Mind Changer

CHAPTER 4

It had been the same office, but those days the walls had been covered only by sickly green anticorrosive paint rather than a selection of restful landscapes from a dozen worlds, and instead of the extraterrestrial furniture that made the present office look like a medieval torture chamber, there had been only two hard, upright chairs on opposite sides of a bench whose plastic worktop was buried under an untidy heap of printouts. Major Craythorne had occupied one chair and O’Mara the other.

That job interview, with the breaks necessary for eating, sleeping, and long periods of work experience, lasted for three years.

Suddenly he was back to the there and then, feeling the anxiety or perhaps it was the last hurried, undigested meal heavy in his stomach. Again he was smelling the supposedly odorless paint and hearing the high-pitched, intermittent sound of a nearby power drill that was forcing the major to swear mildly and pause from time to time.

“You have to remember, O’Mara,” said Craythorne, not for the first time, “that your face and manner do not invite trust, and your features show no depth or subtlety of mind even though we both know those qualities are there, and that on several occasions you have tinkered curatively with troubled other-species personalities. On the surface your consultation technique is crude but effective, so crude that your poor patient has no idea how deeply and sensitively he, she, or it has been probed and manipulated while you are appearing to bully them. Have you ever considered trying to be, well, insincerely polite?”

O’Mara sighed in angry impatience, but silently with his mouth open so that the other couldn’t detect it, then said, “You’re familiar with the Earth saying, sir, about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? You know I don’t work well in an atmosphere of insincere friendliness.”

Craythorne nodded calmly, but whether it was in answer to the question or the statement was unclear, so probably it was to both. He said, “Forget it for now, O’Mara. Your next assignment is to settle in a group of Kelgians. With them insincerity or politeness would be a waste of time because both concepts are completely alien to them. You’ll feel right at home. Have you any prior experience with that species?”

O’Mara shook his head.

The major smiled. “If I had time to tell you about them, which unfortunately I don’t right now, you wouldn’t believe me. They arrive in two hours. Before meeting them you should brief yourself on the library computer…

In the corridor outside their doorless office, someone dropped something heavy and metallic that made the whole room ring like a discordant bell. Craythorne winced and ended calmly, “… which, fortunately, is one of the few facilities in this place that is up and running.”

The major was a man O’Mara would have dearly liked to hate, but couldn’t because he was so damned likable. No matter how or why one of his subordinates messed up, he never lost his temper. Instead he just looked so disappointed that the culprits felt so sorry they never made the same mistake again. His manner was polished, invariably correct, and the greying hair and thin, sensitive features could have belonged to a career diplomat. Even in the issue coveralls he looked impeccable. It was as if the ever-present mixture of oily grime and metallic dust that stained everyone else’s clothing did not so much as dare approach his. He gave the impression of being, and truly was, a good man. He had opened up a job for O’Mara when all O’Mara’s options had closed.

“Major,” said O’Mara enviously, “how the hell did you get this way?”

The other smiled again and shook his head. “You keep trying to probe my hidden inner depths, and I yours. But trying to practice psychoanalysis on each other’s deeply buried psychoses is a waste of time, because as psychologists we don’t have any. We’re supposed to be sane, well-integrated personalities. It’s in our contracts.”

“Your contract, maybe…” O’Mara began.

Before he could go on, Craythorne said in a tone of gentle dismissal, “If you aren’t familiar with the new library computer consoles, there are plenty of mad genuises working down there who will be glad to help you out.”

Only a few of the freight elevators were working and they were usually so full of men and equipment that it wasn’t worth spending time waiting for a chance to squeeze into one. Besides, he was used to threading his way through many miles of corridors still under construction that were identified only by their hospital level and corridor numbers daubed with paint at the intersections. He slowed his pace to go around a couple of large, sweating and swearing men in Monitor Corps green coveralls, one of them a sergeant, who had been installing a heavy length of ceiling ducting, one end of which had fallen onto the floor. The NCO called out to him as he was passing.

