Final Diagnosis

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.

“Don’t be angry with the Hudlar nurse,” he said. “It told me that Lioren had asked and received permission from Senior Physician Medalont to reduce your night sedation so that you would have more time alone to consider your position and, they hoped, come to terms with it. To assist the process, the medical staff on night duty was forbidden to speak to you apart from the few words required while checking your life signs. The Hudlar did not agree with this form of treatment but was unable to disobey its medical superiors. Out of concern for your expected mental distress, and learning that I wanted to apologize for the furry-pet business, it asked me to talk to you.

“It did not tell me what to say,” Hewlitt went on, “only that I should try to take your mind off your troubles. Unfortunately I was not able to do that, but the fault is mine and the Hudlar is not responsible for my insensitivity and your anger.

“Then I shall not report its misconduct,” said Morredeth. “But I am still angry.”

“I understand,” said Hewlitt, “because in the beginning I felt the same anger, frustration, and bitter disappointment. The embarrassment of knowing that my friends were laughing and whispering behind my back and thinking of me as some kind of sexual cripple was.

“Your crippling was not plain for all to see,” Morredeth broke in, a sudden, muscular spasm bringing its body close to the edge of the bed. “My friends will not whisper or laugh, they will be kind and avoid me so that I will not be able to see their feelings of revulsion. You do not understand.”

“Try to lie still, dammit!” said Hewlitt. “You could fall out of bed and hurt yourself. Stop rolling about like that.”

“If the sight displeases you, leave me,” said Morredeth. “A Kelgian can sometimes control but never conceal feelings. Strong emotion is associated with involuntary fur and body movement. Didn’t you know that?”

No, but I know now, said Hewlitt under his breath. Aloud, he went on, “Even the Earth psychologists say that relieving one’s feelings is often better than keeping them bottled up. But I don’t want to leave, I’m supposed to be talking and helping to take your mind off your troubles. I’m not doing a very good job so far, am I?”

“You are doing a terrible job,” said Morredeth, “but stay if you want to.”

The violence of its body movements seemed to be diminishing, and Hewlitt decided to take a risk by not changing the subject.

“Thank you,” he said. “And of course you are right. Your situation is much worse than mine because it is permanent and visible to everyone. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot understand your feelings, because for many years I have shared the same kind of problem in reduced intensity. I don’t think that the emotional scars, and my need to live and work alone and avoid personal social contact with females, will ever heal completely. I do know how you must feel, but I also know that you will not always feel so badly.

“Have you ever thought that Lioren may be right and the Hudlar nurse wrong?” he went on. “Or that it is better to face up to your problem here and now, in hospital where help is available, instead of at home where you say you will be all alone? Or that you will not always feel so badly as you do now? People, Kelgians as well as Earth-humans, can adapt to almost anything…

“You even talk like Lioren…“began Morredeth, when it happened.

The other’s fur looked no more agitated than it had been a few minutes earlier and the uncontrolled body movements had begun to subside, so that the spasm which straightened Morredeth into a long, furry cylinder and rolled it over the edge of the bed farthest from him was completely unexpected. Without taking time to think, he grabbed its body with both hands to pull it back onto the bed. His fingers tightened over the cover for the wound dressings and he checked the other’s fall just as the retaining tapes snapped and the fabric came away in his hands.

The Kelgian gave a long, high-pitched moan like the sound of a falsetto foghorn; then its body spasmed again and rolled back to the opposite side of the bed on top of him. Hewlitt half fell, half slid onto the floor with Morredeth on top of him.

“Nurse!” he yelled.

“I’m here,” said the Hudlar, who was already inside the screens and looming over them. “Are you injured, Patient Hewlitt?”

“N-no,” he stammered. “At least, not so far.”

“Good,” said the nurse. “The DBLF classification have never used their feet as natural weapons so you will probably remain in an undamaged condition. I require assistance for a few moments but I am unwilling to waste time, or appear incapable of dealing with a simple emergency, by calling for a nurse from another ward. Are you willing to assist me?”

Me assist you? Hewlitt thought. The sound he made did not translate even to himself, but the Hudlar took it as an affirmative.

“Your present position on the floor is ideal for our purpose, it went on, “which is to help me hold Patient Morredeth still. Please put your arms around it and grip its back fur in both hands. Tighter than that, please, you will not cause pain. Regrettably, four of my limbs are needed to support my body mass, which leaves one to help you immobilize the patient and one to administer the sedative. Good, that’s it exactly.”

With both hands trying to grip the fur and the inside of his forearms pressing against its back, and helped by the one Hudlar tentacle gently but firmly encircling its neck, he strove to keep Morredeth still while the nurse located the correct injection site. The Kelgian was still making its high-pitched, moaning sound while trying its hardest to escape from between his arms by walking up his stomach, chest, and face with its twenty-odd feet. Fortunately the legs were short, thin, and not heavily muscled and the feet, which had no toenails or other bony terminations, were like small, hard sponges, so he felt as if he were being continually prodded with padded drumsticks. The experience was disconcerting rather than painful. Morredeth’s exertions must have been making it perspire, because he was aware of an increasing body odor that smelled faintly of peppermint.

