“I’m hungry and it’s high time we talked to the man himself,” said Conway suddenly. “Let’s find him and invite him to lunch.”
The dining hall for the oxygen-breathing Medical and Maintenance staff occupied one complete level, and at one time it had been sectioned off into physiological types with low dividing ropes. But this had not worked out too well because the diners very often wanted to talk shop with other species colleagues or they found that there were no vacant places in their own enclosure and space going to waste in that of another life-form. So it was no surprise when they arrived to find that they had the choice of sitting at an enormous Tralthan table with benches which were a shade too far from the table’s edge and one in the Melfan section which was cozier but whose chairs resembled surrealistic wastepaper baskets. They insinuated themselves into three of the latter and began the usual preliminaries to ordering.
“I’m just myself today,” said Prilicla in answer to Conway’s question. “The usual, if you please.”
Conway dialed for the usual, which was a triple helping of Earth type spaghetti, then looked at Mannon.
“I’ve an FROB and an MSVK beastie riding me,” the other Senior said gruffly. “Hudlars aren’t persnickity about food, but those blasted MSVKs are offended by anything which doesn’t look like birdseed! Just get me something nutritious, but don’t tell me what it is and put it in about three sandwiches so’s I won’t see what it is….”
While they were waiting for the food to arrive Mannon spoke quietly,. the normality of his tone belied by the fact that his emotional radiation was making Prilicla shake like a leaf. He said, “The grapevine has it that you two are trying to get me out of this trouble I’m in. It’s nice of you, but you’re wasting your time.
“We don’t think so and neither does O’Mara,” said Conway, shading the truth considerably. “O’Mara gives you a clean bill of mental and physical health, and he said that your behavior was most uncharacteristic. There must be some explanation, some environmental influence, perhaps, or something whose presence or absence would make you behave, if only momentarily, in an uncharacteristic fashion…
Conway outlined what little they knew to date, trying to sound more hopeful than he really felt, but Mannon was no fool.
“I don’t know whether to feel grateful for your efforts or concerned for your respective mental well-beings,” Mannon said when he had finished. “These peculiar and rather vague mental effects are.., are.. . at the risk of offending Daddy-longlegs here I would suggest that any peculiarities there are lie in your own minds-your attempts to find excuses for me are becoming ridiculous!”
“Now you’re telling me I have a peculiar mind,” said Conway.
Mannon laughed quietly, but Prilicla was trembling worse than ever. “A circumstance, person or thing,” Conway repeated, “whose presence or absence might effect your- “Ye Gods!” Mannon burst out. “You’re not thinking of the dog!” Conway had been thinking about the dog, but he was too much of
a moral coward to admit it right then. Instead he said, “Were you thinking about it during that op, Doctor?”
“No!” said Mannon.
There was a long, awkward silence after that, during which the service panels slid open and their orders rose into view. It was Mannon who spoke first.
“I liked that dog,” he said carefully, “when I was myself, that is. But for the past four years I’ve had to carry MSVK and LSVO tapes permanently in connection with my teaching duties, and recently I’ve needed the Hudlar and Melfan tapes for a project Thornnastor invited me to join. They were in permanent occupation as well. With my brain thinking that it was five different people, five very different people… Well, you know how it is…”
Conway and Prilicla knew how it was only too well.
The Hospital was equipped to treat every known form of intelligent life, but no single person could hold in his brain even a fraction of the physiological data necessary for this purpose. Surgical dexterity was a matter of ability and training, but the complete physiological knowledge of any patient was furnished by means of an Educator Tape, which was simply the brain record of some great medical genius belonging to the same or a similar species to that of the patient being treated. If an Earth human doctor had to treat a Kelgian patient he took a DBLF physiology tape until treatment was completed, after which it was erased. The sole exceptions to this rule were Senior Physicians with teaching duties and the Diagnosticians.