Mind Changer

CHAPTER 26

Murchison had created a precedent and delighted Senior Tutor Mannen by being appointed charge nurse of Ward ThirtyNine, the mixed Melfan, Kelgian, and Nidian surgical recovery unit, immediately upon graduation from trainee status. There she asked nothing of her nursing staff that she wasn’t able and willing to do herself, and she led her team politely, firmly, and with absolute fairness from in front. On O’Mara’s recommendation, delivered via Mannen, she was given increased responsibility for certain problem patients who were not responding to orthodox lines of treatment. As a result, her ability to observe, analyze, synthesize, and diagnose from the often sparse available data brought her work, as O’Mara knew it would, to the attention of Thornnastor, who said that she was performing original work of a quality not expected of a member of the nursing staff and, if she was willing, her talents could be more gainfully employed in its own department as a junior pathologist. Murchison, as her psych file said she would, was happy to transfer up and across the ladder of promotion, because original xenobiological research was the kind of work she had always wanted to do.

She allowed herself no distractions because, she had told Mannen pleasantly but firmly, she had no time to waste on socializing with its risk of her becoming emotionally involved with a male member of her species. This complete dedication to her career pleased the senior tutor very much, but not her Earth-human male colleagues, who were fond of admitting to everyone including O’Mara that, so far as they were concerned, she was the only person in the hospital that they found impossible to regard with anything resembling clinical detachment. Every one of them had attempted vainly to conquer and exploit what they considered to be one of the hospital’s most desirable natural resources, only to be rejected firmly and with such good humor that their feelings of desire never turned to dislike.

But unrequited love, as O’Mara knew from long experience, was rarely a life- or sanity-threatening condition.

The younger Conway, he remembered, had been the only Earth-human male on the junior staff who had not shown, or had done a good job of concealing, his feelings for her during the first few occasions when they made professional contact. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, anything but; it was simply that he honestly preferred making friends with other-species staff. He had told O’Mara during the initial interview that his life’s ambition was to practice medicine in a multi-species hospital, he had succeeded in gaining entry to the biggest and best in the galaxy, and a serious romantic relationship would be an unwanted distraction from his studies. Normally an Earth-human person who preferred socializing with Tralthans, Melfans, and the other even more alien patients and staff members would have been a matter for psychiatric concern, but in Sector General such an abnormality was a distinct advantage.

The psych profiles of Murchison and young Conway, he remembered, had been so alike that if the old adage about opposites attracting and likes repelling had held true they should never have become an item. But O’Mara had taken such a fatherly interest in them fulfilling their future potential that he had shamelessly tinkered, not with their minds, but with their single and later their joint work assignments. He had been deliberately hard on them by forcing them to make clinical adaptations and decisions and to take responsibility far above their nominal rank. And what he hadn’t done to them fate had-in the shape of the Etlan War and a succession of combined rescue and first-contact missions on the special ambulance ship Rhabwar-testing them not quite to destruction until they were really good, separately and together. At all times he had remained as sarcastic and nasty toward them as ever. But he wondered if they would ever realize how much he liked them as people and how intensely proud he was of the fact that Murchison, still so maturely beautiful that Earth-human males looked after her when she passed, was now in line to succeed Thornnastor as head of Pathology, while the brilliant young Conway, no longer quite so young, was the diagnostician-in-charge of Other-Species Surgery, and that he felt especially pleased that they were now life-mates.

With the exception of two other beings, one of whom would never visit Sector General in person and the other of whom would not talk to anyone other than himself about it, O’Mara was able to conceal those feelings. He shook his head abruptly in self-irritation at his increasing tendency to spend so much of his mental life in the past, looked at his watch, and prepared once again to have all his feelings read like an open book.

When Senior Physician Priicla entered the office a few moments later, O’Mara pointed at the item of furniture resembling a surrealistic wastepaper basket, which the Cinrusskin empath found most comfortable, then said gruffly, “Well, little friend, how am I feeling?”

Priicla made a musical trilling sound that did not translate because it was the Cinrusskin’s equivalent of laughter, and said, “You know your feelings, friend O’Mara, as do I, so there isn’t much sense in either of us listing them aloud. I assume the question is partly rhetorical. The other part may have something to do with your feelings of general anxiety coupled with the emotional tension characteristic of a mind that is about to make a suggestion that may not be well received. I’m an empath, remember, not a telepath.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” said O’Mara quietly.

“Observation and deduction” it went on, “even without the ability to read emotions, can amount to the same thing, as you would know if you played poker. I know what you feel, not what you think, so if you are forcing yourself to impart bad news, you’ll have to tell me exactly what you are thinking?

O’Mara sighed. “You are a psychiatrist’s psychiatrist” he said, in addition to everything else?

For a moment the other’s fragile, insectile body trembled in response to his emotional radiation, but it waited in silence for him to speak. O’Mara lengthened the silence while he tried to choose the right words to break it.

“Little friend” he said finally, “I intended the purpose of this meeting to be a discussion of possibilities and a request for help rather than to give you another work assignment. You may know that my time at Sector General is limited, and that I will be leaving as soon as I have chosen and installed my successor, who will be both the hospital’s administrator and its chief psychologist. The choice will be difficult?

Priicla opened its iridescent wings and shook them out before refolding them tightly against its body again. It remained silent.

