“Yes,” said the Hudlar. “But in this situation the medical library data would have been of more use to you. Did Morredeth discuss its condition with you?”
“No,” he replied. “When I asked, it said that it didn’t want to talk about it. I was curious but decided that its ailment might be embarrassing and was none of my business anyway, and dropped the subject.”
“Sometimes Patient Morredeth will not talk about its troubles,” said the nurse, “and at other times it will. If you ask tomorrow or the next day it will probably tell you about its accident and the long-term results, which are very serious but not lifethreatening, in great detail. I am telling you this because nearly everyone in the ward knows of Morredeth’s problem, so I am not breaking patient confidentiality by discussing the physiological and emotional aspects of the case with you.”
“I understand,” he said.
“You do not understand,” said the Hudlar, moving closer to his bed and lowering its voice in inverse proportion to the distance, “but soon you will. If any of the anatomical terms I use are unclear, which is unlikely considering your medical history and prior experience of hospital treatments, please stop me and ask for a layperson’s explanation. Shall I begin?”
Hewlitt stared at the nurse’s massive body balanced on its six, curling tentacles and wondered if there was any intelligent species, regardless of its size, shape, or number of limbs, whose members did not enjoy a good gossip.
Remembering the trouble that a few unthinking words had caused with Morredeth, Hewlitt decided not to ask the question aloud.
“Anatomically,” the Hudlar went on in exactly the same tone as that used by Senior Physician Medalont to its trainees, “the most important fact that you should know about Kelgians is that, apart from the thin-walled, cranial casing that protects the brain, the DBLF classification has no bony structure. Their bodies are composed of an outer cylinder of musculature which, in addition to assisting with locomotion, serves as protection for the vital organs within it. To the minds of beings like ourselves, whose bodies are more generously reinforced with bone structure, this protection seems far from adequate. Another severe disadvantage in the event of injury is the complex and extremely vulnerable circulatory system. The blood supply, which has to feed the large bands of muscle encircling the body, lies just beneath the skin, as does the nerve network that controls the mobile fur. Some protection is given by the thickness of the fur, but not against deep, lacerated wounding of more than one-tenth of the body area sustained as the result of Patient Morredeth being thrown against an uneven metal obstruction during a space collision…”
An injury which in many other species would be considered superficial, the nurse explained, could result in a Kelgian bleeding to death within a few minutes.
The emergency coagulant administered at the time of the accident had checked the bleeding and saved Morredeth’s life, but at a price. On the ambulance ship and later in hospital the damaged major blood vessels had been repaired, but even Sector General’s DBLF microsurgery team had been unable to save the capilliary and nerve networks that had served the lost or damaged fur. As a result the beautiful Kelgian fur, which played such an important tactile as well as an aesthetic visual role between them during the preliminaries to courtship and mating, would never grow properly in those areas. Or if it did grow, the fur would be stiff, yellow, lifeless, and visually repulsive to another Kelgian of either gender.
It was possible to have the damaged area covered with artificial fur, but the synthetic material lacked the mobility and the deep, rich luster of living fur and would be immediately recognized for what it was. Kelgians in Morredeth’s situation were usually too proud to be seen wearing such a patch and elected instead to live and work in solitude or with minimum social contact.
“The other Kelgians on the medical staff,” the Hudlar went on, “tell me that Morredeth is, or was, a particularly handsome young female who has no longer any hope of mating or living a normal life. At present its problem is emotional rather than medical.”
“And I,” said Hewlitt, feeling hot with embarrassment, “had to talk to it about my cat’s beautiful fur. I’m surprised it didn’t hit me with something. Is there nothing more that can be done for it? And should I apologize, or would that just make matters worse?”
“In the space of a few days,” said the Hudlar, ignoring the question, “you appear to be at ease, or even on terms of friendship, with Horrantor, Bowab, and Morredeth. On arrival you displayed symptoms of severe xenophobia which have since disappeared. If this is a true reaction to your first multiple, other-species contacts and not just a polite pretense of accepting an emotionally disturbing situation that you could do nothing about, then I am impressed with your ability to adapt. But I find your recent behavior, well, surprising.”
“It wasn’t a pretense,” he said without hesitation, “and I’m not as polite as all that. Maybe it was because, as the only healthy patient in the ward, I was bored and curious, and it was you who suggested that I should try talking to the other patients in the first place. They all looked like waking nightmares to me and still do. But something, I don’t know what exactly, made me want to meet them. It was a surprise to me, too.”
The nurse’s speaking membrane vibrated, too slowly for any words to form, and Hewlitt wondered if he was seeing the Hudlar equivalent of a stammer of hesitation. Finally it said, “To answer your earlier question, there is nothing more that can be done for Morredeth other than to change its dressings, which will heal the surface wounding without regenerating the damage to the underlying nerve network, and to apply the nonmedical treatment prescribed by Senior Physician Medalont at the suggestion of Padre Lioren, who until now has been visiting Morredeth every day. Today it called but remained in the nurses’ station, where it listened to the conversation picked up by your medical monitor before—”
“It listened to our private conversation?” Hewlitt broke in. “That, that was wrong! I didn’t know my monitor could be used that way. I, we might have said something that others were not supposed to hear.”
“You did,” said the nurse, “but Leethveeschi is used to hearing derogatory remarks about itself. Your monitor is capable of picking up words spoken very faintly in case you feel something is going wrong before the instrument does and call for help. Lioren said that the scremman game with a new and untutored player was helping to take the patient’s mind off its troubles, and was probably doing more good than anything it could have said or done just then, and that it would visit Morredeth tomorrow.”
Before Hewlitt could reply, it went on, “Morredeth’s nonmedical treatment includes a reduction in night sedation, which has been massive up until now, so that it will have more time to be alone with its thoughts. Medalont and Lioren are hoping that this will enable it to come to terms with its emotional problems. During the day, you may have noticed, it does not give itself time to think. As of tonight I have been instructed not to speak more than a few words to it unless there are strong medical reasons for doing so. You Earth-people have a saying that describes the situation very well, but my own feeling is that a healer should never be cruel to be kind, especially when a patient’s suffering can be reduced by engaging in a friendly conversation with it. I am not, therefore, in agreement with this proposed course of treatment.”
Once again the nurse’s speaking membrane twitched silently. Hewlitt clapped a hand over his monitor, hoping that he was covering the sound sensor so that no word of its mutinous feelings would reach a more senior medic who might want to listen to the conversation later.