Final Diagnosis

CHAPTER 23

I was fairly sure that is what happened to you,” Prilicla replied, “when I made the connection between the incident of your childhood teeth and Lonvellin’s scales, which also grew rootlets and refused to come loose. If we now accept that everything you have told us was true, let us fit the facts to our new theory. Consider.

“When you climbed that tree, ate the toxic fruit, and fell into the ravine,” Prilicla said, “you should have died. Probably as the result of trauma associated with a fall from that height, and certainly from the quantity of poison you ingested. Instead, the virus creature’s survival pod was ruptured and it invaded your damaged body. Discovering that you were a suitable host who was terminating, it sustained you while it repaired the physical damage and stimulated the natural detoxification mechanism of your body to neutralize the poison. It was able to do so quickly, I assume, because at the time your body mass was about one-twentieth that of its previous host. How and why this was done we cannot know until we devise a method of communication more precise than empathy.

“My own feeling,” it continued, “is that the virus entity cannot exist for long on its own, that its continued survival depends on it occupying the largest and potentially the most long-lived creature it can find and, by abstracting the necessary data from the genetic cell material, extending both their lifetimes by maintaining the host in optimum physical health. But the creature is not infallible. It did not realize that there are times when a host body should not be maintained without change because some of the changes are normal and healthy. Lonvellin’s problem with the aging scales it could not discard and your teeth that refused to loosen, plus your long history of allergic reactions to all forms of medication, are proof of this.

“But there is also evidence that the virus creature is under the partial control of its host,” said Prilicla, and paused.

For a moment Hewlitt thought that it might be a pause to allow one of the others to comment, but there was no response. He wondered whether the empath was taking time to choose the right words or simply needed to rest its speaking organ.

“For example,” Priicla resumed, “there is the incident with the injured cat. You had a strong, emotional attachment to this entity, so much so that you took it to bed with you in the childish hope of nursing it back to health. So intense was your need to make it well again that the feeling caused the virus creature to invade the kitten, repair the multiple trauma, and restore it overnight to full health before returning to what it must have known was a more long-lived host.

“And many years later,” it continued, “when you became friendly with Patient Morredeth and were affected by the distress it was suffering and would continue to suffer for the rest of its life because of its damaged fur, you made close physical contact with it and the same thing happened.”

“But I wasn’t expecting anything to happen,” Hewlitt protested. “It was accidental-I just pushed my hands against its fur.”

“Even though the injury was not life-threatening,” Prilicla went on, “Morredeth was restored to nominal physical condition, its disfigurement cured as completely and thoroughly as were the injuries to your cat. Unlike the case of your household pet, the virus creature did not return to your body after completing its work. Why not?”

Hewlitt took the question to be rhetorical and remained silent, as did the others.

“It is natural for any organism to evolve,” Prilicla went on, “and for one with intelligence to learn and seek new experience. I feel sure now that Lonvellin’s former personal physician has evolved over the past quarter of a century. Perhaps the change came about as the result of proximity to a nuclear detonation, although normally that would inhibit organic growth, or it could be a normal process of evolution, whatever that may be in a collection of viruses. Either way there is evidence of increasing sensitivity both to empathic direction and reaction to external events. It was only three child-teeth that refused to loosen. Subsequent teeth behaved normally, and many of the later conditions were temporary and did not recur. This caused your symptoms to be attributed, wrongly as we now know, to an overactive imagination. Quite rightly, none of your medics on Earth or in Ward Seven would risk readministering medication that had already produced an allergic reaction. If they had, and your symbiote had learned enough about your metabolism by then to realize that the foreign material was harmless, your response to a second dose might have been normal.

“The behavior of the virus creature during your stay in Sector General shows a distinct change,” the empath continued. “Unlike the creature I remember, whose emotional radiation was composed primarily of fear and anxiety to return to Lonvellin as quickly as possible, it now seems more willing to transfer to other bodies. Perhaps it is no longer satisfied with you as a host.”

“In the circumstances,” said Hewlitt dryly, “I feel grateful rather than offended.”

Prilicla ignored the interruption and went on, “It may be that, after a quarter of a century of occupancy, the virus creature was growing bored with the DBDG life-form and wanted to find one that was more interesting, and Sector General was the ideal place to find interesting life-forms. But I prefer to think that, for its own continued long-term survival, it needed to seek out one with an extended life span like that of its former host, Lonvellin. That is why it vacated a short-lived, nonsapient life-form like your cat and returned to you as soon as its work was done. It did not return to you, or perhaps in the ensuing confusion it did not have the opportunity to return, after it entered Morredeth and regrew the Kelgian’s fur. But neither did it remain with Morredeth. I know this because it was not in occupancy when I scanned Morredeth before leaving the hospital. The past four days of testing and my monitoring of your emotional radiation since you joined Rhabwar show that it is not in you. Nor was it in your aged, onetime pet.

