Final Diagnosis

CHAPTER 4

During his first night in the ward, Hewlitt could not sleep. His bed was very comfortable, the shaded light from his bedside was subdued, and he was more than tired enough because his watch was still set to ship rather than hospital time, and it was telling him that it was early afternoon of the day following his arrival. But his heavy eyes would not stay closed and he decided that, consciously as well as subconsciously, he must be terrified of losing consciousness in this place.

For what seemed like hours he lay listening to the night noises of the ward that drifted through his screens. The continuous sighing of the ventilation system that had been inaudible during the day seemed to grow louder by the hour, as did the quiet sound of the nurses’ feet, or whatever, as they attended to the patients. Occasionally he could hear the moaning or bubbling noises of patients in pain, although, considering the painkilling medication available, it was more likely to be the sound of extraterrestrial snoring.

In desperation he switched on the bedside viewscreen and, using an earpiece so as not to bring a nurse down on him for disturbing the other patients, he searched for the entertainment channels. Most of them were intended for other-species’ viewers, but even though his translator reproduced the dialogue, a Tralthan or Melfan situation comedy looked more like a horror play to him. When he found one that was designed for Earth-human viewing, the plot and dialogue were close to prehistoric. It should have sent him straight to sleep, but did not.

He returned to watching a Tralthan family performing weird, incomprehensible actions and saying banal things while doing them, until his screens opened to reveal a massive Hudlar body.

“You should be asleep, Patient Hewlitt,” it said in a voice so quiet that it barely reached him. “Is anything wrong?”

“Are you the nurse who brought me here today,” he asked, “or another one?”

“All the other nurses, including Leethveeschi, have been relieved,” it replied, “but my species is able to go for long periods without sleep and I will be completing the night duty. Tomorrow and the day after are my rest and study days so you will not see me until the day after, if you are still here. Your body sensors indicate raised levels of tension and fatigue. Why are you not sleeping?”

“I–I think I’m afraid to sleep,” he said, wondering why the admission of a weakness to an extraterrestrial seemed less embarrassing than it would to a human. “If I slept in this place I would have nightmares, and wake up again feeling worse. I suppose you know what nightmares are?”

“Yes,” said the nurse. It raised a forward tentacle and waved the tip in the direction of the ward beyond the screens. “You would have nightmares, about us?”

Hewlitt did not reply because he had already answered the question, and he was beginning to feel ashamed.

“If you go to sleep and have nightmares about us,” the nurse went on, “and then wake up to find that your nightmares have substance and are all around you, either suffering with you as fellow patients or trying to cure you, isn’t trying to stay wakeful a waste of time? Knowing that we will be here when you awaken might give your nightmare less force so that your mind might decide to dream about something more pleasant. Isn’t that a logical suggestion, Patient Hewlitt, and worth trying?”

Again, Hewlitt did not reply. This time it was because he was trying to come to grips with Hudlar logic.

“Besides,” said the nurse, “that Melfan quiz-forfeit show is injurious to mental health, regardless of the viewer’s species. Would you like to talk to me instead?”

“Yes — I mean, no,” said Hewlitt. “There are patients here who are sick and more in need of your attention. I have nothing wrong with me, at least not right now.

“Right now,” the nurse replied, “all of the other patients are quiet, comfortable, and stable and are being monitored in their sleep. You are awake, and, for a young and mentally active trainee nurse, night duty can be boring. Is there anything you would like to say or ask?”

Hewlitt stared at the great, six-tentacled monster with its speaking membrane rippling like a fleshy flag and the skin that covered its limbs and body like seamless armor. Then he said, “Your paint is beginning to flake again.”

“Thank you for the warning,” said the Hudlar, “but there is no risk. It will last until the day staff comes on duty.”

“I do not understand you,” said Hewlitt. “At least, not well enough to ask questions.”

“From your earlier words about my use of cosmetics,” said the nurse, “I thought that might be the case. Do you know why Hudlars use nutrient paint?”

He was not terribly interested in anything extraterrestrials did. But this one wanted to talk, if only to relieve its boredom, and listening to it might take his mind off the extraterrestrial menagerie around him. A case of listening to one known monster in order to forget his dread of the unknown others. And after all, it might be trying in its own way to reassure him.

“No,” he said. “Why, Nurse?”

The first thing he learned was that Hudlars did not have mouths. Instead they had what they called organs of absorption, and from there one question led to another.

The species had evolved to intelligence on a heavy-gravity world with a proportionately high atmospheric pressure. The lower reaches of its atmosphere resembled a thick, semiliquid soup filled with tiny, airborne forms of animal and vegetable life which were ingested by the absorption mechanism covering the Hudlars’ back and flanks; and, because they were an intensely energy-hungry species, the process was continuous. The home planet’s atmosphere was very difficult to reproduce, so that in off-world environments such as the hospital it had been found more convenient to spray them at regular intervals with a concentrated nutrient paint.

