Mind Changer

CHAPTER 27

Lieutenant Braithwaite kept his eyes firmly on the remains of a large helping of synthetic steak, roasted potato slices, and mushrooms that no longer filled his plate, thanking the DNA he had inherited from his parents, which enabled him to indulge in the pleasures of overeating without suffering the penalty of becoming overweight, so that his enjoyment would not be spoiled by the sight of what Cerdal was eating. Because of the high level of background noise in the dining hall, they had to raise their voices to be heard, but their strong feeling of mutual irritation was making it very easy for them to shout at each other between the periods of angry silence.

“Dr. Cerdal, we are competing for the same job,” Braithwaite said after one of them, “but that doesn’t mean we have to dislike each other now or when one of us, or perhaps neither of us, is successful. But lately you have been displaying signs of a growing personal hostility toward me. Why?”

“It’s not only you,” said Cerdal without looking up, “but you are particularly irritating with your continual advice that is nothing but thinly veiled criticism. You gave me a patient who is visually loathsome, unfriendly, and has now refused even to speak to me. Tunneckis is, is impossible. I’ve spent days on end with it since it came out of surgery. You gave me the assignment knowing that I would fail, fail both to provide therapy for a stupid, uncooperative patient and to impress O’Mara with my fitness for its position. You and the others have shown me that strangers are not welcome here.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Braithwaite. “We’re all strangers here, and some of us are a lot stranger than others, at least until we get to know each other. Lioren, Cha Thrat, or I could have taken the case, but you said that you had never before treated a telepath and it would be a challenge. You specifically asked for the assignment. I decided to give it to you.”

“But without obtaining your superior’s permission?” said Cerdal. “It was solely your own decision, correct?”

“Yes,” Braithwaite replied. He hesitated for a moment before going on, “As the new administrator, O’Mara has nondepartmental business to attend to at present. You know this. He instructed me to take full responsibility for such assignment decisions, which I did. Would you like to be relieved of the Tunneckis case?”

Cerdal looked up from its plate to stare at him for a moment; then it said, “Is that what you want, Braithwaite, to see me fail? But no matter. Following several days of attempted therapy I’ve come to regard the patient as a stupid, obdurate, disrespectful, personally repulsive, and worthless being who should not have so much of my time wasted on it. If O’Mara had given me the assignment, he would have wanted me to fail, too, just like the rest of you. And don’t waste my time or insult my intelligence with your lying, Earth-human protestations of innocence. And now I expect you’ll run as fast as those long, misshapen Earth-human legs will carry you to tell your chief exactly what I said with, I’ve no doubt, a few embellishments?”

Braithwaite felt his face reddening. He opened his mouth to speak, then brought his teeth together again with an audible click as he tried to impose calm on himself. In an angry Kelgian such a conversational exchange might have been excusable, but his first assessment of Cerdal was that it was a cool, self-assured, smoothtalking diplomat who was in complete control of its emotions. That impression had been shared by everyone else in the department during the job interview. So what he was seeing here was a serious, completely uncharacteristic, and potentially dangerous change in behavior which was verging on outright paranoia and possibly xenophobia. It was his duty to report such sudden and uncharacteristic personality changes to O’Mara. But he didn’t want to do that until he could also include the reason behind it.

“Doctor,” he said quietly, “are you feeling all right?”

Cerdal didn’t answer; instead it left the table without excusing itself.

He couldn’t approach Tunneckis directly for information, Braithwaite thought as he finished his meal, because it was Cerdal’s patient and that, in the other’s present touchy state of mind, would cause even more offense. But as a psychologist, O’Mara was constantly reminding him, indirection was the most well-used tool of his trade. Besides, it was information on Cerdal and not its patient that he needed, and that could be more easily obtained through a third party.

Culcheth was the Kelgian charge nurse on the mixed-species surgical recovery ward which included, at a distance sufficient to minimize the telepathic radiation of the other patients, the isolation chamber that housed Tunneckis. Because Culcheth was a Kelgian, Braithwaite would not have to waste time on misdirection or making tangential approaches.

