The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 644
"Tear you psychologically limb from Tarlan limb," Mannen broke in. "Have you forgotten that you are supposed to be investigating Seldal, not one of its patients called Mannen? Forget about the tapes. If O'Mara ever found out what you, a psychology trainee, have been trying to do here, you would be in very serious trouble."
"I cannot imagine," Lioren said very seriously, "being in worse trouble than I am now."
"I'm sorry," Mannen said, raising one of its hands a few inches above the covers and then letting it fall again. "For a moment I had forgotten the Cromsag Incident. A tongue-lashing from O'Mara would be insignificant compared to the punishment you are inflicting on yourself."
Lioren did not acknowledge the other's apology because the guilty did not deserve one and said instead, "You are right, reimpressing your Educator tapes is not a good solution. My knowledge of Earth-human psychology is meager, but would it not be better if at this time your mind was your own, and not filled with others whose mind records were taken before they even knew of your existence, and whose apparent friendship for you was a self-delusion aimed at making their alien presence more bearable? At this time should you not be ordering the contents of your own mind, its thoughts, experiences, right or wrong decisions, and its considerable accomplishments during your own lifetime? This would help to pass your remaining time, and if your friends were no longer discouraged from visiting you, that would also shorten—"
"I have yet to meet an intelligent being," Mannen said, "who did not wish for a long life and an instantaneous death. But such wishes are rarely granted, are they, Lioren? My suffering does not compare with yours, but I will still have a long time to spend in a body deprived of all feeling and with a mind that is empty and alien and frightening because it is my own, a mind I can no longer fill."
The ex-Diagnostician's two recessed eyes were fixed on the one of Lioren's that was closest to it. He returned the patient's stare for several minutes, his mind recalling the words the other had spoken and searching everyone of them for unspoken meanings, but Mannen spoke before he did.
"I have not talked for so long in many weeks," it said, "and I am very tired. Go now, or I will be so discourteous as to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence."
"Please don't," Lioren said quickly, "because I have one more question to ask of you. It is possible that you are thinking that an entity who has already committed the monstrous and multiple crime of genocide would not suffer additional distress if he were to commit a single and, relatively, more venial offense as a favor to a colleague. Are you suggesting that I shorten your time of waiting?"
Mannen was silent for so long that Lioren checked the biosensors to be sure that it had not lost consciousness with its eyelids open; then it said, "If that was my suggestion, what would your answer be?"
Lioren did not wait as long before replying. "The answer would be no. If it is possible, I must try to reduce my guilt, not increase it by however small an amount. The ethical and moral aspects might be argued, but I could not justify such an act on medical grounds because there is no physical distress of any kind. Your distress is subjective, the product of a mind that is empty of all but one occupant, you, who is no longer happy there.
"But the experience is not new to you," Lioren went on, "because it was your normal condition before you became a Senior Physician and then a Diagnostician. I have already suggested that you fill your mind with old memories, experiences or professional decisions which brought you pleasure, or problems which you enjoyed solving. Or would you prefer to continue exercising it with new material?"
What he was about to say would sound callous and selfish and might well anger the patient into total noncooperation, but he said it anyway.
"For example," he added, "there is the mystery of Seldal's behavior."
"Go away," Mannen said in a weak voice, closing its eyes, "go now."
Lioren did not leave until the biosensor readings indicated the changes which told him that on this occasion the patient's sleep was not a pretense.
When he returned to the office next morning, Lioren deliberately concentrated on the routine work so as to avoid having to discuss Mannen with Cha Thrat. He did not think that the words of a terminal patient should be judged too harshly, nor be repeated to others, especially when they had no direct bearing on the Seldal investigation.
Of the other three Seldal post-op patients he questioned, two were willing to talk to him at length—about themselves, the hospital food, the nurses whose ministrations were at times as gentle as the hands of a parent or as insensitive as a kick from a Tralthan's rear leg, but about their Nallajim surgeon scarcely at all. During the little time Seldal spent with them, it listened more than it talked, which was a little unusual in a Senior but was not a character deviation serious enough to worry O'Mara. He was disappointed but not surprised when his general and necessarily vague questions brought no results.
The post-op care of the third patient was the responsibility of Tralthan and Hudlar nurses, who had been forbidden to discuss the case outside the ward. Seldal had likewise forbidden members of any physiological classification less massive than a Hudlar or Tralthan even to approach it. Lioren was curious about this mystery patient and decided to call up its medical record, only to find that the file was closed to him.
He was surprised and pleased when Charge Nurse Hredlichi contacted him to say that Mannen had left instructions that Lioren was to be allowed to visit it at any time. He was even more surprised at the patient's opening words.
"This time," it said, "we will talk about Senior Physician Seldal, your investigation and you yourself, and not about me."
Mannen's voice was slow, weak, and barely hovering above the limit of audibility, but there were no long pauses for breath, and its manner, Lioren thought, was that of an ailing Diagnostician rather than a terminal patient.
