Final Diagnosis, page 16
part #10 of Sector General Series
While he was trying to think of something complimentary to say about the place, Prilicla apologized for the inconvenience of having an ambulance ship land with no advance warning beside their charming home.
"Apologies are unnecessary, Dr. Prilicla," said Crajarron, with a dismissive wave of one tentacle. "You are the first Cinrusskin we have met and we are grateful for this very pleasant break in our routine. Can we offer hospitality, solid or liquid sustenance, perhaps? Our food synthesizer has many other-species' programs."
"Regrettably, no," said Prilicla, "we have already eaten."
Murchison, Stillman, and Hewlitt looked at the empath, knowing that it could feel their hunger. It had not told a lie, but neither had it said how long ago they had eaten.
"We came to apologize for the intrusion of our ship," it went on, "which is engaged on an investigation into an incident that occurred when friend Hewlitt was a child living here with its parents. While we were here it wished to visit its old home and, bearing in mind its sudden departure following the flyer accident, to ask if you knew what had happened to an entity to which it was emotionally attached at that time."
Hewlitt stared at the others in turn. Stillman looked as puzzled as he himself felt, but Murchison did not look surprised at all. His cat must have died of illness, accident, or old age years ago. Why was Prilicla asking questions about it now? Crajarron turned two of its eyes in Hewlitt's direction and said, "Do you mean the small, furry Earth-being of limited intelligence called Snarfe? It was adopted by another Earth-human household, but it refused to stay there and kept returning to its old home. When we came to live here we found it wandering about the house and garden. Later we learned that some members of its species form attachments for persons and others for places. It had a friendly disposition and, once we learned its dietary requirements and how not to step on it when it tried to attract our attention by climbing our legs, it remained with us as a house pet."
Hewlitt blinked, remembering that well-loved cat when it had been little more than a kitten, and feeling surprised by his sudden feelings of sorrow and loss. But Crajarron was making a strange, irregular hissing sound that did not translate. He realized that it was a Tralthan's attempt at making the push-wushing sound Earth-people made when trying to attract the attention of a cat only when Fudge appeared in the entrance and stalked slowly toward him.
Nobody spoke as the cat stopped, looked up at him, then began to circle his feet, butting his ankles and gently lashing his lower legs with the thick, furry tail. It was a form of nonverbal communication that had no need of translation. He stooped, picked it up with both hands, and held it against his chest and shoulder. When he ran his fingers gently from its forehead along its back, the tail stiffened and it began to purr.
"Fudge," he said, "I certainly didn't expect to see you again. How are you?"
Prilicla flew closer and said, "Its emotional radiation is characteristic of a very old and contented entity who is without physical or mental distress and is presently enjoying the stroking of its fur. If it could speak it would tell you that it is well, and to please continue what you are doing. Friend Murchison, you know what to do."
"Yes indeed," the pathologist replied, producing her scanner. "Crajarron, Surriltor, may I?" To Hewlitt she added, "This won't hurt at all, just hold it steady for a moment while I scan. I'm recording for later study, if necessary."
Fudge must have thought that she was playing a new game, because it took a double swipe at the scanner with claws sheathed, then returned to the enjoyment of the petting while she completed the examination.
"Do you wish to reclaim your property, Earth-person Hewlitt?" said Crajarron. Both Tralthans were directing all of their eyes at him, and he did not need an empathic faculty or the sight of Prilicla trembling to know that the inter-species social relations were cooling fast.
"Thank you, no," he said, returning Fudge to the floor. "Plainly the cat likes it here and would be unhappy elsewhere, but I am grateful for this opportunity to renew an old friendship."
The atmosphere thawed at once, Prilicla regained flight stability, and Fudge transferred its affections to Surriltor by jumping onto one of the Tralthan's massive feet. A few minutes later their polite exchange of farewells was interrupted by the house communicator's double chime, signaling an incoming call.
It was Dr. Hamilton.
"Sorry I won't be able to answer your questions in person, Dr. Prilicla," he said. "Stillman will have told you that I'm visiting the Vespara establishment on Yunnet right now. One of the joys of being an other-species peripatetic dentist on this world. How can I help you?"
While Prilicla was explaining what it wanted, the two Tralthans, not wanting to eavesdrop on what might be a private conversation, moved to a corner of the room and raised their hush field. Hewlitt stared hard at the screen, trying to remember the other's face and voice, but the only memory that came was of shining instruments and hands projecting from white cuffs. Perhaps he had not looked at the other's face long enough for it to register.
"I remember the incident," said the dentist, "not because it was important but because it was the first and only time I was asked to extract teeth that would have detached themselves naturally. At the time I decided that the child was overimaginative, timid, and unwilling to inflict what he believed would be serious pain on himself by pulling out the teeth with his fingers, as most children do, and his mother had taken him to me to sort out the problem. It was too minor a procedure to require an anesthetic and, I remember now, there was a note in his med file warning against the use of painkilling medication because of a then unidentified allergy."
"We are still having trouble identifying it," said Murchison. "What happened to the teeth? Did you keep or examine them following the extraction?"
