“It’s all right, Nurse? said Braithwaite to the Hudlar, trying hard to keep from smiling. “The Earth-human was trying to separate the combatants. He’s one of the good guys.”
When O’Mara’s feet were on the floor again, he glowered at the other and said, “Are you enjoying this, Lieutenant?”
“Only a small part of it, sir; the rest is much too serious? Braithwaite replied, unabashed, then went on quickly, “While I was calling Security a Hudlar nurse was passing along the corridor and I asked for its help to…
He broke off and waved at six massive Orligians with a selection of pacifiers suspended from their equipment harnesses as they came through the dining-hall entrance at a dead run.
“Here’s the security detail now? he went on. “I suggest we take care of the wounded-at least there’s no shortage of medical assistance in here-then confine them under guard to their quarters until we can interview them individually and get to the bottom of this business.”
“Then do that? said O’Mara. “Is there something else on your mind?”
“Yes, sir? Braithwaite replied worriedly. “The Earth-human charge nurse and the Orligian I recognized, and the other two I’m fairly sure about even though Melfans and Tralthans still look the same to me. They are all currently attached to Tunneckis’s recovery ward.”
CHAPTER 30
Padre Lioren was a Wearer of the Blue Cloak of Tarla which, in Earth academic circles, would have been placed on the same level of professional achievement as the old-time Nobel Prize for Medicine-although, since the Cromsaggar Incident, it had forsworn the practice of the art. Everyone on the Sector General staff knew the reason that he was the Psychology Department’s otherspecies religious counselor rather than a senior physician, but nobody until now, not even a Kelgian like this one, had ever been so crassly insensitive and stupid as to remind him of it to his face.
Lioren took a firm grip on his anger with all eight hands and said gently, “What is troubling you, friend?”
“You are troubling me,” said the Kelgian, its fur heaving into angry tufts, “you sanctimonious bloody murdering hypocrite. Go away, and stop trying to poison my mind with one of your stupid religions. I won’t tell you anything or listen to a thing that looks like a diseased shumpid tree. Leave me alone.”
In general configuration his tall, cone-shaped body with the four stubby, rootlike legs, four medial and four upper arms could be described as resembling a Kelgian shumpid tree if the describer wished to be offensive, which for some reason this one did. But it was the reason for the other’s totally uncharacteristic behavior that interested him.
“I’ll leave you alone,” said Lioren quietly, “if that is what you really want. But what I want to do is to listen to your troubles, and personal insults if they are part of the problem, not try to teach you anything you don’t want to learn. And there are many trees on Tarla that look a little like me, and some of them are infested by small, furry creatures that resemble you. Both species live and grow in the manner originally ordained for them with no choice in the matter. Unlike them, we are self-willed, civilized, and sapient.
“Supposedly? he couldn’t help adding.
The Kelgian’s fur continued to ripple and tuft in what was plainly intense agitation, but it remained silent.
“Please remember,” Lioren went on, “even though I am attached to the Psychology Department, I am not bound by its rules nor am I required to report anything you may tell me to my superior or include it in your psych file unless you give your permission to do so. There is complete confidentiality. Plainly something is troubling you that is serious enough to affect your behavior toward your superiors, the other ward staff, and, I’ve been told, your off-duty other-species friends. Whether the problem is personal, ethical, or even criminal in nature, it will go no further than we two unless or until you allow otherwise. Now would you like to tell me about it?”
“No,” said the other. “I wouldn’t like to, because I don’t like you. I don’t want you near me and I don’t believe what you say. You’ll just go back and talk about me to the Earth-humans and that horrible Sommaradvan in your department. Everybody in this place says things they don’t mean and they don’t have the fur to show what they truly feel. I don’t trust any of you because the only people I can trust are other Kelgians. For your information there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I don’t have a personal or ethical or any other kind of problem. Just go away.
After that tirade, Lioren thought sadly, there was nothing else to do.
And in another part of the hospital Cha Thrat, recently described as the department’s horrible Sommaradvan, was beginning tactfully to probe the suspected emotional difficulties of an Earthhuman trainee nurse. Her great size and disposition of limbs made it necessary for her to interview the subject through the other’s open door.
“I’m sorry for calling during an off-duty period, Nurse Patel? said Cha Thrat, “but Senior Tutor Cresk-Sar is becoming increasingly concerned about your recent inattention and general behavior during lectures. Since you joined the hospital it tells me that your multi-species anatomical studies and general practical work on the wards has been exemplary, but recently there has been a marked deterioration both in the quality of your work and in your professional contacts with other-species colleagues and patients. So far none of this is serious enough for the Psychology Department to take official notice of it, which means that it hasn’t gone into your psych file, but I was asked to have an unofficial word with you about it and, perhaps, give you a word of advice. Cresk-Sar wonders if the cause lies outside the training program. Is there anything that you would like to tell me, Nurse?”
The other’s already dark facial skin coloration darkened some more. In Earth-humans, Cha Thrat had learned, this was an indication of the presence of a strongly felt emotion such as anger or embarrassment.
“Yes? said the nurse loudly, “I would like to tell you that CreskSar is a nosy, small-minded, flea-bitten runt…” She twitched her shoulders. “. . who gives me the creeps every time it comes near me. And you’re as bad as it is, only bigger.”
As a Nidian, the senior tutor possessed just over half the body mass of the Earth-human female, but Cha Thrat doubted that its tight, curly body fur harbored insect parasites. Plainly it was the other’s emotions rather than its reason that was talking. Like the warrior-surgeon she had been and the trainee ruler-wizard she had become, she tried to bury her own emotional response under a deep layer of reason and, above all, control her usually short temper.
“I have need of information about you, Nurse Patel,” said Cha Thrat, “not Senior Tutor Cresk-Sar.”
“Then you still need it,” the other replied, speaking too loudly considering the short distance separating them. “Why should I tell you anything about me, you outsized pervert? We know all about you, how your own people got you sent here by pulling political strings, and how you cut off one of your own arms during an op and, and… A warrior-surgeon, indeed. You’re a bloody swordswinging, Sommaradvan savage. Go away.
Cha Thrat forced herself to speak in a quiet, reasonable voice as she said, “I am not a warrior, a wielder of weapons, or, as it is in these civilized times, a user of dangerous technology. The term signifies my medical rank only. At the bottom are the menialphysicians, who deal out potions and poultices to the workers; then there are the warrior-surgeons like myself who used to treat the wounds of those hurt in battle before warfare was outlawed; and then, the most important, are the wizards, the healers of the mind, that is, whose duty it is to keep the mentalities of the rulers and subrulers in stable good health. Naturally, if a menial were to sustain a serious injury or a mental dysfunction, the nearest warrior-surgeon or ruler-wizard would attend