It had spoken to the Nallajim during its twice-daily ward round, and on both occasions Seldal had been pleased that the patient was talking to it again and showing interest in events and people other than itself. During the first talk it was obvious that Seldal was humoring its patient by answering Mannen's deliberately nonspecific questions about the latest hospital gossip and its other patients, and the Nallajim Senior had spent much longer with it than was clinically necessary.
"Naturally," Mannen continued, "that was simple professional courtesy extended to the person I once was. However, one of the people we discussed was the new Psychology Department trainee, Lioren, who seemed to be wandering about the hospital with no clear idea of what it was doing."
Lioren's medial limbs jerked outward instinctively into the Tarlan posture of defense, but the threat was removed by the patient's next words.
"Don't worry," Mannen went on, "we talked about you, not your interest in Seldal. Charge Nurse Hredlichi, who has four mouths and cannot keep any of them closed, told it of your frequent visits to me, and it was curious to know why I had allowed them and what we talked about. Not wishing to tell an outright lie this close to my end, I said that we talked about our troubles, and said that your problems made my own seem small by comparison."
Mannen closed its eyes for a moment, and Lioren wondered if the effort of that long, unbroken conversation had exhausted it, but then it opened them again and said, "During its second ward round I asked about its Educator tapes. Stop jerking your arms about like that, you'll knock over something. It is shortly to undergo the medical and psychological examinations for Diagnostician, and I know that any advice coming from an ex-Diagnostician with decades of experience would be welcomed. The questions regarding its methods of accommodating and adapting to its present mind-partners were expected and aroused no suspicion. Whether or not the information given so far will help your investigation I cannot say."
By the time Mannen had finished speaking, its voice was so low that Lioren had collapsed himself awkwardly onto his knees to bring his head close to the other's lips. He did not know if the information was helpful, but it had certainly given him a lot to think about.
"I am most grateful, Doctor," he said.
"I am doing you a favor, Surgeon-Captain," Mannen said. "Are you willing to do one in return?"
Without hesitation, Lioren replied, "Not that one."
"And if I was to ... withdraw cooperation?" the other asked in a voice which carried only a few inches from its lips. "Or go back to pretending to be asleep? Or if I were to tell Seldal everything?"
Their heads were so close together that Lioren had to extend three of his eyes to cover the full length of the patient's incredibly emaciated body. "Then I would suffer embarrassment, distress, and perhaps punishment," he said. "It would be as nothing to the punishment I deserve. But you are suffering distress, of a kind that I can barely imagine, which is not deserved. You say that you find solace neither in the company of friends nor in preterminal contemplation of your past life. It may be that your empty mind is terrifying, not because it is empty but because its only occupant has become a stranger to you. But this mind is a valuable resource, the most valuable resource that was ever in your possession, and it should not be wasted by a premature termination, however accomplished. For as long as possible your mind should be used."
A long exhalation of the patient's breath pressed gently against Lioren's face, and then Mannen said weakly, "Lioren, you are ... a cold fish."
Within a few minutes it was asleep and Lioren was on the way back to the office. Several times he collided with other life-forms, fortunately without injury on either side, because his mind was on the patient he had left rather than the ever-present problem of corridor navigation.
He was using the remaining hours or days of an emotionally distressed and terminal patient as a means of furthering a simple, unimportant, and nonurgent investigation, as he would use any suitable tool that came to hand which would enable him to complete a job. If in the process he altered or increased the efficiency of the tool, that was not an important consideration. Or was it?
He was remembering that on Cromsag he had been involved in solving a problem. On that occasion, too, he had considered the solution to be more important than any of the individuals involved, and his intellectual pride and his impatience had depopulated a planet. On his native Tarla that pride and high intelligence had been a barrier that none could penetrate, and he had had superiors and subordinates and family but no friends. Perhaps Mannen's singularly inaccurate physiological description, which he had put down to the mental confusion of fatigue, had been correct and Lioren was a cold fish. But it might not be entirely correct.
Lioren thought of the wasted and barely living entity he had just left, the pitiful and fragile tool that was performing exemplary work, and he wondered at the strange feelings of hurt and sadness that arose in him.
Was his first experience of friendship, like his first friend, to be short-lived?
As soon as Lioren entered the office he knew that something was wrong, because both Cha Thrat and Braithwaite swung round to face him. It was the Earth-human who spoke first.
"O'Mara is at a meeting and is not to be disturbed and, frankly, I have no idea how to advise you about this," Braithwaite said in a rapid, agitated voice. "Dammit, Lioren, you were told to be discreet in your enquiries. What have you been saying about your assignment, and to whom? We have just had a message from Senior Physician Seldal. It wants to see you in the Nallajim staff flocking lounge on Level Twenty-three."
Cha Thrat made the Sommaradvan gesture of deep concern, and added, "At once."
Chapter Twelve
SINCE THE Nallajim LSVOs often entertained other-species colleagues, their lounge was spacious enough not to cause Lioren any physical inconvenience, but he wondered at the choice of meeting place. In spite of their fragile, low-gravity physiology, the birdlike species could be as abrasive in their conversational manner as any Kelgian, and if this one had found cause for complaint against Lioren, the expected course would have been for it to present itself in the Psychology Department and demand to see O'Mara.