“Charge Nurse, how is patient Tunneckis doing?” said Braithwaite. “This isn’t a visit, I just wanted to know your feelings regarding the patient. Is it friendly, cooperative?”

“Patient Tunneckis is doing as well as can be expected,” Culcheth replied, its fur spiking in irritation, “but neither of the diagnosticians will tell me what their expectations are. It cooperates because it has no choice. It is not friendly and I will say no more about it.”

The other couldn’t lie but it could refuse to speak. Braithwaite tried again.

“Our new psychologist has been attempting to treat it,” he said. “What do you think about Dr. Cerdal?”

Culcheth’s fur became even more agitated. “That, that organic black hole,” it said. “Its fur doesn’t move and it’s disgusting and its eyes… It’s like a nightmare I used to have as a child when—”

“But surely,” Braithwaite broke in, “you’ve grown out of childish nightmares? Especially in a place like this where you meet and work with them every day?”

“I still don’t like it,” said Culcheth. “Neither do my nursing staff. We won’t be happy until both Tunneckis and Cerdal leave the hospital.”

The charge nurse would say no more, and when he persisted with the questioning it became personally abusive. Kelgians always said what they thought, but this one, he was beginning to realize, wasn’t thinking straight.

O’Mara was spending a few hours in the luxurious administrator’s office when Braithwaite arrived looking cool and impeccable but more worried than usual.

“As I remember,” he said, pointing to the nearest chair, “you were supposed to handle your own problems for a while. If you’ve come up against one you can’t solve, for your sake I hope it’s serious. Briefly, what is it?”

“I think it’s very serious, sir,” said the lieutenant, “but I can’t be brief.”

“Try,” said O’Mara.

“Sir,” said Braithwaite, “we are all aware that you have introduced an element of competitiveness among the candidates for your job. That being so, I must first assure you that in no way have I tried to place Cerdal in a situation beyond its level of competence, or undermine its position in any way that would make it look bad and so eliminate it from the competition. I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that and with respect, sir, I’m not sure I want your job that much.”

“So Cerdal is the problem,” said O’Mara. “Are you still trying to solve it?”

The lieutenant nodded. “I feel sure that Cerdal is showing increasing signs of emotional disturbance,” he said. “Over the past few days it has displayed sudden and marked changes in personality and behavior, but that may be only a small part of a greater problem, the part that came to my attention first. I now have reasons to believe that a surgical post-op patient called Tunneckis, currently in recovery and in need of psychological suppport, may also be involved as well as a presently unknown number of other-species medical staff I’m also aware of a subjective change in my own personality. Without being overtly insubordinate, I no longer feel quite so frightened of or even respectful toward those in authority, including yourself, sir.

“Lieutenant,” said O’Mara dryly, “I’ve been hoping for years to hear you say that. Go on.”

“Sir?” said the other, looking puzzled, then went on, “I’m still trying, or maybe just hoping, to solve this problem by myself, but I will need the cooperation of senior department heads, certain members of their medical staff, and maybe their technical-support and maintenance personnel as well. I don’t have the rank to request the kind of help I need but you do, which is why I’m here. But frankly, sir, I’m not sure myself what is going on except that—”

O’Mara held up a hand. “Whose help do you need?”

“Initially,” Braithwaite replied promptly, “Diagnosticians Thornnastor and Conway, because I don’t think that ordinary minds will be able to solve this problem. If there is a problem, that is, and it isn’t simply a case of me scaring myself unnecessarily. And Senior Physician Prilicla will be needed for a precise analysis of the emotional radiation of the people involved, and you, of course, for your other-species psychiatric experience. Depending on developments there may be others.”

“Is that all?” said O’Mara with heavy sarcasm. “Are you quite sure it’s Cerdal and not yourself who’s emotionally disturbed?”

“Sir,” said Braithwaite, “this matter is serious. And it may be urgent.”

