Final Diagnosis

CHAPTER 10

Hewlitt knew that it was not a symptom which would register on his medical monitor, but he was beginning to wonder whether there was such a condition as terminal boredom allied to atrophication of the tongue.

Apart from asking how he was feeling and saying “That’s good,” Medalont said nothing to him. His Hudlar nurse, although friendly enough and helpful when it did speak, was absent for most of the day on lectures and busy at other times. Braithwaite called for a few minutes every day on his way to the dining hall and insisted that, because they were on his own rather than the department’s time, they were social rather than professional visits. He gay Hewlitt a few useful library access codes and talked a lot withou saying anything. Charge Nurse Leethveeschi had time for him onl if his monitor signaled a medical emergency; the lieutenant’s Tar Ian colleague, Padre Lioren, had yet to appear.

The ambulatory patients who passed his bed on the way to th bathroom-a couple of Melfans, a newly arrived Dwerlan, a Kel gian, and one slow-moving Tralthan-sometimes talked amon themselves but never to him, and the few conversations he coul overhear from farther up the ward were never widened to include Patient Hewlitt. He could not talk to the patients in the beds beside and opposite him because they had been transferred somewhere else.

He was growing heartily sick and tired of listening to the condescending voice of the library computer for hours on end. It was beginning to make him feel as he had done as a boy when confronted with an unending succession of thinly disguised school lessons. Then as now he had felt bored and restless, but then there had been an open window beckoning and beyond it a landscape filled with interesting things to play with. Here there were no windows that opened and nothing but space outside them if they had. In a desperate attempt to relieve his restlessness he decided to walk up and down the ward.

He had walked the length of the ward twice and was on his third lap when Leethveeschi waddled out of the nurses’ station to bar his path.

“Patient Hewlitt,” it said, “please do not walk so fast. You could collide with one of my nurses and injure them, or they you. As well, and I realize that the thought may not have occurred to you, it shows great insensitivity on your part to parade your obvious physical fitness in this fashion before the other patients, some of whom are seriously ill, injured, or bedridden. You may continue with your exercise, slowly.”

“Sorry, Charge Nurse,” said Hewlitt.

Moving at the slower pace, Hewlitt felt awkward just staring straight in front of him or down at the floor ahead, so he began to sneak quick looks at the patients he was passing. The majority of them did not look at him, probably because they were sleeping, they were too ill, or they thought him as ugly as he did them. The other patients followed him with their eyes, too many eyes in some cases, and it came as no surprise that the only one who spoke to him was a Kelgian.

“You look all right to me, for an Earth-human,” it said, rippling the fur that was not concealed by a large rectangle of silvery grey fabric taped to its side. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” said Hewlitt, stopping and turning to face it. “The hospital is trying to find out.”

“Leethveeschi called out the resuscitation team for you the day you arrived,” it said. “It must be serious. Are you going to die?”

“I don’t know,” Hewlitt replied, “and I hope not.”

The Kelgian was lying on its side in a large, square bed on top of the blanket and with its furry body curved into the shape of a flattened S. It drew itself up, flattening the S even more, and said, “Seeing you Earth-humans balancing like that on just two legs makes me uneasy. If you want to talk, sit on the bed. I won’t break. I won’t bite, either; I’m herbivorous.”

Hewlitt sat sideways on the edge of the bed, taking care that his hip did not touch the other’s furry body or stubby, caterpillar legs. He had always liked talking to people, and provided he closed his eyes or looked away from time to time, he might be able to fool himself into thinking that the creatures in this place fell into that category.

Now that the Kelgian had mentioned it, he realized that a creature who moved on twenty feet would feel a little strange about someone who used only two. The feeling was mutual.

He cleared his throat and prepared to make polite conversation, if it was possible to do that with a Kelgian.

“My name is Hewlitt,” he said. “I noticed you passing my bed a few times, usually with a Tralthan or a Dwerlan and once, I think, with a Duthan. I’ve been keying into the.library to learn and identify the different physiological classifications so that I’ll know what as well as who is doing things to me, but some of them I’m still not sure about.”

