Final Diagnosis

CHAPTER 15

During the week following Morredeth’s transfer to Pathology, Hewlitt noticed a change in everyone’s behavior toward him, but there was nothing so definite or unpleasant that it warranted a complaint. Senior Physician Medalont’s words to him were few and had nothing to do with his case, Charge Nurse Leethveeschi was almost polite, his Hudlar nurse was friendly but less talkative, and, when he tried to play three-handed scremman with Patients Horrantor and Bowab, it seemed that they had both developed a speech impediment. Everyone around him, to use a phrase much favored by his grandmother, was walking on eggs.

The only being who was willing to talk to him at length was Lioren, whose visits seemed always to end in long, unresolved, and often heated religious arguments that the other, because of his often stated lack of beliefs, preferred to call philosophical debates. Whatever they were, they shortened his days and kept his mind busy far into the intervening nights, and for that he was grateful. Even so, the Padre would not have been his first choice as the most amusing of companions, especially, as now, when it was trying to steer the conversation once again onto the increasingly tiresome subject of what could have happened to Morredeth’s fur.

“When I spoke to Morredeth earlier today,” said the Tarlan, “it told me that Pathology could find nothing wrong with it. There were no signs of a deterioration in its newly regenerated fur and, in its opinion, Thornnastor is running out of reasons for keeping it under observation and must soon allow it to go home. In case it doesn’t see you again, it sends good wishes and thanks for whatever it was you did to cure it…

“But I didn’t do anything,” Hewlitt broke in, “except wrestle with it. I told you to tell it that.”

“I did,” said the Padre, “but it said that, just in case you did do something, it is grateful. It has trouble believing in miracles, too.”

“There are no miracles,” said Hewlitt, not for the first time. “There are just natural laws that we don’t understand or haven’t discovered yet. Because we understand how this one works, it is one miracle we perform several times a day without even thinking about it. Right?”

As he spoke, Hewlitt switched on the bedside communicator and keyed in the library menu, wondering if Lioren might take the hint and go away. It had not done so on previous occasions and the Padre was nothing if not consistent.

“A few centuries ago, vision transmission would have been a miracle,” Lioren agreed, and went on, “Morredeth is very pleased and proud about the overall condition of its fur. It insisted on me placing my hands along its flanks and feeling the thickness and mobility which, it claimed, has never before felt so good. On Tarla such an activity is conducted only in circumstances of intimacy and deep emotional involvement, but Morredeth wanted me to feel its fur and at such times I can be a complete moral coward. The sensation was peculiar, unexpected, and very difficult to describe. Ifelt…”

“Utterly ridiculous?” asked Hewlitt. “That was howl felt when the same thing happened with Horrantor. Medalont asked me, as a clinical experiment, to lay my hands on the Tralthan’s damaged limb. According to the senior physician, Horrantor’s leg injury has complications that are slow to respond to treatment. Medalont, Leethveeschi, two Orligian nurses, and the resuscitation team were standing by in case something dramatic happened. I think they were all relieved, even Horrantor, when nothing did.

“There was no second miracle. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” said Lioren. “I feel like they did. Miracles make me very uncomfortable and insecure in my beliefs and disbeliefs, and I would as soon have proof that they did not happen.

“They don’t, Padre,” said Hewlitt. “Can we talk about something else?”

“It must be nice to feel such certainty,” said Lioren, flexing its medial arms in a gesture that would probably have meant something to another Tarlan. “But I wonder if, in all the vastness of space and time and the immutable laws of cause and effect and perfect balance of forces that is Creation, there isn’t room for the occasional miracle. But why did it happen here?”

Hewlitt shook his head, seeing no chance of getting away from the interminable subject of Morredeth’s fur and the inevitable religious argument, and said, “It didn’t happen here. Miracles are impossible, Padre. If they were to exist in your big, complicated, wellordered universe, or Creation as you call it, they would be out of place, a defect in the perfect Scheme of Things. There is simply no room for miracles in your universe.”

“An interesting philosophical idea,” said Lioren. “It suggests that our Creation is flawed because an apparently supernatural event or events took place within it. Bearing in mind the hypothetical attributes of the Supreme Being, why should He, She, or It create an imperfection of any kind?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “This isn’t my area of expertise. But can we suppose that this universe was created as a prototype, an early model that requires modification and a little fine-tuning from time to time. The intrusion of random supernatural events into a universe supposedly based on natural laws might be evidence of this tinkering. Thank God… Oops, just a figure of speech, Padre… it doesn’t happen very often.”