Of one thing he felt very sure, Lioren thought as he moved between the nestlike couches filled with sleeping or quietly twittering occupants toward Seldal, this would not be a social occasion.
"Sit or stand, whichever is more comfortable for you," the Senior Physician said, lifting a wing to indicate the couch's food dispenser. "Can I offer you anything."
It was wrong, Lioren told himself as he lowered his body into the downy softness of the couch, to feel sure about anything.
"I am curious about you," the Nallajim Senior said, the rapid twittering of its voice making an impatient background to the slower, translated words. "Not about the Cromsag Incident because that has become common knowledge. It is your behavior toward my patient Mannen that interests me. Exactly what did you say to him, and what did he say to you?"
If I told you that, Lioren thought, this meeting would not long remain a social occasion.
Lioren did not want to lie, and he was trying to decide whether it would be better to avoid telling all of the truth or simply remain silent when the Nallajim spoke again.
"Hredlichi tells me," it said, "and I use the Charge Nurse's words as clearly as I can recall them, that two of O'Mara's Psych types, Cha Thrat and yourself, approached it asking permission to interview its patients, including the terminal case, Mannen regarding some planned improvements in ward environment. Hredlichi said that it was too busy to waste time arguing with you, and your physical masses were such that it could not evict you bodily, so it decided to accede where the patient Mannen was concerned knowing that the ex-Diagnostician would ignore you as it had done everyone else who tried to talk to it. But Hredlichi says that you spent two hours with the patient, who subsequently left instructions that you could visit it at any time.
"Ex-Diagnostician Mannen is highly regarded at Sector General," Seldal went on, "and its length of service on the staff is second only to that of O'Mara, who was and is its friend. When I joined the hospital it was in charge of training. It helped me then and on many occasions since so that I, too, consider it to be more than a medical colleague. But until yesterday, when it suddenly acknowledged my presence and began to ask questions which were lucid, general, but more often personal, it would not speak to anyone except you.
"I ask again, Lioren, what transpired between Mannen and yourself?"
"It is a terminal patient," Lioren said, choosing his words with care, "and some of the words and thoughts expressed might not have been those of the entity you knew when it was at the peak of its physical and mental powers. I would prefer not to discuss this material with others."
"You would prefer not ..." began Seldal, its angry, twittering speech rising in volume so that the sleeping Nallajims around them stirred restively in their nests. "Oh, keep your secrets if you must. Truly, you remind me of the departed Carmody, who was before your time. And you are correct, I would not want to know about it if a great entity like Mannen were to display weakness, even though I once shared my mind with an Earth-human DBDG who believed that feet of clay could sometimes form a most solid foundation."
"Thank you for your forbearance, sir," Lioren said.
"I have learned forbearance," the Senior Physician said, "from a very close friend. I shall not explain that, but instead I shall tell you what I think went on between you."
Lioren was greatly relieved that the other was no longer angry and, seemingly, did not suspect that it was the object of Lioren's investigation rather than Mannen. He was wondering whether the remark about learning from a very close friend was an important datum when the Nallajim resumed speaking.
"When Mannen discovered who you were during your first visit," Seldal went on, "it decided that you might have more problems than it had and became curious about you. This curiosity must have led to personal questions about your reactions to the Cromsag business that were distressing to you, but it was the first time in several weeks that Mannen showed curiosity about anything. Now it seems to be curious about everything. It has talked about you, and closely questioned me, and asked about my other patients, the latest gossip, everything. I am most grateful, Lioren, for the significant improvement your visits have brought about in its condition ..."
"But the clinical picture—" Lioren began.
"Has not changed," it said, completing the sentence for him. "But the patient is feeling better."
"Hredlichi also tells me," Seldal went on, "that you interviewed my other patients about a ward environment improvement scheme, with the exception of my isolation case who is forbidden visitors and all medical contacts not directly involved with its treatment. The case is a young and therefore relatively small member of a macrospecies, so there would be an element of risk involved to any life-form of more or less normal body mass approaching it closely. If you still want to do so, you now have my permission to visit it whenever you wish."
"Thank you, Senior Physician," Lioren said, feeling grateful but even more confused by the way the conversation was going. "Naturally, I am curious about the secrecy surrounding that particular patient—"
"As is everyone else in the hospital," Seldal broke in, "who is not closely involved with its treatment, which, I must admit, is not going well. But I am not merely satisfying your curiosity, I have a favor to ask.
"My recent conversations with Mannen and the way it speaks of you," the Nallajim went on quickly, "make me wonder if the change you brought about in the ex-Diagnostician might be repeated with the young Groalterri patient, whose prognosis is being adversely affected for nonmedical reasons about which it will not speak. My idea is that it, too, may benefit from knowing that its problems are minor when compared with your own. But I will understand if you prefer not to assist me."