“I am Morredeth,” said the Kelgian. “You are right about the Duthan and the other two. When we passed your bed you did not speak. We decided that you were either very ill or very antisocial.”

“I did not speak because you were always talking to your companions,” he said, “and interrupting you would not have been polite.”

“Polite,” that word again!” said the other, its fur rising into spikes. “There is no equivalent meaning in our language. If you wanted to speak to me you should have done so, and if I had not wanted to listen to you I would have told you to be quiet. Why must non-Kelgians make everything so complicated?”

He decided to treat it as a rhetorical question and asked, “What is wrong with you, Morredeth? Is it serious?”

The silence began to lengthen and still the other did not reply. Kelgians were psychologically incapable of telling a lie, Hewlitt reminded himself, but there was nothing to keep them from remaining silent if they did not want to answer. He was about to apologize for asking the question when the other spoke.

“The original injury was not disabling,” said Morredeth, “but the resulting condition is very serious, and incurable. Unfortunately, it will not kill me. I do not wish to talk about it.”

Hewlitt hesitated, then said, “Do you wish to talk about something else, or would you prefer me to leave?”

Morredeth ignored him and went on, “I should try to talk about it, Lioren says, and think about it instead of trying to push it out of my mind. Right now I want to talk about the other patients, the medical staff, and anybody or anything else so that I will not have to think about it. But I can’t talk and think about other things all the time, not when the patients are sleeping, or when the night nurse stops talking to me because it has other things to do, or when I fall asleep myself. I don’t know about your kind, but Kelgians have no voluntary control over the subject of their dreams.”

“Nor have we,” said Hewlitt, looking at the rectangle of silvery fabric attached to the other’s body and wondering what terrible injury it concealed.

Morredeth saw where he was looking. It ruffled its fur and said, “I will not talk about it.”

But you have been not-talking about it, or talking all around it, since I sat down on your bed. A psychologist would be able to make something of that, Hewlitt thought. Aloud, he said, “You mentioned a person called Lioren. I have been told that a Tarlan with that name might be calling on me soon.

“Not too soon, I hope,” said Morredeth.

“Why do you say that?” Hewlitt asked, beginning to feel uneasy. “Is it a particularly unpleasant creature?”

“No,” the other replied. “I have found it to be a pleasant entity, at least for a non-Kelgian. I have not been here long enough to know what exactly it does, but Horrantor tells me that it is usually sent to patients that the medics are no longer able to help. You know, the hopeless cases.

Hewlitt did not like the sound of that, and wondered if Braithwaite’s earlier reference to Lioren had been entirely factual. Not everyone, in fact not anyone, was as forthright as a Kelgian.

“Who is Horrantor?” he asked. “One of the medics?”

“One of the patients,” said Morredeth, pointing. “That one. It is coming to find out what we are talking about. You can feel the floor shaking.”

“What is wrong with it?” said Hewlitt. He kept his voice low in case the Tralthan patient, too, was reticent about its medical problems.

“Surely that is obvious,” the Kelgian snapped at him, “when it is walking on only five legs. The strapped-up leg was crushed in an industrial accident, rebuilt with microsurgery, and will be good as new. There was damage to the reproductive system and birth canal which still require treatment, but don’t ask it for the gory details. At least, not while I’m with you. I have heard more than enough about its reproductive plumbing, and anyway, it reminds me of my own problems. Oh, Bowab is heading this way, too. We usually play cards, bellas or scremman, to pass the time. Do you play any card games?”

“Yes, no,” said Hewlitt. “What I mean is, I know the rules of a few Earth games, but I don’t play them well. Is Bowab the Duthan who is walking behind Horrantor? What is wrong with it?”

“You are very indecisive, Hewlitt,” said Morredeth. “Either you can play or you cannot. Bellas is a Tralthan game of skill similar to Earth whist. Scremman is from Nidia originally and, according to Bowab, who considers itself an expert, is a game of chance played by skillful, passive liars and cheats. I don’t know what is wrong with the Duthan except that the problem is uncommon, and medical rather than surgical. This is the hospital’s main observation, transition, and sometimes recuperation ward for patients lucky enough to survive-which, Leethveeschi tells us, is most of them. They send some pretty weird patients here sometimes.”