“If you believe that…” the other began.

“I am not believing anything, Padre, just talking.”

The Tarlan was silent for a moment, then it said, “If this universe is imperfect, that presupposes, eternity being what it is, without beginning or end, that there was, is, will be one that is perfect. Would you like to, ah, just talk about that for a while?”

“I haven’t had a chance to think it out properly,” he replied, smiling, “so I am making it up as I go along. Unlike this universe, everything would be perfect. There would be no natural laws, because if they were present it would mean that it, too, had faults and was in need of tinkering. There would be no time, no space, no physical or mental restrictions so that every event that took place would be miraculous. I expect you, and the other believers living in this imperfect creation, would call it Heaven.”

“Go on,” said Lioren.

Hewlitt said, “The difficulty I and an awful lot of other people have with religions is that they do not adequately explain why there is so much evil, or more accurately, tragic accidents, natural disasters, and illness, gross misbehavior in individuals and groups toward each other and, in short, so much suffering in this universe. Living in an imperfect Creation would go a long way to explaining why these things happen, especially when there is the expectation of moving to the perfected universe after death.

“This is a pretty heretical theory,” Hewlitt ended. “I hope my irreverence hasn’t offended you, Padre?”

“I agree,” said Lioren. “Heretical and irreverent, but not entirely new to me. To do my work here I need a wide knowledge of the religious beliefs and practices of many worlds, and often the many religions practiced on a single world. I am reminded of the writings of an Earth-human theologian called Augustine who was in the habit of wondering aloud, but in reality asking polite but awkward questions of its God. One of the questions was ‘What were You doing before You made the universe?’ There is no record of this Augustine person ever receiving an answer, at least not during its lifetime on Earth, but you have taken the idea a stage further by suggesting that the Creator of All Things has produced a prototype which we are still inhabiting.

“I am not offended or even surprised, Patient Hewlitt,” it went on. “Where other-species’ religious beliefs are concerned, nothing surprises me. But the VTXM Telfi single entity I have been visiting these past few days came very close to doing so. It, they, share the belief that they were created in God’s image, but that their omniscient and all-powerful Creator is composed of an infinite number of small, weak, and individually stupid entities like themselves who together make up a Supreme Being which one day they hope to join.

“For a species who evolved intelligence and a civilization,” the Padre went on, “by linking together into a gestalt of individually specialized beings, it is understandable why they would believe such a thing. But I found it very difficult at first to understand or talk to it about the infinite number of persons that will make up its one God, or to give the spiritual consolation it needs. Of course, there are many religions which believe that there is a small part of God in every thinking creature… Do you know anything about the Telfi?”

“A little,” said Hewlitt, still trying to steer the other away from the subject of theology and, by association, miracles. “There was a brief entry in the nonmedical library’s listing of Federation citizens. They operate in groups as contact telepaths to pool their mental and physical abilities. They live by absorbing the combination and varying intensities of hard radiation that bathes their home world, which circles very close to the parent sun. For travel off-planet their ship life-support radiation has to be reproduced artificially. Sometimes the environmental systems malfunction and, if they are lucky, they are rescued and end up here. But they are radiation-eaters, and no ordinary person could get close enough to them to talk and hope to go on living. Did you use a communicator or wear protective armor?”

“Thank you for the implication that I might be an extraordinary person,” said the Padre. It made an untranslatable, Tarlan sound and went on, “But the answer to both questions is no. There is a fallacy among nonmedics that the Telfi cannot be closely approached or touched without the use of remotely controlled manipulators. To live they must absorb the radiation normally provided by their natural environment but when, for clinical reasons, the radiation is withdrawn for several days and they are weak from their equivalent of hunger, their radioactive emissions drop to a harmless level. When one of them was withdrawn from its treatment chamber during my visit, I was close enough to be able to touch it, which I did.

“That is one patient,” Lioren ended, “who really needs a miracle.”