"There was no reason to do that," said Hamilton, and laughed. "They were just ordinary children's first teeth. Besides, if you are unfamiliar with the tooth-fairy myth current among young Earth-children, he insisted on having them back for financial reasons."
"Is there anything else you can remember about the incident, friend Hamilton?" said Prilicla. "No matter how odd or unimportant it may have seemed at the time."
"Sorry, no," the dentist replied. "I never saw the child again, so presumably the rest of his baby teeth detached normally."
Hewlitt barely heard the end of the conversation, because he was remembering something else about those teeth, something he had almost forgotten until the dentist's words brought it back. He had not told anyone about it, then or later, because they would have said that it was all his imagination. Even as a child he had hated people telling him that he was imagining things.
"Friend Hewlitt," said Prilicla, drifting closer, "your emotional radiation, comprising minor levels of irritation, caution, and expected embarrassment, suggests that you are hiding something from us. Please tell us about it. We will not laugh or embarrass you. Any new datum on this case could turn out to be important."
"I doubt that," he said, "but here it is ..."
Apart from one loud, untranslatable sound from Naydrad, they watched him until he had finished speaking. It was Prilicla who broke the incredulous silence.
"Dr. Hamilton made no mention of this," said the empath. "Did you show the teeth to or discuss them with anyone?"
"He didn't examine the teeth before he gave them back to me," Hewlitt replied. "They were fine and very hard to see, anyway. There were five or six of them, pale grey in color and about an inch long, on each tooth. They were in my hand all the way home, but I didn't show it to my grandmother because she was a bit irritated with me over what she thought was an unnecessary visit to the dentist. By the time we got back to the house they were gone. They must have dropped off or been blown away by the groundcar's air-conditioning, I know, none of you believe me."
Murchison laughed, then shook her head and said, "I'm sorry. But it is difficult to believe you when you keep telling us about so many strange, unsupported, unrelated, and completely incredible symptoms. Do you blame us?"
Prilicla's spidery limbs were trembling again. It said, "I promised that we would not cause embarrassment to friend Hewlitt, who feels that it is telling the truth."
"I know he thinks he is telling the truth, dammit," said Murchison. "But I ask you, hairy teeth!"
This time it was Stillman who exercised the diplomacy characteristic of a cultural contact specialist by changing the subject.
"Dr. Prilicla," he said. "Would you like to visit the ravine now?"
Hewlitt waited until they were outside before he said, "I knew that was Fudge the instant I saw it, and I know it recognized me at the same time. I can't describe ... It was a really strange feeling."
"Your feeling of recognition toward your nonsapient little friend was complex," said the empath. "I have never before encountered an emotional response quite like it, and I would not have been surprised if you had asked the Tralthans for the animal to be returned to you. I am pleased at your response to the situation ... Friend Murchison, you are feeling confused and dissatisfied about something. What is it?"
"That cat," she replied, glancing behind her at the house. "My parents liked cats and never had less than two of them at home, so I'm familiar with the species. For example, the life span of a healthy cat is twelve to fourteen Earth years, not double that period, so Snarfe has no business being alive. Dr. Stillman, how sure are you that it is an Earth cat and not a more long-lived Etlan or other-species look-alike?"
"Very sure," the surgeon-captain replied. "When the cultural-contact people came to Etla, and it was clear that they would be staying here for a long time, the Corps leaned over backward in the matter of bringing out their personal effects, including, in one case, a pet cat. A few weeks after arrival it produced a litter of six kittens who were all for foster homes. Snarfe was one of them."
"Then why," said Murchison, "should an ordinary cat double its life span here?"
Stillman walked several paces before he said, "I've wondered about that myself, ma'am. My theory is that on Etla the cat was not exposed to any of the feline diseases it would normally have encountered on Earth and, as we know, Etlan pathogens have no effect on off-world species. Here it was isolated from all life-threatening or physically debilitating diseases and should die only from accident or old age, after using up all nine of its long and very healthy lives."
Murchison smiled. "We know that Fudge had one bad accident and survived it," she said. "That is a nice theory Doctor, but is there supporting evidence? What about the other kittens from the same litter?"
"I was afraid you would ask that," said Stillman. "One lost an argument with a log transporter. All five of the others died naturally, so far as I know from old age, about ten years ago."
"Oh," said Murchison.
Chapter Nineteen
PRILICLA broke the long silence that followed by saying, "Friend Hewlitt, we would like to begin retracing your path from the position of the old hole in the garden enclosure where you escaped to the tree from which you fell. If you are ready, please lead the way."
On the other side of the garden fence he began half walking, half wading through the long, thick growth that looked like Earth grass unless one looked at it more closely, ignoring the insects that were too small for the differences to show, and staring up at the hot, blue sky with its scattered cloud shapes that were too irregular and normal to look alien. Stillman kept pace with him but did not speak, and the others were lagging too far behind for him to hear what they were saying. They were probably talking about him, he thought angrily, and discussing the clinical and psychological implications of his latest flight of fancy.
"I wasn't sure at first, Dr. Stillman," he said, trying to start a conversation that might change his mental subject, "but I recognized you, too. You seemed to be much taller then, but I suppose all adults are giants to a four-year-old. Apart from that you haven't changed much."
