Sector general omnibus, p.220
Sector General Omnibus, page 220
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 nonmedical 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 13
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?”
“Yes,” said Hewlitt. “But don’t expect too much entertainment or eroticism. At the time I was on Earth and living with grandparents who didn’t have a furry pet that I could play with. Some of the episodes are very embarrassing. Do Kelgians experience puberty?”
“Yes,” said Morredeth. “Did you think we were sexually active from birth?”
“Puberty can be an embarrassing time,” said Hewlitt, treating the question as rhetorical, “even for normally healthy people.”
“Then describe your embarrassment and lack of health in detail,” said Morredeth, “if you have nothing more interesting to talk about.”
I could have picked a less personal subject, he thought, feeling surprised at his complete lack of hesitation as he began to speak. Maybe the fact that the other belonged to a different species had something to do with it, and talking to a Kelgian patient was no different from telling his symptoms to a Melfan senior physician or a Hudlar nurse, except that Morredeth’s curiosity was more intense and less clinical.
As he was describing his transition from solitary studies on his home computer into the higher education system with its increasing emphasis on group studies and team and solo athletic events, at which he did very well, and the opportunities to form friendships with the female students that his growing reputation as an athlete provided, Morredeth interrupted him.
“Are you complaining about this situation?” it said. “Or being boastful about your good fortune?”
“I am complaining,” Hewlitt replied, his voice raised with remembered anger, “because the opportunities and advantages were lost. Nothing ever happened. Even when I was strongly attracted to a particular young female and, I believed, she to me . . . well, it was very unsatisfactory and frustrating and, and painful.”
“Were you more strongly attracted to someone or something else?” asked Morredeth. “To a female who was not attracted to you? Or had you developed even stronger feelings for one of your small furry creatures?”
“No!” said Hewlitt. He looked at the sleepers in the nearby beds and lowered his voice. “What kind of person do you think I am, dammit?”
“A very sick Earth-person,” Morredeth replied. “Isn’t that the reason you are here?”
“I wasn’t that sick,” said Hewlitt, laughing in spite of himself. “I wasn’t sick at all, according to the university medics. They said that I was a perfect physical specimen in every respect. After many embarrassing tests and experiments were carried out, they said that there was no anatomical or hormonal reason why, after I had achieved full mental and physical arousal, my seminal fluid should not have been expelled. They also said that by some involuntary or unconscious method which they did not understand I was checking the mechanism of ejaculation at the penultimate moment, and that the sudden interference with the flow caused immediate pain followed by diminishing discomfort in the genital area until the material was reabsorbed. They suggested that my problem was probably due to a deeply buried, childhood emotional trauma that was showing itself in episodes of shyness so intense that it manifested itself on the physical level.”
“What is shyness?” said Morredeth. “My translator assigns no Kelgian meaning to the word.”
If a being always said exactly what it thought, it could not be expected to understand shyness. Explaining shyness to such a being might be like trying to describe color to a blind person, but he would try.
“Shyness is a psychological barrier to social interaction,” he said. “It is a nonphysical wall that keeps a person from saying or doing what he or she is wanting very badly to say or do; for emotional reasons, usually involving inexperience or oversensitivity or even cowardice, the words or actions are suppressed. Among Earthhumans it is very common during puberty, when the initial social contacts between the sexes are being made.”
“That is ridiculous,” said Morredeth. “On Kelgia the feeling of a male or female for one of the opposite sex is impossible to hide. If the attraction felt by one for the other is very strong but is not reciprocated, the first has the option of persisting in its attempt to influence the second until the feeling is returned or of transferring the affections elsewhere. The successfully persistent ones usually make the best life-mates. Did the psychological treatment enable you to break through your shyness barrier eventually and allow normal coupling?”
“No,” said Hewlitt.
For the first time in his experience the Kelgian’s fur almost stopped moving, but only for a moment before it became even more agitated. Morredeth said, “I’m sorry. That situation must be very frustrating for you.”
“Yes,” he said.
“The senior physician might be able to help you,” said Morredeth, trying to mix reassurance with honesty. “If it cannot solve your problem, Medalont will take it as a personal insult. No matter how serious the disease or injury, Sector General has the reputation of curing everything and everybody. Well, nearly everybody.”
For a moment Hewlitt stared at the other’s fur, which was being stirred into waves and eddies as if it were an agitated pooi of mercury; then he said, “The senior physician has my medical history, but as yet it hasn’t asked me about my involuntary celibacy. Maybe, like the university’s psychologist, it thinks the trouble is all in my mind. But the problem wasn’t, isn’t, painful so long as I avoid close, one-to-one female contact.
“When it became clear that the psychologist was getting nowhere,” he went on, keeping his eyes on the increasing agitation of Morredeth’s fur, “he decided that I was stubbornly refusing to respond to all his attempts at psychotherapy. I was told that living out my life without female companionship, which was probably what I secretly wanted to do, was rare but not in itself unhealthy. Many highly respected people in the past had done so, and made significant contributions to philosophy and the sciences while devoting themselves to the religious celibate life as writers and teachers, or by sublimating their sexual urges in scientific research . . .
He broke off because Morredeth’s body as well as its fur was showing increasing agitation. The underlying bands of muscle were going in and out of spasm, causing it to twist and turn and bounce against the bed.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “Shall I call the nurse?”
“No,” said the Kelgian, the upper part of its body threatening to roll onto the floor. “I don’t want any more of your stupid interference.”
Hewlitt wondered if he should raise the screens so that the bed would be visible from the nurses’ station, then remembered that the other was probably on a monitor. He looked at the writhing body again and said, “I was only trying to help you.”
“Why are you doing this cruel thing?” said Morredeth. “Who told you to do this to me?”
“I, I don’t understand you,” he said, feeling baffled. “What did I say?”
“You are not a Kelgian,” said Morredeth, “so you do not fully understand the mental hurt I feel. First you talked about stroking your furry pet, and then apologized for your insensitivity. Now you are talking about yourself and the impossibility of you ever finding a mate, but it is plain that you are really talking about me and my problems. You must have been told to do this. When Li-oren tried to do these things to me earlier, I closed my ears. Who told you to talk to me like this? Lioren? Braithwaite? The senior physician? And why?”
His first impulse was to deny everything, but that would have been unfair because Kelgians did not know how to tell, nor would they expect to be told, a lie. Either he should say nothing or tell the truth.
“It was the Hudlar nurse,” he said, “who asked me to talk to you.
“But the Hudlar isn’t a psychologist,” Morredeth broke in. “Why did it do such a cruel thing? It is unqualified and it was tinkering with my feelings. I shall report its behavior to the senior physician.”
Hewlitt tried to reduce the other’s growing anger by saying, “Every person I ever met thought they were good, if untrained, psychologists . . .“Including me, he added silently. “. . . just as they believed themselves to be expert ground-car drivers and in possession of a brilliant sense of humor. The trouble is, psychologists rarely agree on their methods of treatment. Are you feeling pain?”
“No,” said Morredeth, “anger.”
Considering the species of the patient, he thought, the words had to be accepted as the literal truth. As he watched the increasing agitation and violence of the fur and body movements, he wondered if he was seeing the Kelgian equivalent of bad language that the other had no need to vocalize.
