“I understand, Doctor,” Thornnastor said. “Maintenance technicians, you know what is required. Lesk-Murog, prepare yourself. Quickly, everyone.”
A subjective eternity passed before the equipment was set up and the diminutive Lesk-Murog, looking like a plastic-encased, long-tailed rodent with one end of the new suction pipeline attached to its backpack, disappeared headfirst into the entry wound. Conway and Seldal had already cut through the skinsticker’s outer membrane and were excising small pieces and feeding them into the original suction unit,
although it was obvious that the black growth was increasing in size in spite of their efforts because the incision continued to widen and tear in both directions. But with the Nidian Senior’s arrival the situation changed at once.
“This is much better,” said Conway. “We are beginning to make progress now and are excising deeply into the growth. As soon as we have hollowed it out sufficiently, Seldal and Lesk-Murog will go inside and pass the excised material out to me for disposal. Don’t cut such large pieces, doctors, please. If this suction unit blocks we’ll be in real trouble. And watch where you’re swinging that blade, Lesk-Murog, I have no wish to become an amputee. How is the patient?”
“It is radiating anxiety, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, “with secondary but still strong feelings of excitement. Neither are at levels to cause distress.”
Since a further reply was unnecessary, Hellishomar and Lioren did not speak.
The main screen showed glimpses of rapidly moving Earth-human and Nidian hands and a furiously pecking Nallajim beak plying instruments that glittered brightly against the light-absorbent blackness of the growth. While describing the procedure Conway broke off to say that they were feeling more like miners digging for fossil fuel than surgeons engaged on a brain operation. The Diagnostician’s words were complaining but its voice sounded pleased because the environment of inert gas was seriously inhibiting further growth and the work was going well.
“The cavity has been enlarged sufficiently so that all three of us are now able to work inside and attack the growth independently,” Conway said. “Doctors Seldal and Lesk-Murog are able to stand upright while I am forced to kneel. It is becoming very warm in here. We would be obliged if the inert gas you are pumping was reduced in temperature so as to avoid the risk of heat prostration. The inner surface of the growth’s enclosing membrane has been exposed over several large areas and it is beginning to sag under the weight of the surrounding brain structure. Please increase the internal gas pressure immediately to keep it from collapsing all over us. How is the patient?”
“No change, friend Conway,” Prilicla said.
For a time the operation proceeded in silence. It was clear what the surgeons were doing and there was nothing new for Conway to describe, until suddenly he said, “We have discovered the location of the feeder root and are evacuating its liquid content. The root has shrunk to less than half its original circumference and is being withdrawn with negligible resistance. It is very long but appears to be complete. Seldal is making a deep probe to insure that none of it has been left behind. No other roots have been discovered, nor anything resembling connective pathways to a secondary growth.
“The inner surface of the membrane is now totally exposed,” the Diagnostician went on. “We are excising it in narrow strips that can be accommodated by the suction unit. Of necessity the work at this stage is slow and carefully performed because we are detaching the membrane from the underlying brain structures and must avoid inflicting further damage. It is most important that the patient remain completely immobile.”
Hellishomar spoke for the first time in nearly three hours. It said, “I will not move.”
“Thank you,” Conway said.
More time passed, slowly for the operating team and interminably for the watchers, until finally all activity on the main screen ceased and the Diagnostician spoke again.
“The last of the skinsticker material has been withdrawn,” Conway said. “You can see that the interfacing brain structures displaced by the growth have been seriously compressed, but we have found no evidence of necrosis due to impairment of the local circulation, which is, in fact, being slowly restored. It is unsafe to make categorical statements regarding the clinical condition of a hitherto unknown life-form or a prognosis based on incomplete data, but my opinion is that minimum cerebral damage has been done and, provided the effects were not due to heredity factors, the condition should rectify itself when the pressure which is artificially maintaining this working cavity is gradually reduced to zero. There is nothing more that we can do here.
“You leave first, Lesk-Murog,” Conway ended briskly. “Seldal, hop back into the pouch. We will withdraw and close up.”