He was aware of a sudden feeling of weakness in every muscle of his body, as if his strength had been drained away from him, and there was a hot, tingling sensation in his hands and bare arms where the skin was in contact with fur that was curling and twisting against his palms and between his fingers. The experience was so alien, and ticklish, that he had to make an effort not to laugh. Suddenly Morredeth arched its back and tried to twist free and he almost lost his grip.

“Sorry, my hands are sweating,” he said. “It nearly got away just then.”

“You are doing well, Patient Hewlitt,” said the nurse, replacing the hypodermic sprayer in its satchel. “In a few seconds more I will be finished. Your temporary loss of grip may have been due to your digits encountering fur that is covered by the oily medication used on the dressings in addition to the patient’s perspiration. Also, I have learned that Earth-human DBDGs sweat from the palms of the hands even when the process is not accompanied by a marked rise in body activity and temperature. It can be an indication of a severe emotional reaction to a situation that is or is likely to become stressful…

“But my palms are sweating,” Hewlitt broke in, in an attempt to head off another of the nurse’s medical lectures, “all the way up to the elbows.”

“Either way,” the Hudlar went on, “you are at no risk. Kelgian pathogens cannot cross the planetary species’ barrier and… Ah, I believe Patient Morredeth is beginning to relax.”

The Kelgian’s leg movements had ceased and its body was becoming a dead weight across Hewlitt’s stomach and chest. With two tentacles free now, the nurse inserted them on each side of the body’s center of gravity and lifted Morredeth onto the bed. By the time Hewlitt had scrambled to his feet, it had arranged the other’s limp body in the flattened S shape that resting Kelgians seemed to find comfortable and was replacing the loosened dressings, but not before he caught a glimpse of the large area of uncovered skin and lank, discolored fur.

“Patient Hewlitt,” the Hudlar went on, “please wash the Kelgian medication from your hands. It will not harm you but you may find the smell unpleasant. Then return to your bed and try to sleep. I will check later to see if you have sustained any minor abrasions that the excitement of the moment may have driven from your mind.

“Before you go,” it went on, “I must apologize for my late arrival. Your medical monitor includes an audio pickup and recording device so that the data is available for later study. It was obvious from the way the conversation was going that something like this might happen and that a fast-acting sedative shot would be needed. The medication is new and I am required to double-check with Pathology, if a senior ward medic is not present, before administering it. That was why I did not arrive until you were calling for help.”

Hewlitt laughed. “And all the time I was thinking that your response time was impressively fast. But if the conversation with Morredeth was being recorded, does this mean you will be in trouble over what you said, or rather what I said you said, about your disagreement over your instructions for withdrawing Morredeth’s sedation and forbidding you to speak to it at night?

“How is it now?” he added. “Are you sure it will be all right?”

There was no way of telling what the other was thinking, but Hewlitt had the feeling that it was worried as it said, “Several people, including Medalont, Leethveeschi, and Lioren will study your monitor’s voice recording, and many words of criticism will be spoken to me. But you must have noticed that Hudlars have thicker skins than most other life-forms. Thank you for your concern, Patient Hewlitt, and now will you please return to your bed. Morredeth is well and sleeping peacefully—”

It broke off then, because the involuntary ripplings of the Kelgian’s fur had slowed almost to a stop. The tip of one of the nurse’s free tentacles moved quickly to a point close to the base of Morredeth’s skull, the digits apparently feeling for a pulse; then it reached into the equipment pouch and came out grasping a scanner, which it moved to two separate positions on the patient’s chest. The other tentacle tip stabbed at a key on the communicator, and on the ceiling above the bed a red light began a steady, urgent blinking.

“Resuscitation team,” it said. “Ward Seven, bed twelve, classification Kelgian DBLF. Estimated five seconds into cardiac arrest, both hearts… Patient Hewlitt, go back to bed. Now.”

Hewlitt backed away from the bedside, unable to take his eyes off the still body and fur until he was outside the screens, but he did not go to bed. Instead he waited close by until the resuscitation team with its equipment float arrived, less than a minute later. The red light in the ceiling ceased its flashing and there was a sudden absence of sound as a hush field went up around Morredeth’s position.

That must have been done to avoid disturbing the sleeping patients, he thought, and not just to stop him from listening to what was going on. He was not sure how long he waited in the darkness, watching the moving shadows that were being projected onto the bed screens, and straining to hear what they were saying, until the team members emerged. But his curiosity went unsatisfied and his concern unrelieved, because they left the ward without speaking to each other. The Hudlar nurse, its large shadow unmoving, remained inside the screens.

He waited for what seemed a very long time, but the Hudlar did not leave Morredeth’s bedside. Feeling sad and guilty and disappointed, he turned away and walked to the bathroom to wash the traces of Kelgian medication from his hands and arms; then he went back to his bed to lie with his eyes closed.

Twice during the rest of the night he heard the Hudlar moving quietly along the ward as it checked on the sleeping patients and the one who was only pretending to sleep, but it did not have to speak to him, because his monitor was giving it all the clinical information it required. Probably the nurse was feeling responsible for what had happened, because it had been its suggestion that Hewlitt talk to Morredeth. But he felt responsible as well, and he was almost afraid to speak to it. Instead he lay still and quiet, wondering how it was possible for him to cause a person s death simply by talking to it, and feeling worse both physically and mentally than he had ever felt in his entire life.

He was still awake and wondering when the ward lights were switched on and the day staff came on duty.