It had come to him slowly, Conway went on, while he was moving through the chlorine and light-gravity sections. In every ward there had been cases of patients with known and properly diagnosed ailments displaying, or at least complaining about, atypical symptoms. The demand for painkilling medication had been unprecedented. Conditions which should have caused a minor degree of discomfort were, it seemed, inflicting severe pain. He had been aware of some of this pain himself, but had put that down to a combination of his imagination and the effect of the Cinrusskin tape.
He had already considered and discarded the idea that the trouble was psychosomatic because the condition was too widespread, but then he thought about it again.
During their return from the disaster site with the sole surviving EGCL, everyone had felt understandably low about the mission’s lack of success and because Prilicla was giving cause for concern. But in retrospect there was something wrong, unprofessional, about their reactions. They were feeling things too strongly, overreacting, developing in their own fashions the same kind of hypersensitivity which had affected Prilicla and which had affected the patients and staff on the Illensan and the Nallajim levels. Conway had felt it himself; the vague stomach pains, the discomfort in hands and fingers, the ov-erexcitability in circumstances which did not warrant it. But the effect had diminished with distance, because when he vis-ited O’Mara’s office for the GLNO tape and later for the era-sure, he had felt normal and unworried except for the usual degree of concern over a current case, accentuated in this instance because the patient was Prilicla.
The EGCL was receiving the best possible attention from Thornnastor and Edanelt, so it was not on his mind to any large extent. Conway had been sure of that.
“But then I began to think about its injuries,” Conway went on, “and the way I had felt on the ship and within three levels of the EGCL operation. In the hospital while I had the GLNO tape riding me, I was an empath without empathy. But I seemed to be feeling things — emotions, pains, conditions which did not belong to me. I thought that, because of fatigue and the stress of that time, I was generating sympathetic pains. Then it occurred to me that if the type of discomfort being suffered by the EGCL were subtracted from the symptoms of the medics and patients on those six levels and the intensity of the discomfort reduced, then the affected patients and staff would be acting and reacting normally. This seemed to point toward—”
“An empath!” O’Mara said. “Like Prilicla.”
“Not like Prilicla,” Conway said firmly. “Although it is possible that the empathic faculty possessed by the preintelligent ancestors of both species was similar.”
But their prehistoric world was an infinitely more dangerous place than Cinruss had been, Conway continued, and in any case the EGCLs lacked the ability of the Cinrusskins quite literally to fly from danger. And in such a savage environment there was little advantage in having an empathic faculty other than as a highly unpleasant early warning system, and so the ability to receive emotions had been lost. It was probable that they no longer received even the emotional radiationof their own kind.
They had become organic transmitters, reflectors and fo-cusers and magnifiers of their own feelings and those of the beings around them. The indications were that the faculty had evolved to the stage where they had no conscious control over the process.
“Think of the defensive weapon that makes,” Conway explained. The EGCL’s life support and sensors had been transferred to the litter and it was ready to leave. “If a predator tries to attack it, the anger and hunger it feels for its victim together with the fear and pain, if the victim was hurt or wounded, would be magnified, bounced back, and figuratively hit the attacker in the teeth. I can only guess at the order of emotional amplification used. But the effect on the predator, especially if there were others in the vicinity whose feelings were also being amplified, would be discouraging to say the least, also very confusing. It might have the effect of having them attack each other.
“We already know the effect of a deeply unconscious EGCL on the patients and staff three levels above and below this one,” Conway went on grimly. “Now consciousness is returning and I don’t know what will happen, or how far-reaching the effect will be. We have to get it away from here before the hospital’s patients have their own as well as the EGCL’s pain magnified to an unknown but major degree, and their medical attendants thrown into a steadily accelerating state of disorder and panic because they, too, will receive the reflected pain and—”
He broke off and tried to control his own growing panic, then he said harshly, “We have to get it away from the hospital now, without further delays or arguments.”
O’Mara’s face had lost its angry red coloration while Con-way had been talking, until now it looked gray and bloodless. He said, “Don’t waste time talking, Doctor. I shall accompany you. There will be no further delays or arguments.”
When- they reached Rhabwar’s Casualty Deck the EGCL was still not fully conscious and Prilicla was again being seriously affected by the ambient emotional radiation which was being amplified and bounced off their patient. The discomfort diminished sharply with increasing distance from the hospital, the empath told them, and the awakening EGCL was radiating only a relatively low intensity of discomfort from the sites of the recent surgery — but Prilicla did not have to tell them that because they could all feel it for themselves.
“I have been thinking about the problem of communicating with these people,” O’Mara said thoughtfully. “If they are all high-powered transmitters and reflectors of emotional radia-they may not be aware of what they are doing, only that ave an automatic, nonmaterial defense against everything and everyone wishing them harm. The job of establishing com-munications with them may not be easy and is likely to be a
long-range affair, unless our basic premise is wrong and we—”
“My first idea,” Conway broke in, “was to put it in the lander with remote-controlled medical servomechs. Then I
thought there should be one medic, a volunteer, in attendance—”
“I won’t ask who,” O’Mara said dryly, and smiled as Con-way’s embarrassment bounced off the EGCL and hit them.
“—because if ever there was case demanding isolation,” Conway ended, “this is it.”
The Chief Psychologist nodded. “What I had been about to say was that we may have miscalculated. Certainly we could never treat EGCLs in hospital where the patients surrounding them were in pain, even slight pain. But the situation here in the ship isn’t too bad. I can feel pains in the equivalent sites to where the EGCL is hurting, but nothing I can’t handle. And the rest of you are emoting concern; for the patient, and this is not unpleasant even when magnified. It seems that if you don’t think badly toward the patient, it can’t bounce anything too unpleasant back at you. It’s surprising. 1 feel just the way I always do, except more so.”
“But it is regaining consciousness,” Conway protested. “There should be an intensification of—”
“There isn’t,” O’Mara cut in. “That is very obvious, Con-way. Could the reason be because the patient is regaining consciousness? Think about it. Yes, Doctor, we can all feel you feeling 'Eureka!'”
“Of courser Conway said, and paused because his pleasure and excitement at seeing the answer, magnified by the EGCL, was causing Prilicla’s wings to go into the series of slow, rippling undulations which indicated intense pleasure in a Cin-russkin. It also counteracted the aches which he and everyone else were feeling from the pateint. He thought, What a weird experience the cultural contact specialists were going to have with this species.