“You” he said sharply, “help us lift this damn thing into position again and hold it. I’ll show you where it fits…

It was obvious where it fitted. Without speaking, O’Mara pulled a nearby bench into a more convenient position, lifted the loose end of the ducting onto the top surface, and jumped up himself. Then he lifted it without effort to the ceiling and held it accurately in position while the other two secured it.

“Thanks, friend’ said the sergeant. “Obviously you know what you’re doing and I need you here for a couple of hours. Whatever else you you were about to do, forget it.”

O’Mara shook his head and jumped to the floor.

“It’s okay” said the sergeant in a manner suggesting that he was unused to receiving negative responses. “I’ll fix it with your squad leader. On this job the Corps instructions take precedence over those given by civilian contractor supervisors.”

“SorryP said O’Mara, turning to go. “I really have to be somewhere else.”

“Hold it right there” said the other angrily. “Have you some kind of difficulty in comprehension…? What is it, Bates?”

The sergeant broke off as O’Mara turned back to look at him. It would not have been the first time that he had had to win an argument with his fists. But that had been in the bad old days and Craythorne would not like it if he started doing it again. Besides, the second Corpsman, Bates, was staring at his face and tugging urgently at the sergeant’s sleeve.

“I know this one, Sarge.” he said in a respectful undertone. “Forget it.”

O’Mara turned away again to resume his interrupted journey to the library. He had gone about twenty yards along the corridor when he heard the sergeant saying loudly, “He’s Major Craythorne’s assistant, you say? But what the hell is a bloody psychologist doing with muscles like that?”

It was a question that had been asked many times by many people during O’Mara’s life, and the answer, based on visual evidence alone, was usually provided by the questioner, who took one look and saw no reason to listen to anything he had to say.

Since his early teens, O’Mara’s life had been a series of such frustrations. He had lost both parents when he was three and his aunt, probably because of ill health plus the fact that he had been a really obnoxious child, had not given him the support needed against adults and superiors who kept telling him what he should be and do with his life.

Teachers took one look, relegated him to the sports field, and considered his efforts to study an interesting and unnecessary anomaly. Later a succession of company personnel officers could not believe that a young man with such square, ugly features and shoulders so huge that they made his head look inoronically small by comparison could be really interested in brainy stuff like electronics, medicine, or psychology. He had gone into space in the hope of finding a different situation and more flexible minds there, but in vain. Despite constant efforts during interviews to impress people with his quite considerable intelligence, they were too impressed by his muscle power to listen and his applications were invariably stamped APPROVED SUITABLE FOR HEAVY SUSTAINED LABOR.

So he had gone from one space construction job to another, always working with people whose minds as well as their bodies were muscle-bound, and ending with this one on the final assembly of Sector Twelve General Hospital. Here he had decided to relieve the physical monotony by using his intelligence to secretly tinker with other people’s minds.

It was not something one did to one’s friends, he thought, but then he had never had any.

One piece of covert therapy performed on an Earth-human workmate, plus some very rule-of-thumb treatment he had given to a space-orphaned and emotionally disturbed Hudlar infant weighing half a ton, had brought him to Graythorne’s attention. Not only had the investigating officer exonerated him of all blame in causing the accident that had killed the baby’s parents, but the ensuing trial had uncovered the finer details of his curative tinkering with the emotional problems of a seriously neurotic workmate and had impressed the other to the extent that the major had offered him, for a trial period that would last only until he showed himself incapable of doing it, a job where brains rather than his overlarge muscles were needed. It had turned out to be the hardest and most satisfying job he had ever had.

It was a job he didn’t want to lose.

But satisfying the major this time, he realized as soon as the library data on the Kelgian species and culture began to unroll, would not be easy. Of course, neither had any of his recent assignments. That first other-species job had nearly killed him at the time, but there were days when he found himself wishing that he had nothing more complicated to do than feed, bathe, and baby-sit half a ton of squalhing Hudlar infant.

