"That was quick."
"Accidental, too. Still ... Be of good cheer. Sleep well. Adieu."
"G'night."
I headed for the elevators, caught one to my floor and sought our room. Lacking a key, I knocked.
There was no response for a time. Then, just as I was about to knock again, Nadler's voice inquired, "Who is it?"
"Me. Cassidy," I said.
"Come on ahead. It's unlocked."
Trusting, preoccupied and a trifle tired, I turned the knob, pushed and entered. A mistake anyone could have made.
"Ted! What the hell is-" and by then a vine had snagged me by the leg and another was slipping about my shoulder-"it?" I inquired, going airborne.
I struggled, of course. Who wouldn't? But the thing raised me a good five feet into the air, shifting me into a horizontal position directly above its less than attractive self. It then proceeded to turn me upside down, so that my field of vision was dominated by its gray-green bulk, its tub of slime and its octopal members all awrithe. I had a hunch it meant me ill even before its leafy appendages came open like switchblades, showing me-their moist, spiny and suspiciously ruddy insides.
I let out a bleat and tore at the vines. Then something that felt like a red-hot poker occurred behind my eyes and passed from side to side and back within my head. Stark terror poured forth, and I twisted convulsively within the living bonds.
Then came what seemed a sharp whistling noise, the stabbing sensation was gone from my cranium, the vines slackened, collapsed, and I fell, twisting, to the carpet, narrowly missing the bucket's rim. A bit of the slime slopped over onto me, and inert tentacles fell like holiday streamers about me. I moaned and reached over to rub my shoulder.
"He's hurt!" came a voice that I recognized as Ragma's.
I turned my head to receive the sympathy I heard rushing toward me on little furry feet and big shod ones.
However, Ragma in his dog suit and Nadler and Paul Byler in equally appropriate garb rushed past me, squatted about the tub and began ministering to the militant vegetable. I crawled off into a corner, where I regained my feet if not my composure. Then I began mouthing obscenities, which were ignored. Finally, I shrugged, wiped the slime from my sleeve, found a chair, lit a cigarette and watched the show.
They raised the limp members and manipulated them, massaged them. Ragma tore off into the next room and returned with what appeared to be an elaborate lamp, which he plugged into an outlet and focussed on the nasty shrub. Producing an atomizer, he sprayed its vicious leaves. He stirred the slime. He dumped some chemicals into it.
"What could have gone wrong?" Nadler said.
"I have no idea," Ragma replied. "There! I think he is coming around!"
The tentacles began to twitch, like shocked serpents. Then the leaves opened and closed, slowly. A series of shudders shook the thing. Finally, it reared itself upright once again, extended all its members, let them go slack, extended them again, relaxed again.
"That's better," Ragma said
"Anybody care how I'm feeling?" I asked.
Ragma turned and glared at me.
"You!" he said. "Just what did you do to poor Doctor M'mrm'mlrr, anyway?"
"Come again? My hearing seems to have been affected."
"What did you do to Doctor M'mrm'mlrr?"
"Thank you. That is what I thought you said. Damned if I know. Who is Doctor Murmur?"
"M'mrm'mlrr," he corrected. "Doctor M'mrm'mlrr is the telepathic analyst I brought to examine you. We made a good connection and got him here ahead of schedule. Then the first thing you do when he tries to examine you is incapacitate him."
"That thing," I inquired, gesturing at the tub and its occupant, "is the telepath?"
"Not everyone is a member of the animal kingdom, as you define it," he said. "The doctor is a representative of a totally different line of life development than your own. Anything wrong with that? Are you prejudiced against plants or something?"
"My prejudice is against being seized, squeezed and waved about in the air."
"The doctor practices a technique known as assault therapy."
"Then he should make allowance for the occasional patient who is not a pacifist. I don't know what I did, but I am glad that I did it."
Ragma turned away, cocked his head as if studying a gramophone horn, then announced, "He is feeling better. He wishes to meditate for a time. We are to leave the light on. It should not be overlong."
The vines stirred, moved to bunch themselves near the special lamp. Doctor M'mrm'mirr grew still.
"Why does he want to assault his patients?" I asked. "It seems somewhat counterproductive to the building up of a good practice."
Ragma sighed and turned my way again.
"He does not do it to alienate his patients," he said. "He does it to help them. I guess that it is asking too much to expect you to appreciate the centuries of subtle philosophizing his people have devoted to this sort of thing."
"Yes," I replied.
"The theory is that any primary emotion can be used as a mnemomolecular key. Its skilled induction provides a telepath of his species with access to all of an individual's life experiences with resonance in that area. Now, it has been found that fear is a significant component of the problems most of his patients bring to him. Therefore, by inducing a flight response and frustrating it, he is able to sustain the emotion and keep the patient within range of therapy simultaneously. That way, he can review the emotive field in a single session."
"Does he eat his mistakes?" I asked.
"He has no control over his ancestry," Ragma replied. "Do you brachiate?" Then: "Never mind," he said. "You do. I forgot."
I turned to Nadler, who had just approached, and Paul, who was standing nearby, smirking.
"I take it all this sounds proper to you," I said, addressing them both.
Paul shrugged and Nadler said, "If it gets the job done."
I sighed.
"I suppose you are right," I said. Then: "Paul, what are you doing here?"
"Fellow employee," he replied. "I was recruited around the same time as yourself. By the way, I am sorry about that day back at your place. It was a matter of life and death, you know. Mine."
"Forget it," I said. "In what capacity have they got you on the payroll?"
"He is our expert on the stone," Nadler said. "He knows more about it than any other man alive."
"You've given up on the crown jewels, then?" I asked.
Paul winced. He nodded.
"You know, then," he said. "Yes, it was a belated youthful geste that got out of hand. Mea culpa. We had not anticipated the involvement of criminals to this extent. After I recovered from their abuse, I realized the mistake we had made and set out to put things right. I told the UN people everything I knew. Had a hard time convincing them but finally did. They were decent enough not to have me locked away somewhere. Even filled me in a bit concerning your difficulties down home. But making a clean breast of it was still not enough for me. I wanted to help recover the thing. You had just returned to the States, and I figured that they would try for you again. So I decided to keep an eye on you till they did, then spike their guns on the spot. I got onto your trail at Hal's and followed you as far as the Village, but I lost you in a bar there. Didn't catch up with you again till you were back home. You know the rest."
"Yes. Another small mystery resolved. Then you were hired in the hospital, too?"
"Correct. Ted here said that if I was that concerned about the way things were going, I might as well save some wasted motion and get paid for it, too. On the books, though, I am an XT-mineralogist."