Final diagnosis, p.10
Final Diagnosis, page 10
part #10 of Sector General Series
Even though it had no features that he could identify, the nurse appeared to relax. It said, "I don't think this is anything to worry about, Patient Hewlitt. During a game of scremman that lasted for many hours, as I have been told yours did, the exchange of insulting and critical words is a common occurrence ..."
"I noticed," he said.
"... and such words are forgotten by the next deal," it went on. "Just forget the incident, as the others will have done by now, and go to sleep."
"But it didn't happen like that," he said. "At the time we were between games and the words were spoken while we were eating lunch."
The Hudlar was silent for a moment while it looked along the beds on both sides of the ward. Everyone but Hewlitt and itself seemed to be asleep, so that there was nothing more urgent to claim its professional attention. He felt pleased and a little ashamed, of his newfound ability to maneuver this medical monstrosity to his will.
"Very well, Patient Hewlitt," it said, "what was the subject of conversation, and can you recall the remark that caused Patient Morredeth to take offense?"
"I already told you I couldn't," said Hewlitt. "I was simply describing and talking about a small, furry animal, a household-pet ... Do Hudlars keep pets? ... I had played with as a child. Morredeth did not object to anything I was saying until it suddenly accused me of talking dirty, and Bowab agreed with it. At the time I thought they were joking, but now I'm not so sure."
"In its present condition," said the nurse, the speaking membrane vibrating in the Hudlar equivalent of a near whisper, "Patient Morredeth is unusually sensitive about its fur ... But you were not to know that. Tell me what was said exactly?"
Was it possible, Hewlitt wondered suddenly, that the nurse was using him instead of the other way around? Was it pleased and eager to use any excuse to ease the boredom of night duty by giving nonmedical support to a worried patient, and would that be its clinically acceptable excuse to Leethveeschi for what might turn out to be a prolonged midnight chat? He took his time and repeated everything that had been said leading up to and during the description and behavior of his cat while it was being petted. He did not think that a being whose skin was like flexible steel could have erotic fantasies about fur, but in this place one could never be sure of anything.
When he finished speaking, the nurse said, "Now I understand. Before I try to explain what happened, tell me how much you already know about the Kelgian life-form."
"Only the information given in the introductory paragraphs from the nonmedical library listing of member races of the Federation," he said, "most of which was historical material. The Kelgians are physiological classification DBLF, warm-blooded, multipedal, and possessing a cylindrical body covered overall with mobile, silvery fur which is continually in motion while the being is conscious and, to a lesser extent, when it is dreaming.
"Because of inadequacies in the Kelgian speech organ," he went on, "their spoken language lacks modulation, inflection or any other form of emotional expression. But they are compensated for this by their fur, which acts, so far as another Kelgian is concerned, as a perfect and uncontrollable mirror of the speaker's emotional state. As a result, the concepts of lying or being diplomatic, tactful or even polite are completely alien to them. A Kelgian says exactly what it means or feels because the fur is revealing its feelings from moment to moment, and to do otherwise is considered a stupid waste of time. Am I right so far?"
"Yes," said the Hudlar. "But in this situation the medical library data would have been of more use to you. Did Morredeth discuss its condition with you?"
"No," he replied. "When I asked, it said that it didn't want to talk about it. I was curious but decided that its ailment might be embarrassing and was none of my business anyway, and dropped the subject."
"Sometimes Patient Morredeth will not talk about its troubles," said the nurse, "and at other times it will. If you ask tomorrow or the next day it will probably tell you about its accident and the long-term results, which are very serious but not life-threatening, in great detail. I am telling you this because nearly everyone in the ward knows of Morredeth's problem, so I am not breaking patient confidentiality by discussing the physiological and emotional aspects of the case with you."
"I understand," he said.
"You do not understand," said the Hudlar, moving closer to his bed and lowering its voice in inverse proportion to the distance, "but soon you will. If any of the anatomical terms I use are unclear, which is unlikely considering your medical history and prior experience of hospital treatments, please stop me and ask for a layperson's explanation. Shall I begin?"
Hewlitt stared at the nurse's massive body balanced on its six, curling tentacles and wondered if there was any intelligent species, regardless of its size, shape, or number of limbs, whose members did not enjoy a good gossip.
Remembering the trouble that a few unthinking words had caused with Morredeth, Hewlitt decided not to ask the question aloud.
"Anatomically," the Hudlar went on in exactly the same tone as that used by Senior Physician Medalont to its trainees, "the most important fact that you should know about Kelgians is that, apart from the thin-walled, cranial, casing that protects the brain, the DBLF classification has no bony structure. Their bodies are composed of an outer cylinder of musculature which, in addition to assisting with locomotion, serves as protection for the vital organs within it. To the minds of beings like ourselves, whose bodies are more generously reinforced with bone structure, this protection seems far from adequate. Another severe disadvantage in the event of injury is the complex and extremely vulnerable circulatory system. The blood supply, which has to feed the large bands of muscle encircling the body, lies just beneath the skin, as does the nerve network that controls the mobile fur. Some protection is given by the thickness of the fur, but not against deep, lacerated wounding of more than one-tenth of the body area sustained as the result of Patient Morredeth being thrown against an uneven metal obstruction during a space collision.
