water-filled box with its plastic, inedible vegetation. It could talk about the home world to other AUGL patients, but much of their post-op recovery time was spent under sedation. The medical staff were pleasant to it and would talk, on the rare occasions when they had time to do so. It said that it would never escape from the hospital, that it was too old and frightened and sick.”
“Escape?” O’Mara said. “If our permanent patient has begun to regard the hospital as a prison, that is a very healthy sign, psychologically. But go on, what were you saying to it?”
“We spoke of general subjects,” she replied. “Our worlds, our work, our past experiences, our friends and families, our opinions—”
“Yes, yes,” the Earth-human said impatiently, looking at One Sixteen, who was edging closer. “I’m not inter-ested in the small talk. What did you say that might have brought on this trouble?”
Cha Thrat tried to choose the words that would describe the situation concisely, accurately, and briefly as she replied, “It told me about the space accident and injuries that brought it here originally, and the continuing but irregular episodes of pain that keep it here, and of its deep unhappiness with its existence generally.
“I was uncertain of its exact status on Chalderescol,” she went on, “but from the way it had described its work I judged it to be an upper-level warrior, at least, if not a ruler. By that time we had exchanged names, so I decided to tell it that the treatment being provided by the hospital was palliative rather than curative, and it was being treated for the wrong sickness. I said that its malady was not unknown to me and, although I was not qualified to treat the condition, there were wizards on Sommaradva capable of doing so. I suggested, on several occasions, that it was becoming institutionalized and that it might be happier if it returned home.”
The patient was very close to them now. Its massive mouth was closed but not still, because there was a regular chewing motion that suggested that the teeth were grinding together. The movement was accompanied by a high-pitched, bubbling moan that was both frightening and strangely pitiful.
“Go on,” O’Mara said softly, “but be very careful what you say.”
“There is little more to tell,” Cha Thrat said. “During our last meeting I told it that I was leaving for a two-day rest period. It would speak only of the wizards, and wanted to know if they could cure its fear as well as the pains. It asked me as a friend to treat it, or send for one of our Sommaradvan brothers who would be able to cureit. I told it that I had some knowledge of the spells of the wizards, but not enough to risk treating it, and that I lacked the status and authority to summon a wizard to the hospital.”
“What was the response to that?” O’Mara asked.
“None,” Cha Thrat said. “It would not speak to methereafter.”
Abruptly they were looking into the AUGL’s open mouth, but it was keeping its uncomfortably short distance as it said, “You were not like the others, who did nothing and promised nothing. You held out the hope of a cure by your wizards, then withdrew it. You cause me pain that is many times worse than that which keeps me here. Go away, Cha Thrat. For your own safety, goaway.”