He went on, “All of the people I have in mind, the outsider as well as those already on the staff, are good. I could leave now knowing that any of them would do an adequate job. But I want to know more than my own insight and experience can tell me about the successful applicant’s inner feelings. Frankly, I feel possessive. For a very long time the psychological health of this place has been my baby, the only one I have, or will ever have, and I don’t want to hand it over to a parent who is merely adequate. That’s why I feel it necessary, if you agree, that you monitor the feelings of all the applicants and report them to me so as to guide me in my final choice.”

“I know your feelings, friend O’Mara, and those of every other source of emotional radiation whether it is large and strong, simple, complex, weak, or even nonsapient. They cannot be concealed from me, but that doesn’t mean that I will impart them to a third party if the ethic governing privileged information is involved; otherwise I will be pleased to advise you. But you rarely take advice. Since I detected the presence of your Kelgian mind partner and you reluctantly confided the details to me, my advice has been that its continued occupancy of your mind has caused you as much emotional disruption as contentment over the years and that you should have it erased. I feel its presence still affecting you.

“It is,” said O’Mara, “but we both know that the Marrasarah business is not the strongest feeling in my mind, and that you are trying to change the subject)”

“Naturally” said Prilicla, its body trembling slightly, “because I feel you nerving yourself to say something that you believe I will find unpleasant. Be direct like your Kelgian mind partner and tell me what it is.”

“Right” said O’Mara. “But first I want to talk about you, little friend, before I talk to you. Think back to the time you first came here, for a probationary period because neither of us believed that an empath with your degree of sensitivity could survive here for long. In Sector General people in large numbers suffer physical trauma, fear, and emotional uncertainty. That is an accepted fact of hospital life. To an emotion-sensitive like you it must have been, and probably still is, hell. The therapeutic help I was able to give you in the early days was minimal. But against all the odds you did survive. Not only that, you assumed extra surgical responsibilities and remained effective and mentally stable during the processing of the hundreds of extra casualties that resulted from the Etlan War. When you were promoted to senior physician and took over medical charge of Rhabwar, you and your hypersensitive empathy climbed about in shifting ship wreckage and disaster areas so you could point out the dead from the dying inside their spacesuits and very often save the latter’s lives. And now, well, you don’t need to use telepathy or empathy or anything but your tiny ear slits to know that…

He broke off for a moment to smile, then went on, “Of course it’s only a rumor that you will shortly be promoted to full diagnostician, but I can unofficially confirm it.”

The empath’s pipestem limbs trembled faintly as it said, “Friend O’Mara, you are heaping me with high professional praise that I know is sincere. It should be making me feel good but it isn’t. Why are you emoting so much anxiety?”

O’Mara shook his head and said, “Before I answer that I want to talk about myself, briefly, you’ll be glad to hear. Since I started in this job over thirty years ago, without any formal qualifications and with an enormous chip on my shoulder, I deliberately refrained from trying to be friendly. Most of the people think they know the reason, that I’m a self-confessed, thoroughly nasty person who saves his professional sympathy only for the most troubled patients. But only you, little friend, with your damned empathy were able to piece together the complete truth.

“It has been a fact long hallowed by hospital tradition.” he went on, “that the chief psychologist be an uncouth, nasty, sarcastic, completely undiplomatic, and thoroughly unlikable person. But it is not an immutable law of nature. We should consider the appointment of an entirely different personality type, one who is well-mannered and diplomatic because he, she, or it always says the right thing, one who is sensitive to the feelings of others but who, when necessary, can politely be very tough. In short, one whom everyone loves rather than loves to hate. That kind of person would be ideal both as administrator and chief psychologist, wouldn’t you agree?”

Prilicla had begun to tremble again. “Other than among your own staff” it said, “where would you find such a paragon?”

“I might be looking at itP said O’Mara.

The empath began shaking so hard that it threatened to fall out of its chair. “Now I know the reason for your anxiety, friend O’Mara, because you’re expecting me to refuse, which I do. I’m not a psychologist, I’m a doctor who is soon, according to you, to become a diagnostician and the carrier of many other-species mind tapes. Half the time I’ll be so confused I won’t know who or what I am. At the risk of sounding impolite, friend O’Mara, I think you’re mad. The answer is no.”

O’Mara smiled. “The new appointment calls for medical as well as psychological qualifications. What better experience could an administrator have than to be a diagnostician with inside knowledge of the workings of many other-species minds, or a chief psychologist who is able to detect the deeply buried emotional problems that cause the minds of its patients to go wrong? That’s why I’d like you to consider offering yourself as a candidate. Personally, I think Administrator and Diagnostician-in-Charge of Psychology Prilicla would have a nice ring to it. Stop shaking and listen.

“Any one of my present staff could make a pretty good stab at the job,” he continued, “as could Cerdal, who is very highly thought of, not least by itself. If you refuse it, one of them will succeed. But mostly they are followers rather than leaders, gifted but reluctant to take final responsibility. They are perfect subordinates who will be pleased to take the day-to-day running of the department off your hands so that you will have maximum time available for administrative work and the really serious patients. There will be no bad feelings from any of them, except possibly from Cerdal if it chooses to stay, because you they really like. Relax, there’s no need to give me your answer right now.

Prilicla stood up. It said, “I can give you my answer now. It is no.

“Please, little friend,” said O’Mara, “take time to think about it.”

The empath clicked across the office floor on shaking Cmrusskin legs, then paused inside the door to make a soft, trilling sound.

“Don’t forget to say something nasty to me as I leave, friend O’Mara’ it said, “just so you can remain in character.”