An injury which in many other species would be considered superficial, the nurse explained, could result in a Kelgian bleeding to death within a few minutes. The emergency coagulant administered at the time of the accident had checked the bleeding and saved Morredeth's life but at a price. On the ambulance ship and later in hospital the damaged major blood vessels had been repaired, but even Sector General's DBLF microsurgery team had been unable to save the capilliary and nerve networks that had served the lost or damaged fur. As a result the beautiful Kelgian fur, which played such an important tactile as well as an aesthetic visual role between them during the preliminaries to courtship and mating, would never grow properly in those areas. Or if it did grow, the fur would be stiff, yellow, lifeless, and visually repulsive to another Kelgian of either gender.
It was possible to have the damaged area covered with artificial fur, but the synthetic material lacked the mobility and the deep, rich luster of living fur and would be immediately recognized for what it was. Kelgians in Morredeth's situation were usually too proud to be seen wearing such a patch and elected instead to live and work in solitude or with minimum social contact.
"The other Kelgians on the medical staff," the Hudlar went on, "tell me that Morredeth is, or was, a particularly handsome young female who has no longer any hope of mating or living a normal life. At present its problem is emotional rather than medical."
"And I," said Hewlitt, feeling hot with embarrassment, "had to talk to it about my cat's beautiful fur. I'm surprised it didn't hit me with something. Is there nothing more that can be done for it? And should I apologize, or would that just make matters worse?"
"In the space of a few days," said the Hudlar, ignoring the question, "you appear to be at ease, or even on terms of friendship, with Horrantor, Bowab, and Morredeth. On arrival you displayed symptoms of severe xenophobia which have since disappeared. If this is a true reaction to your first multiple, other-species contacts and not just a polite pretense of accepting an emotionally disturbing situation that you could do nothing about, then I am impressed with your ability to adapt. But I find your recent behavior, well, surprising."
"It wasn't a pretense," he said without hesitation, "and I'm not as polite as all that. Maybe it was because, as the only healthy patient in the ward, I was bored and curious, and it was you who suggested that I should try talking to the other patients in the first place. They all looked like waking nightmares to me and still do. But something, I don't know what exactly, made me want to meet them. It was a surprise to me, too."
The nurse's speaking membrane vibrated, too slowly for any words to form, and Hewlitt wondered if he was seeing the Hudlar equivalent of a stammer of hesitation. Finally it said, "To answer your earlier question, there is nothing more that can be done for Morredeth other than to change its dressings, which will heal the surface wounding without regenerating the damage to the underlying nerve network, and to apply the nonmedical treatment prescribed by Senior Physician Medalont at the suggestion of Padre Lioren, who until now has been visiting Morredeth every day. Today it called but remained in the nurses' station, where it listened to the conversation picked up by your medical monitor before—"
"It listened to our private conversation?" Hewlitt broke in. "That, that was wrong! I didn't know my monitor could be used that way. I, we might have said something that others were not supposed to hear."
"You did," said the nurse, "but Leethveeschi is used to hearing derogatory remarks about itself. Your monitor is capable of picking up words spoken very faintly in case you feel something is going wrong before the instrument does and call for help. Lioren said that the scremman game with a new and untutored player was helping to take the patient's mind off its troubles, and was probably doing more good than anything it could have said or done just then, and that it would visit Morredeth tomorrow."
Before Hewlitt could reply, it went on, "Morredeth's non-medical treatment includes a reduction in night sedation, which has been massive up until now, so that it will have more time to be alone with its thoughts. Medalont and Lioren are hoping that this will enable it to come to terms with its emotional problems. During the day, you may have noticed, it does not give itself time to think. As of tonight I have been instructed not to speak more than a few words to it unless there are strong medical reasons for doing so. You Earth-people have a saying that describes the situation very well, but my own feeling is that a healer should never be cruel to be kind, especially when a patient's suffering can be reduced by engaging in a friendly conversation with it. I am not, therefore, in agreement with this proposed course of treatment."
Once again the nurse's speaking membrane twitched silently. Hewlitt clapped a hand over his monitor, hoping that he was covering the sound sensor so that no word of its mutinous feelings would reach a more senior medic who might want to listen to the conversation later.
"Earlier you asked me what you should do about your insensitive behavior toward Morredeth," the nurse said as it turned to leave. "If you see that the patient is continuously wakeful, as it will be, it would do no harm then to apologize and talk to it."
He watched as the nurse moved along the darkened ward, in complete silence despite its tremendous body weight, and thought that for a great, hulking creature with hide like flexible metal it had a very soft heart. He did not have to be an empath, Hewlitt thought, to know what the other expected of him.
For psychological reasons that it found objectionable, the nurse had been forbidden by its superior to engage Morredeth in extended conversation and, without actually disobeying its instructions, it was making sure that someone else did.