Two hours later he was waiting inside Personnel Lock F on Level Thirty-Seven and watching the first Kelgians he had ever seen, other than in the library pictures, come crawling toward him along the boarding tube. At least they are warm-blooded oxygenbreathers like me, he thought dryly, but that was the only point of similarity.

They were like fat, silver-furred caterpillars averaging more than two meters from conical head to upturned tail, undulating forward on twelve pairs of stubby feet, although the four sets closest to the head were slightly longer, thinner, and terminated in delicate, pink hands. Their tiny, tightly grouped facial features were too alien to be readable, but, he had learned, the involuntary motion of the highly mobile fur that tufted, spiked, or rippled in waves along their entire body surface told everyone, or at least every other Kelgian, exactly what they were feeling from moment to moment. The result was that telling a lie or even trying to shade the truth was a complete waste of time where their species was concerned.

The Kelgians were soft and visually appealing creatures. Had they been scaled down by a factor often, as a boy he would not have minded keeping one as a pet, if he had been allowed to keep pets.

He backed away a little as they moved out of the boarding tube and began spreading around him in a semicircle. They had raised their bodies upright and were balancing on their rearmost four legs, and their heads were curved forward so that their tiny faces were at eye level. It felt as though he were being surrounded by a bunch of furry question marks.

So far as he was concerned, O’Mara realized with a stirring of butterflies in his stomach, he was close to being in a firstcontact situation. If he should do or say something wrong, it was unlikely that he would cause an interstellar war to start. The Kelgians were reputed to be a highly intelligent, technologically advanced, and civilized species who probably knew more about Earth-humans than he did about them and they would, he hoped, make allowances.

Faced with this situation, what would the cool and impecca- bly mannered Major Craythorne say and do?

O’Mara held out his hand toward the nearest Kelgian, then abruptly brought it back to his side. The library computer had not mentioned this form of physical greeting. With two-handed people of Earth it was a sign of friendship and trust, a legacy of a time when it made good sense for people meeting for the first time to grab and thereby immobilize each other’s weapon hand. But the Kelgians’ hands were ridiculously tiny and there were too many of them. O’Mara had the feeling that he had just avoided making his first mistake.

Instead he said slowly and clearly, “My name is O’Mara. Did you have a comfortable trip, and would you prefer to see—”

“My name is Crenneth” the one facing him broke in, its fur stirring restively. “The ship accommodation was cramped and uncomfortable and the food terrible. The speech of the Earth-human crew was rapid and precise. Why are you speaking so slowly? We do not have a problem with verbal comprehension. Do you?”

O’Mara choked, cleared his throat, and said, “No.”

“Are you a Healer?” Crenneth asked. “If so, what is your level of seniority?”

“No” said O’Mara again. “A, a psychologist” Silently he added, Without qualifications.

“Then you are a Healer of the Mind,” the other persisted. “What’s the difference?”

“We can discuss the difference when there is more time.” he replied, deciding that he was not going to reveal his lack of formal training, or anything else of a personal nature, to this inquisitive, outsized caterpillar on first acquaintance. He went on, “Earlier I was about to ask if you would prefer to see your living quarters, or visit the dining hall first? Your personal effects are being moved to your quarters as we speak.”

“I’m hungry” said one of the others, its fur rising in spikes. “After that indigestible ship food, your dining hail is bound to be an improvement.”

“There are no guarantees,” said O’Mara dryly.

Crenneth rippled its fur. In a manner which suggested that it was the Kelgian spokesperson and the one with the rank, it said, “Our quarters first. You lead the way, O’Mara. Are Earth-humans able to talk while they walk? I expect balancing a long, upright body on only two feet requires some concentration. Does jerking your head up and down like that indicate a negative or an affirmative reply?”

“Affirmative,” he replied as they moved off. He had the feeling that Crenneth was about to speak again but had stopped itself. They were approaching the end of a long, unpainted corridor and from both branches of the intersection came the increasing sounds of hammering and drilling interspersed with shouted Earth-human voices.

