Inside Hredlichli’s protective envelope a group of oily yellow fronds twitched as it said, “Obviously you are already aware of the emergency. This surprises me because the information is restricted to the very senior medical and maintenance staff and to one charge nurse, myself, whose ward poses a particular problem. Or are you more than a mere curious visitor, and there was another reason why you wished to speak to every patient in my ward?”
The answer to both questions was yes, Hewlitt thought, but he could not say so because the knowledge of the virus creature was also restricted. He wanted to ask for more details about the emergency, but could not because he was supposed to know them, and his earlier curiosity was being diluted by a growing fear.
“Sorry, Charge Nurse,” he said, “I am not at liberty to answer that question.”
More parts of Hredlichli twitched grotesquely. It said, “I do not approve of the secrecy where this ward is concerned. My Chalders are overlarge but they are not stupid. Even in this hospital there are too many people who equate large size with a lack of sensitivity. If my patients were to learn that there is a malfunction in the power-generation system that threatens the entire hospital and that they, because of their great size and consequent difficulty of evacuation, would be among the last to leave or, worse, that there might not be time enough to modify enough ships to ac commodate them, they would not panic or try to break out. Your poisonous, rarefied atmosphere outside this ward would be as deadly to them as my own chlorine or space itself. Those that were left behind would accept their fate, and no doubt insist that their medical attendants save themselves, because they are intelligent, sensitive, and caring monsters.”
“I agree,” said Hewlitt. He had recently met all of them and knew. He had also had frightening confirmation of the reason for the emergency drills that were apparently being conducted everywhere but the Chalder ward, but uppermost in his mind was a sudden and inexplicable liking for this ghastly chlorine-breather. He added reassuringly, “It might never happen, Charge Nurse. This is a problem for the maintenance engineers. No doubt they will be able to solve it in time.”
“Considering the time it took for them to repair the waste extractor on One-Eighty-Seven’s treatment frame,” Hredlichli replied, returning to character, “I lack your confidence.”
All of Lioren’s eyes had been directed at him while he was talking to the charge nurse, but the Padre did not comment and it remained silent after they returned to the corridor. Hewlitt wondered if his conversation with Hredlichli had caused the other to take offense.
“Are we agreed,” he said, “that there are no former virus hosts in the Chalder ward?”
“Yes,” said Lioren.
The word had punched a small hole in the other’s wall of silence. But Hewlitt’s fear was growing and so was his impatience to know more, and he knew that his next words might close the hole again.
“Did you know the reason for the evacuation drills?” he asked. “Were you deliberately keeping it from me?”
“Yes,” said the Padre.
Before Hewlitt could ask the obvious question, Lioren answered it.
“There were three reasons,” it went on. “You have already been told one of them, that you are not a specialist in the relevant field so that being given complete and accurate information could not have contributed to a solution of the problem. As well, the knowledge would have worried you unnecessarily and might have had an adverse effect on your conduct of our search. And my own incomplete knowledge was gained in circumstances which preclude me passing it on. In any case, you found out as much about the emergency from Hredlichli as I did, so I now feel free to discuss the situation with you. In general terms, at least.”
“Does that mean,” he said, trying to control his irritation, “that there is something that you are still not telling me? For my own peace of mind, naturally.”
“Yes,” said Lioren.
This time it was Hewlitt who erected the wall of silence, because the words he felt like using were not those normally spoken to a Padre, and it was Lioren who was trying to demolish it.
“The next call,” it said, “is to a patient in the SNLU ward. It is an ultra-frigid, methane life-form with a crystalline tissue structure that is hypersensitive to bright light and minute increases in temperature. The environmental-protection vehicle is cumbersome, heavily insulated, fitted with sensory enhancement and remote manipulator systems. Because of the patients’ extreme aural sensitivity it is necessary to attenuate external sound output and amplify the input. It is a very quiet ward. You will be able to move close to my patient, and the three others who are under treatment, when I introduce you, but then you must leave the two of us alone as you did in the Chalder ward and talk to the others. You will not have to concern yourself with your vehicle’s controls; one of the staff will guide it remotely from the nurses’ station.”
Still feeling angered by the other’s implication that he could not be trusted with sensitive information without losing his emotional control, Hewlitt remained silent.
“You will find,” Lioren added, “that the SNLU environment will cool even the hottest temper.
CHAPTER 29
Not only was the ward cold and dark, but heavy shielding and sulation protected it from the trace quantities of radiation and heat given off by ship traffic in the vicinity of the hospital. There were no windows, because even the light that filtered in from the distant stars could not be allowed to penetrate to this area. The images that appeared on his display had been converted from the nonvisible spectrum, giving them the ghostly, unreal quality of fantasy, so that the scales covering the patients’ eight-limbed, starfish bodies shone coldly through the methane mist like multihued diamonds, making them resemble a species of wondrous, heraldic beast.
When he turned off his translator while moving between patients so as to listen to their natural voices, the sound was like nothing he had ever heard before. So clear and cold and beautiful were the sounds that he could almost imagine that he was hearing the musical, amplified chiming of colliding snowflakes. Even though there were no virus hosts in the ward, and Hewlitt doubted that anything other than an SNLU could survive for more than a few minutes in that environment, it surprised him how sorry he felt when the time came to leave.
Lioren’s next visit was to the quarters of an off-duty Melfan nurse called Lontallet. Again he was introduced and, after removing it from their suspect list of former virus hosts, he waited in the corridor while the other two went inside to talk.
The wait was neither long nor boring, because the corridor was invaded by a slow-moving column of patients. He counted thirty of them comprising five different oxygen-breathing species, several of whom were being transported in gravity litters. From the overheard conversations of the nursing attendants he discovered that it was both an evacuation drill and an utter shambles. The last of them was moving away when the Padre rejoined him.
“Did they pass by slowly enough for detection?” it asked. “Did you feel anything from them?”
“Yes,” said Hewlitt. “And no. Where to next?”
“To the dock airlock on Level One,” Lioren replied, “and calling on the wards and scanning all the passersby in the corridors between. We will have to work much faster now. No longer may we speak at length to any of the patients. A few words or a brief visual contact is all we can allow ourselves. Are you feeling tired?”