Prilicla began to tremble again, this time in agitation over the additional worry it was causing Conway, when its intention had been only to reassure him regarding the mental health of the Unborn. It made another attempt to improve the quality of its friend’s emotional radiation.
“I called in at the Hudlar ward as soon as I got back,” the Cinrusskin said, “and I must say that your people did very well. Those were bad cases I sent in, as nearly hopeless as it is possible to be, friend Conway, but you lost only one of them. It was very fine work, even though friend O’Mara says that you have handed him another freshly boiled vegetable.”
“I think,” Murchison said, laughing as she translated the translated words, “it means another hot potato.”
“O’Mara?” Conway asked.
“The Chief Psychologist was talking to one of your patients,” Prilicla replied, “and assessing its nonmedical condition after visiting one of the Hudlars in the geriatric section. Friend O’Mara knew that I was coming to see you, and it said to tell you that a signal from Goglesk has arrived to the effect that your friend Khone wants to come to the hospital as soon as- “Khone is sick, badly injured?” Conway broke in, the persona of his Gogleskan mind-partner and his feelings for the little being pushing everything and everybody else out of his mind. He knew, because Khone had known, of the many diseases and accidents to which the FOKTs were prey, and for which very little could be done because to approach each other for help was to invite disaster. Whatever had happened to Khone, it must have been pretty bad for it to want to come to Sector General, where the worst nightmares of its mind were a physical actuality.
“No, no, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, trembling again with the violence of his emotional radiation. “Khone’s condition is neither serious nor urgent. But it has asked that you, personally, collect it and convey it to the hospital lest fear of your physically monstrous friends causes it to change its mind. Friend O’Mara’s precise words were that you seem to be attracting some odd maternity cases these days.”
“But it can’t be volunteering to come here!” Conway protested. He knew that Khone was mature and capable of producing offspring. There was nothing in the Gogleskan’s mind regarding recent sexual encounters, which meant that it must have happened since Conway had left Goglesk. He began doing calculations based on the FOKT gestation period.
“That was my reaction as well, friend Conway,” Prilicla said. “But friend O’Mara pointed out that you had lived with and adapted to the presence of your Gogleskan friend and that it, Heaven help it, had been similarly influenced by your Earth-human mind. That was the second boiled vegetable; the other was the geriatric Hudlar business.
“Sorting out the psychoses of a FOKT parent-to-be and offspring scared of their prehistoric shadows was not going to be easy, the empath went on, “and the geriatric Hudlar problem had grown to the stage where it was taking up practically all of his time. It sounded very irritated and at times angry, did friend O’Mara, but its emotional radiation was at variance with the spoken words. There were strong feelings of anticipation and excitement, as if it was looking forward to the challenge …
It broke off and began trembling again. Beside the instrument cabinet it was clinging to, Thornnastor was lifting and lowering its six elephantine feet one at a time and in no particular sequence. Murchison looked at the Diagnostician, and even though she was not an empath, she knew her chief well enough to be able to recognize a very impatient Tralthan.
“This is all very interesting, Prilicla,” she said gently, “but unlike that of Khone, the condition of the patient awaiting our attention in the outer ward is both serious and urgent.”
CHAPTER 20
In spite of everyone else’s sense of urgency the Protector seemed to be in no particular hurry to deliver its Unborn. Conway was secretly relieved. It gave him more time to think, to consider alternative procedures and, if he was honest with himself, more time to dither.
The normally phlegmatic Thornnastor, with three eyes on the patient and one on the scanner projection, was slowly stamping one foot as it watched the lack of activity in the area of the Protector’s womb. Murchison was dividing her attention between the screen and the Kelgian nurse who was in charge of the patient’s restraints, and Prilicla was a distant, fuzzy blob clinging to the ceiling at the other end of the ward, where the emotional radiation from the Protector was bearable if not comfortable, and linked to the OR Team by communicator.
It was there purely out of clinical curiosity, the little empath had insisted. But the true reason was probably that it sensed Conway’s anxiety regarding the coming operation and it wanted to help.
“Of the alternative procedures you have mentioned,” Thornnastor said suddenly, “the first is slightly more desirable. But prematurely enlarging the birth opening and withdrawing the Unborn while at the same time clamping off those gland ducts … It’s tricky, Conway. You could be faced with an awakened and fully active young Protector tearing and eating its way out of the parent. Or have you now decided that the parent is expendable?”
Conway’s mind was filled again with the memory of his telepathic contact with an Unborn, an Unborn who had been born as a mindless Protector, this Protector. He knew that he was not being logical, but he did not want to discard a being whose mind he had known so intimately simply because, for evolutionary reasons, it had suffered a form of brain death.
“No,” Conway said firmly.
“The other alternatives are even worse,” the Tralthan said.
“I was hoping you’d feel that way,” Conway said.
“I understand,” Thornnastor said. “But neither am I greatly in favor of your primary suggestion. The procedure is radical, to say the least, and unheard-of when the species concerned possesses a carapace. Such delicate work on a fully conscious and mobile patient is—”
“The patient,” Conway broke in, “will be conscious, and immobilized.”
“It seems, Conway,” it said, speaking quietly for a Tralthan, “that there is some confusion in your mind due, perhaps, to the multiplicity of tapes occupying it. Let me remind you that the patient cannot be immobilized for any lengthy period of time, either by physical restraint or anesthetics, without irreversible metabolic changes taking place which lead quickly to unconsciousness and termination. The FSOJ is constantly moving and constantly under attack, and the response of its endocrine system is such that … But you know this as well as I do, Conway! Are you well? Is there psychological, perhaps temporary, distress? Would you like me to assume charge for a time?”
Murchison had been listening to her communicator and had missed Thornnastor’s earlier words. She looked worriedly at Conway, obviously wondering what was wrong with him, or what her Chief thought was wrong with him; then she said, “Prilicla called me. It didn’t want to interrupt you during what might have been an important clinical discussion between its superiors, but it reports a steady increase and change in the quality of emotional radiation emanating from both the Protector and its Unborn. The indications are that the Protector is preparing itself for a major effort, and this in turn has caused an increase in the level of mentation in the Unborn. Prilicla wants to know if you have detected any signs of an attempt at telepathic contact. It says the Unborn is trying very hard.”
Conway shook his head. To Thornnastor he said, “With respect, this information was contained in my original report on the FSOJ life-form to you, and my memory is unimpaired. I thank you for the offer to take charge, and I welcome your advice and assistance, but I am not psychologically distressed, and my mental confusion is at a similar level to that at which I normally operate.”