O’Mara continued to stare at Braithwaite’s face for a moment, while the other stared unblinkingly at his, which was very unusual behavior for the lieutenant. “Tell me exactly what help you need, begining with mine.”

Braithwaite gave a relieved sigh, then went on quickly, “First I’d like you to open Cerdal’s psych profile to me, or better yet, discuss its contents. From its initial job interview and during a few later conversations with it, I formed the opinion that it was a stable, well-integrated, if a trifle self-important, personality…

“You mean bigheaded,” said O’Mara.

… who would have no difficulty adapting to the multiplicity of life-forms we have here,” the other went on. “Over the past few days, since I assigned patient Tunneckis to it at its own request, Cerdal has displayed a marked change in its professional and social behavior, and there are clear indications of a worsening case of xenophobia. This behavior seems to me to be totally uncharacteristic in the entity I thought I knew. I made discreet inquiries and discovered that the people with whom it had had recent contact also noticed a change for the worse in its behavior, so much so that some of them have come to dislike it so much that they can barely bring themselves to speak to it anymore, and they, too, are exhibiting xenophobic behavior, of a lower intensity.

“I know that a mental abnormality isn’t contagious,” Braithwaite went on quickly, “whether it stems from patient Tunneckis or Dr. Cerdal. But Tunneckis is the one common factor in all this because Cerdal, and to a lesser extent the people associated with the patient’s post-op medical care, are the only ones affected. Ridicubus as the idea sounds, the mental-contagion theory has to be eliminated from the investigation before I clutch at some other stupid straw.”

The lieutenant took a deep breath and continued, “There could be a simple explanation for this behavior if Tunneckis bears a physical resemblance to something or someone in its past life about which Cerdal has a deeply buried phobia or if, during the course of Cerdal’s therapy, the patient has revealed something about itself that triggered this extreme phobic reaction. That’s why I wanted to look at its psych profile.”

O’Mara nodded, tapped keys on his console, then swung the screen around so that they both could read it.

“Move closer, Lieutenant,” he said, “and be my guest.”

Without appearing to do so, he was studying the information on the screen as intently as Braithwaite was doing. When they were finished the other sighed, sat back, and shook his head. O’Mara allowed a little sympathy to enter his voice.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said, “this is the profile of a person who is in all respects sane, well-adjusted, and completely lacking in xenophobic tendencies.”

Braithwaite shook his head again, stubbornly. “But, sir, that isn’t the profile of Cerdal as it is now. That’s why I need Prilicla to do an emotional-radiation reading on everyone concerned, beginfling with Cerdal and Tunneckis. And I want to know the details of what was done to the patient and, if there was any chance that the procedure was likely to cause more than the simple post-op depression, why we weren’t told about it. I’ve learned that the procedure involved some very delicate work and that Thornnastor and Conway insisted on doing it themselves. I feel sure something is badly wrong here, but I don’t know what exactly. Our two top diagnosticians are in the habit of coming up with answers to some very strange questions and maybe they’ll do it again, if only it is to tell me that I’m making a fool of myself…

He hesitated and for a moment the old, self-effacing Braithwaite returned as he added,”… which I probably am?

“Possibly you are, Lieutenant, not probably,” said O’Mara. He swung the screen around to face him again, hit the communications key for the outer office, and went on briskly, “Get Thornnastor, Conway, and Priicla up here at once… No, hold while I rephrase that…? In an undertone to Braithwaite he said, “Dammit, Lieutenant, I keep forgetting my new eminence and the need for politeness and fake humility that is supposed to go with the job.” In a conversational tone he resumed, “Please locate and contact Diagnosticians Thornnastor and Conway and Senior Physician Prilicla, give them my compliments and tell them that their presence is required urgently in Administrator O’Mara’s office?

Braithwaite smiled. “Sir,” he said, “I couldn’t have worded that better myself.”

O’Mara ignored the compliment and added, “You stay where you are, Lieutenant. I don’t want to sound bike a fool to those three by relaying your suspicions to them secondhand. I know you don’t know what is going on, but before they arrive I want you to tell me what the hell you think is going on.”