“But I don’t understand,” said Stillman, raising his voice above the sounds of a ship preparing for imminent departure. “Lonvellin died. Its ship was vaporized with it inside before Hewlitt was even born.”
“Unless you wish to make an unscheduled visit to Sector General, friend Stillman,” said Prilicla as the sound of Fletcher and Danalta climbing the boarding ramp reached them, “you must leave the ship at once. There is no time to explain now, but I shall send copies of our findings to the colonel and yourself in due course. Please excuse my bad manners, thank you for your cooperation, and good-bye.”
Hewlitt waited until the Monitor Corps officer disappeared through the personnel lock, and then he said, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on, either. Why do you want to test me with medication you know has nearly killed me in the past?”
“Compose yourself, friend Hewlitt,” said Prilicla, beginning to tremble again. “I do not believe that you will be at serious risk. Please return to your bed and remain there until I give you permission to leave it. Your hush field will be maintained while we are discussing ideas and procedures that you might find unsettling.”
CHAPTER 22
Hewlitt kept his eyes on the flickering, grey noncolor of hyperspace outside the direct-vision panel and waited for something calamitous to happen to him. He did not look at any of the others, because they were watching him, waiting for the same thing to occur while smiling or otherwise trying to radiate encouragement. The amount of monitoring equipment surrounding him and the number of sensors taped to his body were not encouraging.
“You told me that I was to be given no medication of any kind,” Hewlitt said as Murchison touched another hyposprayer to his upper arm and the unfelt dose was administered. “Now you seem to be trying me on everything in stock. Why, dammit?”
The pathologist watched him closely for about three minutes, then said, “We changed our mind. How do you feel?”
“All right,” he replied. “No change except that I feel a little drowsy. How am I supposed to feel?”
“All right, and a little drowsy,” said Murchison, smiling. “It was a mild sedative I gave you. It should help you to relax.”
“When Senior Physician Medalont tried to give me a sedative,” said Hewlitt, “you know what happened.”
“Yes,” said Murchison. “But we have tested you with that particular medication, and a few others in minute quantities, without any sign of your customary hyperallergic reaction. I’m trying another, a new one that was not available to your planetside doctors. What do you feel, now?”
Hewlitt felt the downdraft from Prilicla’s wings against his face and chest as the little empath flew closer, but he knew that particular sensation was of no interest to the pathologist.
“Still nothing,” he replied, then, “No, wait. The whole area is going numb. What’s happening?”
“Nothing you need worry about,” said the pathologist, smiling again. “This time I’m testing a local anesthetic. According to the monitor your life signs are optimum. But are there any other symptoms, a mild itching of the skin, a general feeling of unease or any other symptoms, possibly subjective, which could be your subconscious giving an early warning of trouble to come?”
“No,” said Hewlitt.
Prilicla made a soft trilling sound that did not translate, then said, “The patient is being polite while trying to control intense feelings of curiosity, concern, confusion, and irritation. Perhaps the relief of the first would reduce the intensity of the other three. You have questions, friend Hewlitt. I can answer some of them now.”
But not all of them, Hewlitt thought. He was surprised when Murchison spoke first.
“You know that we all have questions, sir,” she said, looking from Danalta to Naydrad and back to Prilicla. “Why all the fuss over an ex-patient who died a quarter of a century ago? What was the reason for that signal calling for precautions against cross-species infection when we know it is impossible anyway? Why the sudden return to Sector General and the battery of tests ordered for Patient Hewlitt?”
“Those,” said Hewlitt, “would have been my questions as well.”
Prilicla drifted to the deck, perhaps in preparation for a surge of emotional radiation that would make it difficult to fly, and said, “There are similarities, specifically in the manner of the early negative response and subsequent acceptance of medical treatment, in the cases of Patients Lonvellin and Hewlitt. There is a possibility that I am wrong and the similarities are coincidental, but either way I must know before we reach the hospital. Friend Hewlitt is available for investigation but, regrettably, Lonvellin is not.”
Murchison shook her head. “Maybe not in person,” she said. “But if you need a close comparison, why not call up its case history from Records?”
“Lonvellin’s records were wiped during the Etlan bombardment,” Prilicla said, “when the main computer was knocked out along with the entire other-species translator system.
“I remember that,” said Murchison in a voice that suggested that it was not a pleasant memory, “but I remember nothing about a patient called Lonvellin.”
so that the only records of the case remaining to us,” it went on, “are held in the fading memories of Diagnosticians Conway and Thornnastor and myself, who were the people directly concerned with the patient’s treatment. Since it was discharged cured and its subsequent death was in no way due to our treatment, no effort was made to replace the case history from our recollections. Do not blame yourself for not remembering Patient Lonvelun. At the time you were a final-year trainee, not yet specialized in other-species pathology, and still to become the then Senior Physician Conway’s life-mate, although I remember that your emotional radiation when your duties brought the two of you together was quite…
“Doctor,” said Murchison, “surely our emotional radiation in that situation was privileged.”
“Hardly,” said Prilicla, “since your emotional involvement at the time was common knowledge to everyone in the hospital. Besides, every Earth-human male DBDG on the staff produced similar emotional radiation in your presence, although the feelings were diluted by envy when the two of you were formally mated. While you were alone together I should have thought it unlikely that you would have spent your time in detailed clinical discussions of your current patients.”
“You are right,” said Murchison. The softness in her voice suggested that her mind was distant in time and space and that the place was a very pleasant one.
Prilicla allowed a moment for her to return to the here and now before going on. “This is the same information I taped for Shech-Rar and friend Stillman, and you may scan the original record at any time. But the proceedings of a Meeting of Diagnosticians might be difficult for a layperson to comprehend, so I will summarize and simplify it for friend Hewlitt’s benefit…
Lonvellin had been discovered alone and unconscious inside an undamaged ship following the release of its distress beacon. Originally it was thought that the being was a criminal guilty of murder and possibly cannibalism, because the translation of the ship’s log indicated the presence on board of another entity, a personal medic of some kind who had apparently been guilty of mistreating its employer and of whom there had been no physical trace. For this reason, and because the patient was a physically massive being who was well armed with natural weapons, it had been admitted and treated under Monitor Corps guard until the truth became known.