“Yes,” said Hewlitt, watching the two who were approaching and wondering whether, in the present company, the remark was aimed at him.

Horrantor came to a stop at the bottom of the bed, its injured leg barely touching the floor. One each of the four, extensible eyes projecting from around the immobile dome of its head were directed at Morredeth, Bowab, Hewlitt, and, for some reason, the distant nurses’ station. The Duthan moved to the side of the bed opposite Hewlitt. He wondered whether the irregular brown patches of fur on its otherwise dark green, centaurlike body were a symptom of its medical condition, or a natural feature like the thick, white line that began in the center of its forehead then widened along the upper and lower spine to disappear into the long bushy tail, but decided not to ask. It folded its rear legs, stood on the forward set, and leaned its elbows and forearms on the bed. Both of its eyes, which were capable of looking in only one direction at a time, were staring at him.

Hewlitt hesitated, then introduced himself and followed with a brief description of his problem. He could think of nothing else to talk about, because all they had in common was a collection of symptoms.

Horrantor made a low, moaning sound that might have indicated sympathy and said, “At least we know what is wrong with us. If they don’t know what is wrong with you and you feel physically fit, it might take a long time before they find a cure.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Bowab, “more than enough time to become terminally bored. Unless, of course, you can find an amusing way of passing the time. Are you a gambling person, Patient Hewlitt?”

Before he could reply, Morredeth said, “Even a Kelgian could change the subject more gradually than that. Hewlitt knows how to play cards, but not bellas or scremman. We might be able to teach it, or it might prefer to teach us one of its games.”

“That would give you initial advantages, Patient Hewlitt,” said Horrantor, turning another eye in his direction. “With us as ~opponents, you would need them.”

It was obvious that these people had a high opinion of themselves as cardplayers, and he was tempted to try confusing them with the rules of a complicated and partnered game like whist-or better still, bridge. But if their self-assessment was accurate, they might not be confused for long.

“I would prefer to learn than teach,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t think that I would need to bring Earth playing cards with me.”

“You don’t,” said Bowab, as it reached into the pocket of its abbreviated apron, the only item of clothing that it was wearing, and drew out a very thick pack of cards. “If anyone needs them, Leethveeschi can request a pack from the staff recreation level. That’s how we got ours. We’ll play a few practice games with the cards faceup to let you know what is going on. But let’s not waste time, Morredeth. Squeeze up the bed and give us some playing space.

The Kelgian coiled itself into a flatter S so that the bottom of its bed was left clear, then twisted its conical head and upper body sideways until its short arms hung over the playing area. Bowab, Horrantor, and Hewlitt were already in position when the Tralthan said, “Leethveeschi is heading this way. What can it want with us at this time of the day? Is anybody due medication?”

“Patient Hewlitt,” said the charge nurse, stopping so that it could look at him through the clear space between Horrantor and Bowab. “I am glad to see that you have begun socializing and indulging in a group activity with other patients, and Lieutenant Braithwaite will also be pleased when he hears about it.

“But there is a hospital regulation governing the group activity in which you are about to engage,” it went on. “The game must be played for mental exercise only. No personal property, negotiable Federation currency, or promissory notes of any kind may be exchanged as a result of playing it. You find yourself among a group of civilized predators, Patient Hewlitt, and the thought that comes most readily to my mind is best described by the Earth-human phrase ‘a sheep among wolves.’ Please try not to become too excited in case your medical monitor reports it as a clinical emergency. Also…

One green, shapeless hand dug into a pocket attached to the outer surface of Leethveeschi’s protective envelope and withdrew a small, plastic box, which it tossed onto the bed beside him.

These are used by your species, among others,” it continued, “to remove food scraps adhering to the spaces between their teeth. Doubtless you will find another use for them. Good luck.”

After the charge nurse left them it was Bowab who was the first to find its voice.

“Toothpicks, a full box!” it said. “We had to divide half a box among us. Hewlitt, you are a millionaire!”