("But true. Quote him a figure.")
Dalt thought for a moment, then said, "I'll require a fee for Sally ... and any others you want me to try." He named a sum.
"That sounds reasonable." Webst nodded. "I won't dicker with you."
El's face reflected amusement tinged with amazement. "You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
Webst smiled too. "He's welcome to every credit we can spare if he can bring those horrors patients around. We'll even try to get a bigger budget. I'll talk to Dr. Hyne and have you transferred to this department; meanwhile, there's an ethical question you should consider. You are in effect performing an experimental procedure on mentally incompetent patients who are incapable of giving their consent."
"What about their guardians?"
"These patients have no guardians, no identity. And a guardian would be irrelevant as far as the ethical question is concerned—that is up to you. In the physician role, you've got to decide whether an experimental procedure—or even an established procedure—will have a greater chance of benefiting the patient than doing harm to him, and whether the possible benefits are worth the risk. And the patient must come first; not humanity, not science, but the patient. Only you can decide."
"I made that decision before I invaded Sally," Dalt replied with a touch of acid. "The gains were mutuaclass="underline" I would learn something, she would, hopefully, receive therapeutic value. The risks, as far as I could foresee, would all be mine."
Webst considered this. "Mr. Dalt," he said finally, "I think you and I are going to get along just fine." He extended his hand and Dalt grasped it firmly.
El came to his side and hooked her arm around his. "Welcome to the department," she said with a half smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "This is quite a turnaround from the man who swore a few hours ago that he was taking the next shuttle out."
"I haven't forgotten that episode, believe me. I can't quite accept the code you Tolivians live by as yet, but I think I'd like to stick around and see if it works as well as you say it does."
The viewphone had beeped again while they were talking. Webst took the call, then suddenly headed for the door. "That was Big Blue—Sally just woke up and asked for a drink of water!" Nothing more needed to be said; El and Dalt immediately fell in behind him as he made his way to the carport.
The last sanguine rays of the sun slipping into the plaza found the ambulatory patients clustered in hushed, muttering knots. And all eyes suddenly became riveted on the car that held Webst, Dalt, and El as it pulled up beside Big Blue. An elderly woman broke away from a small group and came forward, squinting at the trio in the waning light.
"It's him!" she cried hoarsely as she reached the car. "He's got the silver patch of hair, the flamestone, and the golden hand that heals!" She clutched the back of Dalt's suit as he turned away. "Touch me with your healing hand!" she cried. "My mind is sick and only you can help me! Please! I'm not as sick as Sally was!"
"No, wait!" Dalt said, whirling and shrinking away. "It doesn't work that way!"
But the woman seemed not to hear him, repeating, "Heal me! Heal me!" And over her shoulder he could see the other patients in the plaza crowding forward.
Webst was suddenly at his side, his face close, his eyes shining in the fading darkness. "Go ahead," he whispered excitedly, "touch her. You don't have to do anything else, just reach out that left hand and lay it on her head."
Dalt hesitated; then, feeling foolish, pressed the heel of his palm against her forehead. The woman covered her face at his touch and scurried away, muttering, "Thank you, thank you," through her hands.
With that, it was as if a dam had burst. The patients were suddenly swirling all around him and Dalt found himself engulfed by a torrent of outstretched hands and cries of, "Heal me! Heal me! Heal me! Heal me!" He was pushed, pulled, his clothes and limbs were plucked at, and it was only with great difficulty that El and Webst managed to squeeze him through the press of supplicants and into the quiet of Big Blue.
"Now you know why he's at the top of his profession," El said softly, nodding her head toward Webst as she pressed a drink into Dalt's hand, a hand that even now, in the security of Big Blue, betrayed a slight but unmistakable tremor. The experience in the plaza had unnerved him—the hands, the voices, reaching and crying for him in the twilight, seeking relief from the psychological and physiological afflictions burdening them; the incident, though only moments past, was becoming increasingly surreal in retrospect.
He shook himself and took a deep gulp of the drink. "I don't follow."
"The way he sized up the situation immediately as mass hysteria and put it to good use: the enormity of placebo effect in medicine has never been fully appreciated, even to this day. There were a lot of chronically ill patients in that plaza who had heard of a man who performed a miraculous cure and they all wanted a piece of that miracle for themselves."
"But how did they find out?"
El laughed. "The grapevine through these wards could challenge a subspace laser for speed of transmission!"
Webst flicked off the viewphone from which he had been receiving a number of hurried reports, and turned to them, grinning. "Well, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk," he announced, then burst out laughing at the horrified expression on Dalt's face. "No, nothing as dramatic as that, I'm afraid, but we have had a few remarkable symptomatic remissions."
"Not because of me!" Dalt snapped, his tone betraying annoyance. "I didn't do a thing—those people only think I did."
"Exactly! You didn't cure them per se, but you did act as a catalyst through which the minds of those people could gain some leverage on their bodies."
"So I'm a faith-healer, in other words."
"Out in the plaza, you were—and still are, now more than ever. We have a rare opportunity here to study the phenomenon of the psychosomatic cure, something which fascinates the student of behavior more than anything else. It's the power of the mind over the body in action ... we know almost nothing of the dynamics of the relationship."
("I could tell them a few things about that,") Pard muttered.
You've said quite enough tonight, friend.
"And you're a perfect focal point," Webst added. "You have a genuine healing ability in a certain area, and this along with an undeniably unique appearance evidently works to give you an almost messianic aura in susceptible minds."
("Defensively worded in the best scientific tradition.")
Webst continued in lowered tones, talking to himself more than to anyone else. "You know, I don't see why the same phenomenon couldn't be duplicated on any other planet in the human system, and on a much larger scale. Every planet has its share of horrors cases and they're all looking for a way to handle them. If we limit the amount of information we release—such as keeping your identity a secret—the inevitable magnification that occurs with word-of-mouth transmission will have you raising the dead by the time you finish your work here. And by then every human planet will be clamoring for your services. And while you're reconstructing sick minds, Dr. Lettre and I will be carefully observing the epiphenomena."
"Meaning the psychosomatic cures?"
El nodded, getting caught up in Webst's vision. "Right. And it would be good for Tolive, too. He-Who-Heals-Minds—pardon the dramatic phrasing—will come from Tolive, and that should counteract some of the smears being spread around."