When they reached the intersection he saw that the corridor in both directions was scattered with wall and ceiling scaffolding units containing men with paint applicators or thin sheets of sharpedged metal which they were swinging around with little regard for the safety of passersby. More panels lay flat on the scaffolding, their sharp edges projecting beyond the work surfaces into the corridor. O’Mara was about to tell the Kelgians to halt, but they were already hanging back, their fur tufting and rippling in a way that suggested great agitation.

He faced into the slightly less cluttered corridor and looked for someone in authority. But he could see no Monitor Corps coveralls or insignia of rank to read, so obviously the men were employed by one of the civilian contractors. He filled his lungs.

“Men!” he shouted above the background noise. “I want to speak to your squad leader. Now.”

A large, red-faced man jumped down from a section of scaffolding about twenty yards away and dodged quickly between the intervening equipment to stand facing him. The red facial coloration, O’Mara decided, was due to irritation as well as hard work. He tried the Craythorne approach.

“Sorry for the inconvenience” he said, nodding along the corridor, “when you’re obviously busy. I’m taking a group of newly arrived Kelgian nurses to their quarters on Forty-Three, and I would like you to clear a path for them through the—”

“The hell you would,” the other broke in, looking past O’Mara’s shoulder for a moment. “I’ve got just two hours to finish this stretch of corridor. Take them to the dining hall and feed them lettuce, or whatever else overgrown caterpillars eat, until then. Otherwise go up to Fifty-One, the freight elevator is supposed to be working to that level now, and the ramps down to Forty-Nine are clear. Then if you take a left past the—”

While the squad leader had been talking, O’Mara had decided that he could not go around for the reasons that neither of them could be completely sure that the way would be clear and he did not want his party diverting all over the hospital while trying to find a way to their quarters. He shook his head.

“Going around is not an option” said O’Mara.

“Who d’you think you’re ordering around?” the squad leader said angrily. “Get your trainees out of here and stop wasting my time.”

The men working nearby had stopped to listen, followed by the ones who were farther down the line. It was as if a strange wave of silence were rolling slowly down the corridor.

“Your scaffolding, especially the sections with wail plating projecting over the edges, is on wheels,” said O’Mara in what he hoped was a quiet, reasonable voice. “It can be easily moved against one wall to let my people pass in safety. The same applies to the paint and other loose stuff lying around, which you will have to stow and take away soon, anyway. I’ll lend a hand to move it.”

Deliberately the squad leader did not lower his voice. He said, “No you won’t, because you don’t give me orders and you’re not coming this way. Move off. Just who the hell d’you think you are, anyway?”

O’Mara tried hard to keep his temper in check and his voice low. Two more of the men nearest to them had jumped to the floor and were moving to join their boss. He waited until they were close; then he looked them up and down and nodded to each before speaking.

“I don’t have an identity problem” he said, “so I know that my name is O’Mara. In case I’m tempted to report this matter later, it would be better not to know your names. My trainees will move along this corridor, without trouble, I trust, because we do not want to give other-species medical staff a bad impression. Please clear a path for them. I’m afraid I must insist.”

Craythorne would approve of my gentlemanly manner and phraseology, he thought. Not so the squad leader. He gave O’Mara specific instructions where a brainless, overmuscled gorilla trying to use fancy language should go and the various physiologically impossible acts he should perform on himself when he got there, regrettably in language that was clear enough to be processed by the Kelgians’ translators. O’Mara had had more than enough of people who held it to be a law of nature that brains and brawn were mutually exclusive, and he felt a terrible urge to finish the argument their way, with his fists, head, and feet. He held up one hand.

“Enough!” he said in a cold, quiet voice that cut the other off in midword. “If this argument is about to become physical, which I would rather it didn’t, we have twelve nurses available whose training covers the treatment of the three, or maybe more, Earthhuman casualties that will result. It is your move.

Craythorne, he thought, would certainly not approve of me now