“Sometimes,” the nurse went on, “we concentrate too deeply on what we are doing and forget our next meal spray. When that happens we grow weak from the effects of accelerated malnutrition wherever we happen to be, and the first member of the medical or maintenance staff to come along, or even an ambulatory patient like yourself, revives us with a quick respray. There are racks of Hudlar food tanks in most of the main corridors and wards, including the one on the wall beside the nurses’ station. The sprayer mechanism is very easy to use, although I hope you will never have to use one on me.

“It disrupts the routine to have a Hudlar collapsing in the middle of a ward,” it continued, “and the nutrient makes a mess on the floor or nearby beds. That would severely irritate Charge Nurse Leethveeschi, and we would not want that to happen.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” he said, unable to imagine a severely irritated chlorine-breather but agreeing anyway. “But, but meals painted on from the outside… that’s terrible. I thought I had problems.”

“I am not the patient here, Patient Hewlitt,” said the nurse, “and your sensors are registering a high level of fatigue and I am being selfish by keeping you awake. Are you ready to go to sleep now?”

The thought of being left alone again, his dimly lit bed like a raft surrounded by a dark sea peopled with fearful alien monsters, with this one monstrous exception, brought the fear that had been held in check by their conversation to come rushing back. Hewlitt did not want to go to sleep, so he answered indirectly in the negative by asking another question.

“I don’t see how it could happen,” he said, “but do you people have the equivalent of stomach ache? Or do you ever take sick?”

“Never,” said the nurse. “You must try to sleep, Patient Hewlitt.”

“If you don’t take sick,” he persisted, fighting a conversational rearguard action, “why do Hudlars need doctors and nurses?”

“As very young children,” the other replied, “we are subject to a wide variety of diseases, but by puberty we develop a complete immunity to them which lasts until a few years before termination, when age-related psychological and physiological degeneration takes place. Diagnostician Conway is heading a project to train Hudlar medical staff who will alleviate the more distressing aspects of the condition, which responds only to major surgery, but the work has many years to go before the aged population as a whole will benefit.”

“Is this the work you are training to do?” Hewlitt asked. “To care for the Hudlar aged?”

The nurse had no features that he could read, because it had no face and the rest of its smooth, hard body was as expressionless as an inflated balloon. But when it replied it spoke quickly, giving him the feeling that it might be embarrassed or ashamed of its answer.

“No,” it said. “I am studying general other-species medicine and surgery. Within the Galactic Federation we Hudlars are a unique species. Because of the nature of our body tegument we are able to live and work in a great many hostile environments. We can survive pressure variations ranging from the very dense down to the vacuum of space, and we do not need an atmosphere in order to absorb our nutrient paint. Hudlars are greatly in demand for work in conditions where other species would be severely hampered by their environmental-protection equipment, and especially on space construction projects. A Hudlar medic with Sector General qualifications, who would be able to bring medical assistance to space construction workers of many different species without the timeconsuming necessity for donning protective garments, would be a valuable asset on-site.

“Ours has never been a rich planet,” it added. “No mineral resources, no fabricated items to trade, no scenery to attract visitors. It has nothing that anybody wants, except its immensely strong, tireless people who can work anywhere and are very well rewarded by the other Federation species for doing so.”

“And after you have achieved fame and fortune in space,” said Hewlitt, “I suppose you will settle down at home and have a large family?”

The nurse still seemed to be bothered about something. He wondered if it could be feeling ashamed for leaving home and training for a well-paid job in space and thereby ducking the responsibility for looking after an aged and sick relative. He should not have asked that question.

“I will have half of a large family,” it said.

“Again,” he said, “I do not understand you.”

“Patient Hewlitt,” it said, “you are not very well informed about Hudlars. I was born and currently remain in female mode, and I intend to continue in this form until I choose to mate for the purpose of procreation rather than pleasure. That is when the gravid female, myself, because of the physiological necessity for avoiding further sexual contact with my life-mate, changes gradually into male mode and, concurrently, my mate slowly becomes female. A Hudlar year after parturition, the changes to both are complete, the offspring requires diminishing attention, and the mother-that-was is ready to become a father-to-be and the father-that-was has the opportunity of bearing the next child. The process continues until the desired number of offspring is reached, usually an even number so that the childbearing is equally divided, after which the lifemates decide together on which one will remain in male or female mode for the rest of their lives.

“It is a very simple, balanced, and emotionally satisfying arrangement,” it went on. “I am surprised that the other intelligent species have not evolved this system.”

“Yes, Nurse,” said Hewlitt.

He could think of nothing else to say.