“No!” the Captain said.
Murchison spoke a few words of a kind not normally used by an Earth-human female, then went on. “Captain, we have a patient here, in very serious condition, who is the sole survivor of a disease-stricken ship. You know as well as I that in this situation, you do exactly as Prilicla tells you.”
“No,” Fletcher repeated. In a quieter but no less firm voice it went on. “I understand your feelings, Pathologist. But are they really yours? You still haven’t convinced me that that thing is harmless. I’m remembering those crew members and, well, it might be pretending to be sick. It could be controlling, or at least influencing, the minds of all of you. The quarantine regulations remain in force. Until the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, or more likely the decontamination squad clears it, nothing or nobody leaves that ship.”
Cha Thrat was supporting Crelyarrel in three of her small, upper hands. The DTRC’s body, now that she knew it for what it was, no longer looked or felt repug-nant to her. The control tendrils hung limply between her LF002digits and the color of its skin was lightening and beginning to resemble that of its dead friends in the Rhiim nest. Had it to die, too, she wondered sadly, because two different people held opposing viewpoints that they both knew to be right?Proving one of them wrong, especially when the being concerned was a ruler, would have serious personal repercussions, and she was beginning to wonder if she had always been as right as she thought she had been. Perhaps her life would have been happier if, on Sommar-adva and at Sector General, she had been more doubtful about some of her certainties.
“Friend Fletcher,” Prilicla said quietly. “As an empath I am influenced by feelings of everyone around me. Now I accept that there are beings who, by word or deed or omission, can give outward expression to emotions that they do not feel. But it is impossible for an intelligent entity to produce false emotional radiation, to lie with its mind. Another empath would know this to be so, but as a nonempath you must take my word for it. The survivor cannot and will not harm anyone.”
The Captain was silent for a moment, then it said, “I’m sorry, Senior Physician. I’m still not fully convinced that it is not speaking through you and controlling your minds, and I cannot risk letting it aboard this ship.”
In this situation there was no doubt about who was right or about what she must do, Cha Thrat thought, because a gentle little being like Prilicla might not be capable of doing it.
“Doctor Danalta,” she said, “will you please go quickly to the boarding tube and take up a position andshape that will discourage any Monitor Corps officer from sealing, dismantling, or otherwise closing it to two-way traffic. Naturally, you should try not to hurt any such officer, and I doubt that lethal weapons will be deployed against you, for no other reason than that anything powerful enough to hurt you would seriously damage the hull, but if—”
“Technician!”
Even though the Captain was on Rhatiwar’s control deck and at extreme range for Prilicla’s empathic faculty, the feeling of outrage accompanying the word was making the little Cinrusskin quiver in every limb. Then gradually the trembling subsided as Fletcher brought his anger under control.
“Very well, Senior Physician,” it said coldly. “Against my expressed wishes and on your own responsibility, the boarding tube will remain open. You may move freely between there and the casualty deck, but the rest of this ship will be closed to your people and that … that thing you insist is a survivor. The matter of Cha Thrat’s gross insubordination, with the strong possibility of a charge of incitement to mutiny, will be pursued later.”
“Thank you, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla said. Then, switching off its mike, it went on. “And you, friend Cha. You have displayed great resourcefulness as well as insubordination. But I am afraid that, even when it is proved that you acted correctly, the Captain’s present feelings toward you are of the kind that I have found to be not only unfriendly but extremely long-lasting.”
Murchison did not speak until they were in the Rhiim compartment, when it paused in its scanner examination of Crelyarrel to look at her. The expression and tone of voice, Cha Thrat knew from the Earth-human component of her mind, expressed puzzlement and sympathyas it said, “How can one being get into so much trouble in such a short time? What got into you, ChaThrat?”
Prilicla trembled slightly but did not speak.
CHAPTER 20
Cha Thrat’s arrival for her appointment with the Chief Psychologist was punctual to the second, because she had been told that O’Mara considered being too early to be as wasteful of time as being too late. But on this occasion the impunctuality, although indirectly her fault, was on O’Mara’s side. The Earth-human Braithwaite, who was the sole occupant of the large outer office, explained.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Cha Thrat,” it said, inclining its head toward O’Mara’s door, “but that meeting is running late. Senior Physician Cresk-Sar and, in order of seniority, Colonel Skempton, Major Fletcher, and Lieutenant Tim-mins are with him. The door is supposed to be soundproof, but sometimes I can hear them talking about you.”
It smiled sympathetically, pointed to the nearest of the three unoccupied console desks beside it, and said, “Sit there, you should find that one fairly comfortable while we’re waiting for the verdict. Try not to worry, Cha Thrat, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my work.”
Cha Thrat said that she did not mind, and was sur-prised when the screen on the desk she was occupying lit up with Braithwaite’s work. She did not know what the Earth-human was doing, but while she was trying to understand it the realization came that it was deliberately giving her something to occupy her mind other than the things they were probably saying about her in the next room.
As one of the wizard’s principal assistants, Braith-waite was capable of working a few helpful spells of its own.
Since her return to the hospital, Cha Thrat had been relegated to a kind of administrative hyperspace. Maintenance Department wanted nothing to do with her, the Monitor Corps ruler she had so grievously offended on Rhabwar seemed to have forgotten her very existence, and the medical training people treated her with sympathy and great care, much as they would a patient who was not expected to be long among them.
Officially there was nothing for her to do, but unofficially she had never been busier in her whole life.
Diagnostician Conway had been very pleased with her work on Goglesk, and had asked her to visit Khone as often as possible because Cha Thrat and itself were the only people that the FOKT would allow within touching distance, although that situation was beginning to change for the better. With behind-the-scenes assistance from the Chief Psychologist and Prilicla, progress was being made toward breaking down the Gogleskan racial conditioning, and Ees-Tawn was working on a miniature distorter, permanently attached to the subject and triggered automatically during the first microseconds of a distress call, which would make it impossible for the wearer to initiate one of the suicidal joinings.
O’Mara had warned them that the final solution to the Gogleskan problem might take many generations, that Khone would never be completely comfortable at the close approach or touch of another person, regardless of species, but that its offspring was already giving indications of being quite happy among strangers.
Thornnastor and Murchison had been successful in isolating and finding a specific against the pathogen affecting Crelyarrel, although they had admitted to Cha Thrat that the principal reason for its survival on the Rhiim ship was its possession of a fair degree of natural resistance. Now the little symbote was going from strength to strength, and was beginning to concern itself about the health and comfort of the FGHJ host creatures. It wanted to know how soon new Rhiim parasites could be brought to Sector General to take charge of them.