“Did you analyze the paint?” asked O’Mara.
“Yes, sir,” said Murchison. “Some of it had already cracked and flaked off, probably at the time the survivor received its injuries, and we removed the rest of it while we were giving the patient a preoperative cleanup before moving it to the hospital. The paint was organically inert and chemically non-toxic. Giving regard to the patient’s age, I assumed that it was a decorative paint applied for cosmetic purposes. Perhaps the young DBPK was trying to appear more adult than it actually was.
“Seems a reasonable assumption,” said O’Mara. “So, we have a beastie with natural vanity and no natural weapons.
Paint, Conway thought suddenly. An idea was stirring at the back of his mind, but he could not make it take form. Something about paint, or the uses of paint, perhaps. Decoration, insulation, protection, warning.. . That must be it-the coating of inert, nontoxic, harmless paint!
He moved quickly to the instrument rack and withdrew one of the sprayers which a number of e-ts used to coat their manipulators instead of wearing surgical gloves. He tested it briefly, because its actuator had not been designed for DBDG fingers. When he was sure that he could direct the sprayer with accuracy, he moved across to the soft, furry and apparently defenseless DBPK patient.
“What the blazes are you doing, Conway?” asked O’Mara.
“In these circumstances the color of the paint should not worry the patient too much,” Conway said, thinking aloud and ignoring the Chief Psychologist for the moment. He went on, “Prilicla, will you move closer to the patient, please. I feel sure there will be a marked change in its emotional radiation over the next few minutes.”
“I am aware of your feelings, friend Conway,” said Prilicla.
Conway laughed nervously. “In that case, friend Prilicla, I feel fairly sure that I have the answer. But what about the patient’s feelings?”
“Unchanged, friend Conway,” said the empath. “There is a general feeling of concern. It is the same feeling I detected shortly after it regained consciousness and recovered from its initial fear and confusion. There is deep concern, sadness, helplessness and.., and guilt. Perhaps it is thinking about its friends who died.”
“Its friends, yes,” said Conway, switching on the sprayer and beginning to paint the bare area above the patient’s tail with the bright red inert pigment. “It is worried about its friends who are alive.”
The paint dried rapidly and set in a strong, flexible film. By the time Conway had finished spraying on a second layer the patient withdrew its head from underneath its furry tail to look at the repainted patch of bare skin; then it turned its face to Conway and regarded him steadily with its two large, soft eyes. Conway restrained an impulse to stroke its head.
Prilicla made an excited trilling noise, which did not translate, then said, “The patient’s emotional radiation shows a marked change, friend Conway. Instead of deep concern and sadness, the predominant emotion is one of intense relief.”
That, thought Conway with great feeling, is my own predominant feeling at the moment. Aloud, he announced, “That’s it, everyone. The contamination emergency is over.”
They were all staring at him, and their feelings were so intense and mixed that Prilicla was clinging to the ceiling and shaking as if caught in an emotional gale. Colonel Skempton’s face had disappeared from the screen, so it was the craggy features of O’Mara alone glaring out at him.
“Conway,” said the Chief Psychologist harshly, “explain.”
He began his explanation by requesting a playback of the sound and vision record of the DBPK’s treatment from the point a few minutes before it fully regained consciousness. While they were watching Thornnastor, the Kelgian theater nurse and the Melfan Edanelt, who had moved back a short distance to check the patient’s air line, Conway said, “The reason why nobody on board the Rhabwar was affected during the trip here was that at no time was the patient conscious. Now, the three attending physicians may or may not be handsome to other members of their respective species, but a being, an immature being at that, confronted with them for the first time might well find them visually quite horrendous. Under the circumstances the patient’s fear and panic reaction are understandable, but pay particular attention to the physical response to what, for a few seconds, it regarded as a physical threat.