“Don’t be angry with the Hudlar nurse,” he said. “It told me that Lioren had asked and received permission from Senior Physician Medalont to reduce your night sedation so that you would have more time alone to consider your position and, they hoped, come to terms with it. To assist the process, the medical staff on night duty was forbidden to speak to you apart from the few words required while checking your life signs. The Hudlar did not agree with this form of treatment but was unable to disobey its medical superiors. Out of concern for your expected mental distress, and learning that I wanted to apologize for the furry-pet business, it asked me to talk to you.
“It did not tell me what to say,” Hewlitt went on, “only that I should try to take your mind off your troubles. Unfortunately I was not able to do that, but the fault is mine and the Hudlar is not responsible for my insensitivity and your anger.
“Then I shall not report its misconduct,” said Morredeth. “But I am still angry.”
“I understand,” said Hewlitt, “because in the beginning I felt the same anger, frustration, and bitter disappointment. The embarrassment of knowing that my friends were laughing and whispering behind my back and thinking of me as some kind of sexual cripple was.
“Your crippling was not plain for all to see,” Morredeth broke in, a sudden, muscular spasm bringing its body close to the edge of the bed. “My friends will not whisper or laugh, they will be kind and avoid me so that I will not be able to see their feelings of revulsion. You do not understand.”
“Try to lie still, dammit!” said Hewlitt. “You could fall out of bed and hurt yourself. Stop rolling about like that.”
“If the sight displeases you, leave me,” said Morredeth. “A Kelgian can sometimes control but never conceal feelings. Strong emotion is associated with involuntary fur and body movement. Didn’t you know that?”
No, but I know now, said Hewlitt under his breath. Aloud, he went on, “Even the Earth psychologists say that relieving one’s feelings is often better than keeping them bottled up. But I don’t want to leave, I’m supposed to be talking and helping to take your mind off your troubles. I’m not doing a very good job so far, am I?”
“You are doing a terrible job,” said Morredeth, “but stay if you want to.”
The violence of its body movements seemed to be diminishing, and Hewlitt decided to take a risk by not changing the subject.
“Thank you,” he said. “And of course you are right. Your situation is much worse than mine because it is permanent and visible to everyone. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot understand your feelings, because for many years I have shared the same kind of problem in reduced intensity. I don’t think that the emotional scars, and my need to live and work alone and avoid personal social contact with females, will ever heal completely. I do know how you must feel, but I also know that you will not always feel so badly.
“Have you ever thought that Lioren may be right and the Hudlar nurse wrong?” he went on. “Or that it is better to face up to your problem here and now, in hospital where help is available, instead of at home where you say you will be all alone? Or that you will not always feel so badly as you do now? People, Kelgians as well as Earth-humans, can adapt to almost anything…
“You even talk like Lioren…“began Morredeth, when it happened.
The other’s fur looked no more agitated than it had been a few minutes earlier and the uncontrolled body movements had begun to subside, so that the spasm which straightened Morredeth into a long, furry cylinder and rolled it over the edge of the bed farthest from him was completely unexpected. Without taking time to think, he grabbed its body with both hands to pull it back onto the bed. His fingers tightened over the cover for the wound dressings and he checked the other’s fall just as the retaining tapes snapped and the fabric came away in his hands.
The Kelgian gave a long, high-pitched moan like the sound of a falsetto foghorn; then its body spasmed again and rolled back to the opposite side of the bed on top of him. Hewlitt half fell, half slid onto the floor with Morredeth on top of him.
“Nurse!” he yelled.
“I’m here,” said the Hudlar, who was already inside the screens and looming over them. “Are you injured, Patient Hewlitt?”
“N-no,” he stammered. “At least, not so far.”
“Good,” said the nurse. “The DBLF classification have never used their feet as natural weapons so you will probably remain in an undamaged condition. I require assistance for a few moments but I am unwilling to waste time, or appear incapable of dealing with a simple emergency, by calling for a nurse from another ward. Are you willing to assist me?”
Me assist you? Hewlitt thought. The sound he made did not translate even to himself, but the Hudlar took it as an affirmative.
“Your present position on the floor is ideal for our purpose, it went on, “which is to help me hold Patient Morredeth still. Please put your arms around it and grip its back fur in both hands. Tighter than that, please, you will not cause pain. Regrettably, four of my limbs are needed to support my body mass, which leaves one to help you immobilize the patient and one to administer the sedative. Good, that’s it exactly.”
With both hands trying to grip the fur and the inside of his forearms pressing against its back, and helped by the one Hudlar tentacle gently but firmly encircling its neck, he strove to keep Morredeth still while the nurse located the correct injection site. The Kelgian was still making its high-pitched, moaning sound while trying its hardest to escape from between his arms by walking up his stomach, chest, and face with its twenty-odd feet. Fortunately the legs were short, thin, and not heavily muscled and the feet, which had no toenails or other bony terminations, were like small, hard sponges, so he felt as if he were being continually prodded with padded drumsticks. The experience was disconcerting rather than painful. Morredeth’s exertions must have been making it perspire, because he was aware of an increasing body odor that smelled faintly of peppermint.
He was aware of a sudden feeling of weakness in every muscle of his body, as if his strength had been drained away from him, and there was a hot, tingling sensation in his hands and bare arms where the skin was in contact with fur that was curling and twisting against his palms and between his fingers. The experience was so alien, and ticklish, that he had to make an effort not to laugh. Suddenly Morredeth arched its back and tried to twist free and he almost lost his grip.
“Sorry, my hands are sweating,” he said. “It nearly got away just then.”
“You are doing well, Patient Hewlitt,” said the nurse, replacing the hypodermic sprayer in its satchel. “In a few seconds more I will be finished. Your temporary loss of grip may have been due to your digits encountering fur that is covered by the oily medication used on the dressings in addition to the patient’s perspiration. Also, I have learned that Earth-human DBDGs sweat from the palms of the hands even when the process is not accompanied by a marked rise in body activity and temperature. It can be an indication of a severe emotional reaction to a situation that is or is likely to become stressful…
“But my palms are sweating,” Hewlitt broke in, in an attempt to head off another of the nurse’s medical lectures, “all the way up to the elbows.”
“Either way,” the Hudlar went on, “you are at no risk. Kelgian pathogens cannot cross the planetary species’ barrier and… Ah, I believe Patient Morredeth is beginning to relax.”
The Kelgian’s leg movements had ceased and its body was becoming a dead weight across Hewlitt’s stomach and chest. With two tentacles free now, the nurse inserted them on each side of the body’s center of gravity and lifted Morredeth onto the bed. By the time Hewlitt had scrambled to his feet, it had arranged the other’s limp body in the flattened S shape that resting Kelgians seemed to find comfortable and was replacing the loosened dressings, but not before he caught a glimpse of the large area of uncovered skin and lank, discolored fur.