Chapter Thirteen
HEWLITT lay propped on one elbow so that he could see across the intervening patients to Morredeth's bed, listening to a ward full of extraterrestrials making their various sleeping noises and wondering how long he should wait before approaching the Kelgian. Its bed was screened and there was a faint glow visible on the ceiling, but the light was steady as if it was coming from the bedside lamp rather than an entertainment channel on the viewscreen. It was possible that Morredeth was reading or had already fallen asleep with its light on, and one of the strange noises he could hear might be the Kelgian snoring. If so it would have harsh things to say to the stupid Earth-person who wakened it.
To be on the safe side he decided to wait until Morredeth paid its nightly visit to the bathroom and talk to it after it had returned to its bed. But tonight it seemed that nobody needed to use the bathroom and he was becoming intensely bored with nothing to look at but rows of shadowy, alien beds and the single, glowing patch of ceiling above the Kelgian's position. Even the entertainment channel would be more exciting than this, he thought, and decided to make his apology without further delay and then try to get some sleep himself.
He sat upright, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and felt around with his feet in the darkness until they found the sandals. They were hospital-issue and much too large so that the soft, flapping sounds they made against the floor seemed much louder now than they had during the daytime bustle of the ward. If Morredeth was awake it would hear him coming, and if it was asleep he would owe it a second apology for waking it up.
Morredeth was lying like a fat, furry question mark on its uninjured side, its only covering the large rectangle of fabric that held the wound dressings in place. With all that natural insulation, Hewlitt supposed, a Kelgian would not need blankets very often. Its eyes were closed and its legs were tucked up and almost hidden by the thick, restless fur, but the small, erratic movements did not necessarily mean that Morredeth was unconscious.
"Morredeth," said Hewlitt, in a voice so quiet that he barely heard it himself, "are you awake?"
"Yes," it said without opening its eyes.
"If you can't sleep," said Hewlitt, "would you like me to talk to you for a while?"
"No," said Morredeth, then a moment later, "Yes."
"What would you like to talk about?"
"Talk about anything you like," said the Kelgian, opening its eyes, "except me."
It was going to be difficult, Hewlitt thought, talking to a being who could not lie and always said exactly what it thought, especially when there were no other normally polite liars present to keep him reminded of the social niceties. He would have to be very careful or he might end up talking honestly, like a Kelgian. The feeling that he was about to do just that was very strong and he had no explanation for it.
Why am I thinking this way? he asked himself, not for the first time. This isn't like me at all.
Aloud he said, "My primary reason for coming to see you is to apologize. I should not have talked about my furry pet to you in such detail. I had no intention of causing you emotional distress, and since learning of the long-term effects of your injury, I realize now that I was being thoughtless, insensitive, and stupid. Patient Morredeth, I am very sorry."
For a few seconds there was no response except for the agitated rippling of the other's fur, so marked that the edges of the fabric covering the wound dressings were twitching in sympathy. Then it said, "You had no intention of causing distress, so you were ignorant, not stupid. Sit on the bed. What is your secondary reason for coming?"
When Hewlitt did not reply at once, Morredeth said, "Why do non-Kelgians waste so much time thinking up many words for their answers when a few would do? I asked you a simple question."
And you will get a simple, Kelgian answer, Hewlitt decided. He said, "I was curious about you and your injury. But you have forbidden me to talk about you. Shall I return to my bed?"
"No," said Morredeth.
"Is there anything or anyone else you would like to talk about?"
"You," said the Kelgian.
Hewlitt hesitated and Morredeth went on, "My ears are sensitive and I have heard nearly every word that has passed between the medics and yourself. You are healthy, you receive no medication or treatment, except once when it made you pass out and the resuscitation team arrived, and nobody will say what is wrong with you. I heard you tell the Earth-human psychologist how you survived poisoning and a fall that should have killed you. But a hospital is for the sick and injured, not for people who have already recovered. So what is wrong with you? Is it a personal or shameful thing that you do not wish to talk about, even to a member of a different species who might not understand your shame?"
"No, nothing like that," Hewlitt replied. "It is just that telling you all about it would take a long time, especially if I had to stop to explain some of the Earth-human social behavior and customs. Besides, talking about my troubles would make me remember how little the Earth medics were able to do because they refused to believe that there was anything at all wrong with me, so I would feel frustrated and angry and probably end up complaining to you all the time."
Morredeth's fur rippled into a new and visually more attractive pattern, making him wonder if it might be feeling amusement. It said, "You, too? That is the reason why I do not want to talk about myself. You would have complained about me complaining."
"You have much more to complain about than I have," said Hewlitt, and stopped because the other's fur was standing out in spikes again, and the bands of muscle encircling its body were tightening as if they were about to go into spasm. He added quickly, "Sorry, Morredeth, I'm talking about you instead of me. What would you like me to talk about first?"
The Kelgian's body relaxed, although the fur was still restive as it said, "Talk to me about incidents from your illness that you have yet to tell or, if they are unusual or shameful or depraved, you did not want to tell Medalont or the trainees. I might find your words entertaining enough to be able to forget my own problems for a while. Are you willing to do that for me?"