Lioren watched the main screen as they slowly retraced their path, and worried. The operation had been successfully accomplished and the great mass of foreign matter within the Groalterri’s brain had been removed, but had it been the only cause of Hellishomar’s trouble? The Groalterri had carried that foul thing in its brain for most of its life, and it could never have become a highly respected Cutter had there been any impairment of muscular coordination. Was it not more likely, as Conway had suggested, that the missing telepathic function and all the mental distress which had stemmed from it was due to an untreatable genetic defect and incurable? He looked around for Prilicla, intending to ask it how the patient was feeling, then remembered that the emotion-sensitive had been forced to leave. As a species Cinrusskins lacked stamina and required frequent rest periods.
He should ask the question of Hellishomar himself, Lioren thought, instead of waiting for the patient to signal its private distress by calling his name. But suddenly he was too afraid of what the answer might be. Conway and Seldal had replaced the massive osseous plug and sutured the flap of cranial tegument and were removing their operating garments, and still Lioren could not drive himself to ask the question.
“Thank you, Seldal, Lesk-Murog, everyone,” Conway said, looking all around to include the OR and technical support staff. “You all did very well. And especially you, Lioren, by making the patient remain immobile when it was most necessary, by discovering the growth characteristics of that skinsticker, and by warning us in time about the effects of air and light. That was very well done. Personally I think your talents are wasted in Psychology.”
“I don’t,” O’Mara said. Then, as if ashamed of the compliment it had paid, the Chief Psychologist went on, “The trainee is insubordinate, secretive, and has an infuriating tendency to …”
Lioren.
They were all listening to O’Mara and seemed not to have heard. Lioren’s hand moved instinctively to his communicator to switch to the
private channel, wondering desperately what possible words of comfort he could find for this vast being who must again have lost all hope. Then, with his finger on the key, he stopped as a great and joyful realization came to him.
His name had been called but it had not been spoken.
O
nce again it was a private conversation, but this time without the deep cranial itching that had preceeded his telepathic contact with the Protector of the Unborn. The answers were given before the questions could be uttered, the other’s reassurance negated his concern as soon as it was felt, and the nerve and muscle connections between Lioren’s brain and tongue became redundant. It was as if a system for exchanging messages chiseled laboriously on slabs of rock had been replaced by the spoken word, except that the process was much faster than that.
Hellishomar the Cutter, formerly the flawed, the mentally deficient, the telepathically deaf and no longer the Small, was cured.
Gratitude washed over him in a bright, warm flood that only Lioren could see and feel, and with it came knowledge, incomplete and simplified so as to avoid damage to his relatively primitive mentality, that must be his alone. The people who had contributed to the unique and wondrous cure of a mentally disabled Groalterri should not be repaid with knowledge that would cripple their own young minds. Hellishomar had touched the minds of every thinking being within the hospital and the occupants of vessels orbiting beyond it, and knew this to be so.
The entities who had contributed to the success of the operation would be thanked individually and verbally. They would be told that
Hellishomar felt very well, that a significant change for the better had already taken place in the quality of its mentation, and that it was anxious to return to Groalter, where its recuperation would be aided by the greater freedom of physical movement that was not possible in Sector General.
All this was true, but it was not all of the truth. They were not to be told that Hellishomar needed to leave the hospital quickly because the temptation to remain and explore the minds and behavior and philosophies of the thousands of entities who came to work, to visit, or to be cared for in this great hospital was well-nigh irrestistible. For Lioren had been right when he had told O’Mara that to the gross and planetbound Groalterri the universe beyond the atmosphere was the hereafter that they would need all eternity to explore, and Sector General was a particularly intriguing microcosm of the Heaven that awaited them.
Lioren’s concern over the possible effects on the other Groalterri culture of Hellishomar’s off-planet experiences had been justified at the time. But now Hellishomar was not returning as one of the Small destined to remain a telepathic mute and crippled by a permanently occluded mind for the remainder of its life. Instead it was returning with all of its faculties restored, as a near-adult who would speak of this wondrous thing only to the Parents. It did not know how they would react to the knowledge he bore, but they were old and very wise and it was probable that the proof that Heaven was as wonderful and mindstretching as they believed, and even that a small part of it was peopled by short-lived creatures whose minds were primitive and their ethics advanced, would strengthen their belief and cause them to strive even harder for the perfection of mind and spirit that was needed before the Going Out.