“The most serious and urgent question facing us now,” it ended, “is who it is occupying at present and what is it going to do next?”

Hewlitt was still feeling relieved and happy that he was free of the creature at last, but there was a nagging doubt in his mind about his good fortune. Everyone was watching him. Danalta had no expression that anyone could read, Murchison’s smile had stopped short of her eyes, Naydrad’s fur was being pulled into small, tight ripples, and Prilicla had been trembling since it had begun talking. He felt the need of further reassurance.

“Is it possible,” he said, “that the virus learned how to hide its emotions from you?”

“No, friend Hewlitt,” the empath replied without hesitation. “Whether or not an organic entity is sapient it has feelings, and often the smallest and least intelligent beings have the strongest and most disturbing emotions. I remember that the feelings of Lonvellin’s personal physician were characteristic of a highly intelligent mind. No thinking and, therefore, feeling entity can hide its emotional radiation from me. Only a nonorganic computer could do that, because it doesn’t have any.

“Try not to worry, friend Hewlitt,” it went on. “In the past it has made unintentional mistakes, but otherwise it maintained and left Lonvellin, your pet, and yourself a legacy of perfect health. The cat, who is extremely aged for one of its short-lived species, is proof of that. I would say that, barring accidents, you also will have a proportionately long and healthy life.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Hewlitt, and laughed. “But am I missing something? Why is the creature a serious and urgent problem when you said yourself that it means no harm and is doing good work? So you have another weird, other-species doctor loose in the hospital. What else is new?”

Murchison did not smile, Danalta’s body wobbled, and Naydrad’s fur twitched into even stranger patterns, and it was clear that Prilicla was not appreciating his attempt at humor either.

“The virus creature does not intend to do harm,” it said. “But then, it was not trying to harm you when its good intentions resulted in twenty years of clinical confusion and psychological distress. At present it seems anxious to experiment by changing hosts as often as possible, and the unintentional harm and confusion it could cause in a multienvironment hospital, where there is a choice of sixty-odd different species among the patients and staff, doesn’t bear thinking about.”

For an instant Hewlitt felt the twisting sensation of an emergence from hyperspace. The direct-vision panel was showing the starry blackness of normal space and the blazing, multicolored lights of Sector General, which made the hospital look enormous even at Jump distance. Only he seemed to be looking at it.

“Our first priority is to find, isolate, and withdraw the creature from its current host,” said Prilicla, speaking to the others. “Then we must learn to talk to an entity who has no direct channels of communication other than the feelings it receives and radiates. Somehow we must devise a means of two-way communication so that we can reassure it, and obtain its permission for an extended, clinical investigation, before asking questions about its evolutionary background, physiology, physical and psychological needs, and, most important of all, its method and frequency of reproduction. If all goes well, and we can only hope that it does, we must decide whether or not it or its offspring can be allowed any more hosts.

“I should explain that the personal physician of Lonvellin, Morredeth, and yourself,” Prilicla went on for Hewlitt’s benefit, “could render all other physicians redundant. It is the only known specimen of a truly unique life-form, and if the species can reproduce itself in sufficient numbers and be active among other species without harmful side effects, medicine throughout the Galactic Federation will be reduced to the practice of accident and emergency surgical procedures.”

They were all looking at the empath so intently that the accompanying emotional radiation had forced it to land again. Hewlitt was at a loss to understand it. Surely the things the empath had been saying were good and exciting news for any truly dedicated member of the medical profession. Why did he have the distinct impression that Prilicla was trying to reassure the others as much as itself, and it had failed? Hewlitt was the first to break the silence.

“I’m sorry if you still have problems,” he said, “and I don’t want to appear selfish, but I have more questions. If the virus creature has left me, and your tests have shown that I am no longer allergic to medication, does that mean that I’m cured of the other problems, too? And does it mean that when I return to Earth I won’t have to, well, avoid female company or…

“That is exactly what it means,” Murchison broke in, “when you return home.”

Hewlitt gave along, satisfied sigh. He wanted to tell these people how grateful he was for all they had done for him. Even though they had not believed him at first, they had not given up on his case as all the Earthside medics had done. But the right words would not come and all he could say was “So my troubles are over.

“Your troubles,” said Naydrad, “are just beginning.”

“There speaks a true misogynist…“Hewlitt began, when there was an interruption from the wall speaker.

“Dr. Prilicla, the hospital is transmitting a recorded message with an Emergency Three coding on all non-Service frequencies. It says that all incoming ships with noncritical casualties on board should divert to the nearest same-species hospital. Only urgent cases which have obtained diagnostician clearance are to be admitted until further notice. Incoming transport and supply vessels are requested to position themselves beyond the inner beacons and prepare for a possible mass evacuation of all patients and staff. They say it is a power-generation problem and Maintenance is dealing with it.

“I’m trying to raise someone who knows what the hell is going on…