Being Rhone’s friend was much, much worse than being its enemy.
CHAPTER 14
There was fear as she had never known it before — the sudden, overriding, and senseless fear of everything and everyone that was not joined tightly to her for the group defense; and a terrible, blind fury that diminished the fear; and the memories and expectation of pains past, present, and to come. And with those fearful memories there came a dreadful and confused nightmare of all the frightful and painful things that had ever happened to her — on Sommaradva and Goglesk and in Sector General. Many elements of the nightmare were utterlystrange to her; the feeling of terror at the sight of Prilicla, which was ridiculous, and the sense of loss at the departure of the male Gogleskan who had fathered the child within her. But now there was no fear of theoutsized, off-world animated doll who was trying to help her.
Even with the confusion of fear, pain, and alien experiences dulling her capacity to think, the conclusion was inescapable. Khone had invaded her mind.
Now she knew what it was like to be a Gogleskan; at a time like this the choice was simple. Friends joined and enemies — everyone and everything that was not part of the group — were attacked and destroyed. She wanted to break everything in the room, the furniture, instruments, decorations, and then tear down the flimsywalls, and she wanted to drag Khone around with her to help her do it. Desperately she tried to control the blind and utterly alien fury that was building up in her.
Amid the storm of Gogleskan impressions a tiny part of her own mind surfaced for a moment, observing that the tight grip she retained on Khone’s fur must have fooled its subconscious into believing that she had joined with it, and was therefore a friend worthy of mind-sharing.
I am Cha Thrat, she told herself fiercely, once a Som-maradvan warrior-surgeon and now a trainee maintenance technician of Sector General. I am not Khone of Goglesk and I am not here to join and destroy …
But this was a joining, and memories of a larger, more destructive joining came crowding into her mind.
She seemed to be standing on top of a land vehicle stopped on high ground overlooking the town, watching the joining as it happened. The Earth-human Wainright was beside her, warning her that the Gogleskans were dangerously close, that they should leave, that there was nothing she could do and, for some strange reason, while it was saying these things it sometimes called “Doctor” but more often “sir.” She felt very bad because she knew that the joining had been her fault, that it had happenedbecause she had tried to help, and had touched, an industrial accident casualty. Below her she could clearly see Khone attaching itself to the other Gogleskans without being able to understand the reason, and at the same time she was Khone and knew the reason.
With individual Gogleskans hurrying to join it from nearby buildings, moored ships, and surrounding tree dwellings, the group-entity became a great, mobile, stinging carpet that crawled around large buildings and engulfed small ones as if it did not know or care what it was doing. In its wake it left a trail of smashed equipment, vehicles, dead animals, and a capsized ship. The group-entity moved inland to continue its self-destructive defense against an enemy out of prehistory.
In spite of the terrible fear of that nonexistent enemy in Khone’s mind, which was now her mind, Cha Thrat tried to make herself think logically about what had happened to her. She thought of the wizard O’Mara and how it had said that Educator tapes would never be for her, and remembered the reasons it had given. Now she knew what it was like to have a completely alien entity occupying her mind, and she wondered if her sanity would be affected. Perhaps the fact that Khone, like herself, was a female might make a difference.
But there was a growing realization that it was not only Khone’s mind and memories that she had to contend with. The memory and viewpoint from the top of the land vehicle was not from the Gogleskan’s mind, nor her own. There were memories of the ambulance ship and the exploits of its medical team that were definitely not her own, and some vivid and — to her — fearful and wonderful recollections of events in Sector General that were totally outside her experience. Had O’Mara been right? Were factual recollections and insane fantasies intermingling, and she was no longer sane?But she did not think she was insane. Madness was supposed to be an escape from a too-painful reality to a condition that was more bearable. There was too much pain here and the memories or fantasies were too painfully sharp. And one of them was of Lieutenant] Wainright standing beside her, its head on a level with! hers, and calling her “sir.”
With a sudden shiver of fear and wonder she realized what was happening. She was sharing Rhone’s mind, and Khone had earlier shared it with someone else.
Conway!
For some time Cha Thrat had been aware of Prilicla’s! voice in her earpiece, but the words were just sounds” without meaning to her already overloaded mind. Then she felt its warmth and sympathy and reassurance all around her, and the pain and confusion receded a little so that the meaning came through.
“Cha Thrat, my friend,” the empath was saying, “please respond. You have been holding onto the patient’s fur for the past few minutes, not doing anything and not answering us. I am on the roof directly above you, and your emotional radiation distresses me. Please, what is wrong? Have you been stung?”
“N-no,” she replied shakily, “there is no physical damage. I feel badly confused and frightened, and the patient is—”
“I can read your feelings, Cha Thrat,” Prilicla said gently, “but not the reason for them. There is nothing to be ashamed of, you’ve already done more than could be reasonably expected of you, and it was unfair of us to let you volunteer for this operation in the first place. We are in danger of losing the patient. Please withdraw and let me perform the surgery—”
“No,” Cha Thrat said, feeling Rhone’s body twitch in her hands. The long, silvery tendrils that were the or-ganic conductors tor metelepathy-by-wire were still lying across her head, and anything Cha Thrat felt or heard or thought was immediately available to Khone, who did not like the idea of an alien monster operating on it, for reasons that were both personal and medical. Cha Thrat added, “Please give me a moment. I’m beginning to regain control of my mind.” “You are,” Prilicla said, “but hurry.” Incredibly, it was her mind-partner who was doing most to aid the process. In common with the rest of its long-suffering and nightmare-ridden species, it had learned how to control and compartmentalize its thinking, feelings, and natural urges so that the enforcedloneliness necessary to avoid a joining was not only bearable but, at times, happy. And now the Conway-memories of Sector General and some of its monstrous patients were surging into the forefront of her mind.
Be selective, Khone was telling her. Use only what isuseful.
All the memories and experience of a Sommaradvan warrior-surgeon, a Gogleskan healer, and half an Earth-human lifetime spent in Sector General were hers, and with that vast quantity of other-species medical and physiological expertise available she could not believe that, even at this late stage, the Khone case was hopeless. Then from somewhere in that vast and incredibly varied store of knowledge, the glimmerings of an idea began to take shape.
“I no longer feel that surgical intervention is the answer,” she said firmly, “even as a last resort. It is unlikely that the patient would survive.”