A great debt was owed to the Monitor Corps and to the hospital staff who had made Hellishomar whole again, and to the single Tarlan entity who had talked and argued and worked with its mind to obtain the patient’s agreement to the operation. An even greater debt was owed by the other Groalterri, but neither debt would be paid. The Federation would not be allowed full contact with the Groalterri for the reasons
already given, and neither would Lioren be given the answers to the two questions uppermost in his mind.
During all his contacts with patients Lioren had never allowed himself to influence their nonmaterial beliefs, no matter, in the light of his own greater knowledge and experience, how strange or ridiculous they had seemed to him. He had refused to tamper with their beliefs even though he himself did not believe that he believed in anything. In the circumstances Lioren’s behavior had been ethically flawless and Hellishomar could do no less. It would not give its Tarlan friend the benefit of the advanced Groalterri philosophical and theological thinking by telling him what he should believe. And an answer to the second question was unnecessary because Lioren was about to make the decision for himself and do something that was completely foreign to his nature.
Lioren was becoming confused by this highly compressed method of communication, and by answers that come before the questions are fully formed.
It shames me to remind you of the debt you owe,
Lioren thought,
and to ask that a small part of it be repaid. When you touch my mind I sense a vastness of knowledge, a great area of brightness that you are hiding from me. If you instructed me I would believe. Why will you not tell me from your greater knowledge what is the truth about God?
By your own efforts,
Hellishomar replied,
you have acquired great knowledge. You have used it to ease the inner hurts of many entities, including my former, retarded self, but you are not yet ready to believe. The question has already been answered.
Then I repeat the second question,
Lioren went on.
Is there any hope of me finding ease or a release from the constant memory and guilt of Cromsag? The decision I have struggled with for so long involves behavior shameful to a Tarlan of my former standing, but no matter. It may also result in my death. I ask only if the decision I have made is the right one.
Does the memory of Cromsag trouble you continually,
Hellishomar thought,
to the extent that you would seek your own death as a release from it?
No,
said Lioren, surprised by the intensity of his feelings.
But that
is because so many other matters have recently occupied my mind. I would not welcome death, especially if it came about by accident or as a result of a stupid decision on my part.
Yet you believe that the decision includes the serious risk of major injury or death
, Hellishomar returned,
and I find no indication that you are going to change your mind. I will not tell you whether your decision is right or wrong or stupid, or of the probable results, but shall only remind you that no event in this state of existence occurs by accident.
This much I will do for you,
Hellishomar went on.
Your coming action will not be hampered in any way. Since your decision has now been made, I suggest that you avoid prolonging your distress and uncertainty further and leave without delay.
There was a moment of mental dislocation as Lioren’s mind returned to a working environment in which conversations were conducted by laggard speech and meanings were clouded. It seemed that O’Mara had just finished listing its trainee’s shortcomings. Conway was showing its teeth and reminding the Chief Psychologist that it had expressed serious displeasure with everyone in Sector General, and especially those who had risen to become Diagnosticians, and it seemed that every being in the ward was watching Lioren expectantly and trying to move closer.
“The patient is well,” Lioren said. “It feels no sensory discomfort and reports a significant and continuing improvement in the quality of its mentation. It wishes to use the public channel to thank everyone here individually.”
They were all too excited and pleased to notice him leave. Lioren plotted the fastest route to the Cromsaggar ward and tried to push all second thoughts out of his mind.
He had already checked the duty rosters and knew that there were only two nursing staff on the ward. This was normal practice when patients were fully convalescent and under observation rather than treatment or awaiting discharge, but it was not normal to post an armed Monitor at the ward entrance.
The guard was an Earth-human DBDG, with only two arms and
legs and less than half of Lioren’s body mass, and its weapon was a disabler. It could scramble his voluntary muscle system or cause full paralysis, depending on the power setting, but it would not kill him.
“Lioren, Psychology, Department,” he said briskly. “I am here to interview the patients.”
“And I am here to stop you,” the guard said. “Major O’Mara said that you might try to get among the Cromsaggar patients and that you should be forbidden entry for your own safety. Please leave at once, sir.”