It was obvious that the Padre felt sorry for the Telfi, and Hewlitt sympathized with its feelings, but the subject had returned to miracles. He decided to go on the offensive, as inoffensively as possible, and said, “If you are suggesting that I lay my hands on a Telfi, forget it. Surely the proper method of achieving a miracle is for you or the patient to pray for one. A miracle is supposed to be a supernatural occurrence, not something that is dependent on the cooperation of an unbelieving middleman. If you don’t believe that, Padre, what do you believe?”

“I cannot tell you what I believe,” said Lioren. “In the interests of the patients who might be unfairly influenced if I was to speak of my own beliefs, I am obliged not to divulge that information.”

“But why?” said Hewlitt. “What possible difference could your personal beliefs make to an unbeliever?”

“I don’t know,” Lioren replied, “that’s the problem. I have detailed knowledge of more than two hundred religions that are practiced, or more often not practiced, throughout the Federation. My function here is to listen sympathetically, to give reassurance, encouragement, or consolation to the terminally ill or seriously troubled patients in whatever way seems appropriate. Because of my background, which you must be aware of by now but are too polite to mention, there are always a few patients who want more than reassurance. In their distress they come to respect and trust me and, erroneously, to think that I know best. They want religious certainties which they think that I, with my wide knowledge and experience in dealing with their kind of problems, can provide. This I cannot do, because I must not take advantage of their confused and frightened state to compare one religion with another, or to suggest one which I think is the true one. No matter how wild and incredible some of their beliefs are, influencing an entity to change or even doubt its own religion, however small or temporary that change or doubt might be, is a responsibility I will not accept. I played God only once and I shall not do so ever again.”

The Padre made another untranslatable sound and said, “I am particularly careful with unbelievers. It would be a terrible thing if some time in the future my words were to turn you toward religion.”

“Now that,” said Hewlitt, laughing, “would take a real miracle.”

Lioren’s reply was silenced by the sudden arrival of Leethveeschi, who gestured toward the ward entrance and said, “Patient Hewlitt, prepare yourself for visitors. Diagnosticians Thornnastor and Conway, Senior Physicians Medalont and Prilicla, and Pathologist Murchison are here to see you. With that collection of high-powered medical talent interesting themselves in your case, I do not foresee you remaining here as a patient for long. Padre Lioren, Prilicla apologizes for interrupting your conversation and asks if you would please distance yourself from the patient and wait with the others so that your presence will not interfere with its investigation.”

“Of course,” said Lioren.

He watched it move up the ward to join the group that was standing and, in one case, hovering about thirty meters away. He barely noticed Medalont and the Tralthan and Earth-human diagnosticians, Thornnastor and Conway, or even the mature but strikingly beautiful female Earth-human who had to be Pathologist Murchison, because all of his attention was focused on the enormous but incredibly fragile insect that was flying on three sets of slowly beating, iridescent wings toward him.

As it drifted to a halt above his bed and he felt the faint downdraft from its wings, Hewlitt remembered that he had always disliked insects, and the larger they were the more he wanted to swat them. But this one was the most delicate and beautiful creature he had ever seen. Even his tongue was paralyzed with wonder.

“Thank you, friend Hewlitt,” it said, the quiet trilling and clicking sound of its speech forming an almost musical background to the translated words. “Your emotional radiation is pleasant and most complimentary. I am Prilicla.”

“What,” he said, finding both his voice and his anxiety again, “what exactly are you going to do to me?”

“I have already done all that is necessary, friend Hewlitt,” it replied, “so there is no reason for your anxiety.”

The others who had been waiting must have overheard it, because they were moving closer. When they had gathered around his bed, Prilicla raised its voice and went on, “At the present time there are no detectable abnormalities present in Patient Hewlitt’s mind, nor were there during my earlier examination of Patient Morredeth, who should now be discharged and sent home without further delay. I feel the disappointment in all of you, naturally, and I am sorry. So far as I am concerned I can feel absolutely nothing wrong with the patient.

“Friend Hewlitt,” it went on as it made a feather-light landing on the bottom of his bed, “how would you like a ride in an ambulance?”

He saw Prilicla’s body begin to tremble and realized that the empath must be sharing his own feelings of anger and bitter disappointment, feelings that he had suffered so often in the past. He said, “Don’t try to humor me, dammit! You think there’s nothing wrong with me and you’re going to send me home.”

“Well, not exactly,” said Prilicla. “This time the ambulance will be taking the patient from hospital to the scene of the original accident.”