"I didn't recognize you at all," said Stillman. He smiled and patted his ample waistline. "You have grown up while I grew out."
"It was lucky finding you still here," Hewlitt went on. "l thought the Monitor Corps moved its people all over the galaxy."
"I am very lucky to be here," said Stillman.
They walked in silence for at least thirty paces, and he was beginning to wonder if his words had somehow given offense when the other went on, "On this Etla we have an ongoing cultural-contact situation that is, well, delicate because in so many ways the natives are not alien. Where dealing with an intelligent species that is completely alien, if a misunderstanding occurs, allowances are made on both sides. Here we are trying both to understand and gradually reeducate a culture that took a wrong turning. Or rather, they were misinformed and misguided by their emperor into mass xenophobia and defending themselves offensively against a nonexistent threat. We had to gain their trust and show them—we are still showing them—that other-species intelligent life-forms are like themselves, not necessarily bad or good, just different.
"Even in your time we had a few other-species personnel attached to the base," Stillman went on. "The idea was to dilute the Etlan xenophobia by showing aliens working beside us in harmony, and occasionally we would send them out with a covert guard on very carefully arranged visits to public places. They would be spectators at important sporting events, or go on sightseeing trips where the sightseeing was two-way or, most important, to meet and talk to children in schools. Now the base personnel and specialist civilian support comprises three Etlans for every one Earth-human or other-species being, so the cultural-contact program is progressing well.
"But the problem is complicated by the fact that, even though they are nice, friendly people, they are very proud. Even I forget sometimes how different they are; mistakes can still be made. That, as well as its natural lack of charm, is the reason Shech-Rar is not pleased to have a wildly assorted bunch of extraterrestrials conducting an unspecified investigation and blundering around in ignorance of the situation.
"Nothing personal," he added, "but you have just received a condensed and edited version of my lecture to newly arrived Corps personnel."
Hewlitt did not think it was his place to reply. He could hear the others moving closer, but apparently they were more interested in listening to the two in front than talking. The silence continued until Stillman gave a small, awkward laugh and spoke again.
"If an officer is able and dedicated and successful in gaining the natives' trust," he said, "his superiors like him to remain for as long as possible so as to give continuity to the process. Apparently I displayed unusual aptitude by insisting on marrying an Etlan and staying here after my service retirement date. She is the reason why I told you I was lucky to be here."
"I understand," said Hewlitt.
The other seemed to sense his embarrassment. He said, "Don't worry, I'm not going maudlin in my old age. We met during my second year here. She was what they call a Mother Teacher of the Young, one of the people who instruct four- to seven-year-olds, and the first Etlan to agree to introduce a Tralthan teacher equivalent and share her class with it. She had already accepted the idea that the best time to instruct children was before they had a chance to acquire their parents' prejudices. She was a widow. There were an awful lot of widows and orphaned children about at the time. We could have none of our own, naturally, but we adopted four before we became too old to ..."
"Doctor," said Murchison, lengthening her stride until she drew level with them. "I know that the species difference is a bar to procreation, but it might answer a few puzzling clinical questions, or maybe puzzle us even more, if you knew of an exception to that rule. Do you? And if so, is it possible that one of Hewlitt's parents was an Etlan. Or that he was an Etlan fosterling?"
Stillman shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am. I knew his parents very well before he was born, and I was present when he arrived."
"It was a pretty wild idea, anyway," said Murchison, holding up her hand and clenching it into a fist. "You are looking at a hand clutching at hypothetical straws."
Hewlitt remained silent. He was aware of a strange feeling of temporal double vision. The grass was waist-high as it had been to the four-year-old Hewlitt, the trees and bushes had grown taller and thicker, but so had he, and the smell of sun-warmed vegetation and the droning and ticking sounds of insects were exactly the same. Only the distances between the landmarks had shrunk with age.
"I remember this very well," he said, and raised his hand to point. "The first bush I played around is there."
"Can you remember eating anything here?" said Murchison. "A wild berry, perhaps, or did you pull a blade of grass and chew on it? I'm thinking in terms of a possible antidote to the toxic material ingested later."
"No," said Hewlitt, and pointed again. "That ruined house was next. But I'm surprised it wasn't pulled down or rebuilt by now. The whole area is still a wilderness."
"That is deliberate," said Stillman. He looked all around him before going on. "This was the place where the battle which finally overthrew their imperial representative was fought, and the area where all the off-worlders are housed. It is intended both as a reminder of the bad old days and the promise of the new. So far it seems to have worked. On public holidays this is a nice, quiet place to picnic, except when the Etlan children find some off-world kids to play with, when the noise can be horrendous."
The house was little more than a shell with its roof open to the sky and weeds growing in the debris covering the floor. There were scorch marks on one wall, but after the passage of so many years the burnt smell was probably due to memory rather than lingering smoke. A different generation of small animals and insects scampered or crawled through the weeds, and Murchison asked if he remembered being bitten or stung by any of them. He shook his head, but she asked Naydrad to help her gather and trap a few random specimens for later analysis.