The guard was showing the consideration and respect due Lioren’s former rank as a Surgeon-Captain, but feelings of kindliness and sympathy, however strong, would not cause it to ignore its orders. Surely O’Mara knew enough Tarlan psychology to know that he would not try to escape just punishment by deliberately ending his own life. Perhaps the Chief Psychologist had thought that even this Tarlan could change his mind and his inflexible code of behavior and force himself to commit an act formerly considered dishonorable and had simply taken precautions.
This obstruction, Lioren thought helplessly, had not been foreseen. Or had it?
“I’m glad you understand my position,” the guard said suddenly. “Good-bye, sir.”
A few seconds later it stamped its feet and, as if to relieve boredom or stiffening leg muscles, began pacing slowly along the corridor. If Lioren had not stepped aside quickly, the guard would have walked straight into him.
Thank you, Hellishomar
, Lioren thought, and entered the ward.
It was a long, high-ceilinged room containing forty beds in two opposing rows and with the nurses’ station rising like a glass-walled island from the center of the floor. Environmental technicians had reproduced the dusty yellow light of Cromsag’s sun and softened the structural projections with native vegetation and wall hangings that looked real. The patients were standing or sitting in small groups around four of the beds, talking together quietly while another group was watching a display screen on which a Corps contact specialist was explaining the
Federation’s long-term plans for reconstructing Cromsag’s technology and rehabilitating the Cromsaggar. One of the Orligian duty nurses was using the communicator and the other’s furry head was swiveling slowly from side to side as it scanned the length of the ward. It was plain that they did not see him and, as with the guard outside, their minds had been touched to render them selectively blind.
Whether or not his decision was the correct one, Hellishomar had promised that he could make it without interruption.
Trying to show neither haste nor hesitation, Lioren walked down the ward in a gathering silence. He looked briefly at the seated or recumbent patients he passed, and they stared back at him. He had never learned to read Cromsaggar facial expressions and had no idea of what they were thinking. When he reached the largest group of patients he stopped.
“I am Lioren,” he said.
It was obvious that they already knew who and what he was. The patients who had been sitting or lying on the nearby beds rose quickly to their feet and gathered around him, and those further along the ward hurried to join the others until he was completely encircled by still and silent Cromsaggar.
A sharp, clear memory of his first meeting with one of them rose in Lioren’s mind. It had been a female attacking him in defense of an imagined threat to infants sleeping in another part of its dwelling, and even though its body had displayed the discoloration and muscle wastage of disease and malnutrition, it had come close to inflicting serious injury on him. Now he was surrounded by more than thirty Cromsaggar whose bodies and limbs were well-muscled and healthy. He knew well the damage that those horny, long-nailed feet and hard medial hands could inflict because he had seen them fighting each other not quite to the death.
On Cromsag they had fought with ferocity but total control, with the intention of inflicting maximum damage short of killing, and with the sole purpose of stirring their near-atrophied endocrine systems into sufficient activity to enable them to procreate and survive as a species.
But Lioren was not another Cromsaggar and would-be mate; he was the creature responsible for countless thousands of their deaths and of all but destroying their race. They might not want to control the hatred they must feel for him, or the urge to tear his body apart limb from limb.
He wondered whether the distant Hellishomar was still influencing the minds of the guard and the two nurses, for normally they could not have helped seeing the crowd closing in around him and would have attempted a rescue. He wished that the Groalterri would not be so thorough in its mind control because suddenly he did not want his life to end in this or any other fashion, and then he realized that his thoughts were clear to Hellishomar and he felt an even greater shame.
That which he was about to do and say was shameful enough without adding to it the dishonor of personal cowardice. Slowly he looked at each one of the faces surrounding him and spoke.
“I am Lioren,” he said. “You know that I am the being responsible for causing the deaths of many thousands of your people. This was a crime too great for expiation and it is only fair that the punishment should lie in your hands. But before this punishment is carried out, I wish to say that I am truly sorry for what I have done, and humbly ask your forgiveness.”
The feeling of shame at what he had just done was not as intense as he had expected, Lioren thought as he waited for the onslaught. In fact he felt relieved and very good.