radiation of everyone else—the minor embarrassments, the bursts of irritation,
the odd emotions associated with the feeling you Earth-humans call humor and the
like, are registering so strongly with me that I find difficulty in thinking
clearly.”
“1 see,” Conway said automatically, although he could not see at all. “Apart
from the hypersensitivity, are there any other symptoms?”
“Some unlocalized discomfort in the limbs and lower thorax,” Prilicla replied.
“I checked the areas with my scanner but could find no obstructions or
abnormalities.”
Conway had been reaching for his own pocket scanner but thought better of it.
Without taking a Cinrusskin physiology tape he would have only a vage idea of
what to look for, and Prides, Prilicla was a first-class diagnostician and
surgeon and if it said that there were no abnormalities then that was good
enough for Conway.
‘Cinrusskins are susceptible to illness only during childhood,” Prilicla went
on. “The adults do occasionally suffer from nonphysical disturbances, and the
onset of symptoms, as
expected with psychological disorders, takes many forms, some of which resemble
my present—”
“Nonsense, you’re not going insane!” Conway broke in. But he did not feel as
sure as he sounded, and he was uncomfortably aware that Prilicla knew his
feelings and was beginning to tremble again.
“The obvious course,” Conway said, trying to regain his clinical calm, “is to
desensitize you with a hefty sedative shot. You know that as well as I. But you
are too good a doctor to self-administer the indicated medication which would,
we both realize, simply be treating the symptoms, without first doing something
about the disease, like reporting it to me. Isn’t that so?”
‘That is so, friend Conway.”
“Right, then,” Conway said briskly. “You also realize that we can’t do anything
about curing the condition until we have you back in the hospital. In the
meantime we’ll treat the symptoms with heavy sedation. I want you completely
unconscious. You are relieved of all medical duties, naturally, until we have
the answer to your little problem.”
Conway could almost feel the little empath’s objections while he was lifting it
gently into a pressure litter fitted with gravity nullifiers and the incredibly
soft restraints required by this uftrafragile species. Finally Prilicla spoke.
“Friend Conway,” it said weakly, “you know that I am the only medically trained
empath on the staff. Our patient wiil require extensive and delicate cerebral
surgery. If my condition precludes me from taking a direct part in the
operation, I wish to be treated in an adjacent ward where this abnormal
hyper-sensitivity will better enable me to monitor the EGCL’s unconscious
emotional radiation.
“You know as well as I do,” it went on, “that brain surgery in a hitherto
unknown life-form is largely exploratory and very, very risky, and my empathic
faculty enables me to sense when surgical intervention in any area is right or
wrong. By becoming a patient I have lost none of my abilities as a diagnostic
empath, and for this reason, friend Conway, I want your promise that I will be
placed as close as possible to the patient and restored to full consciousness
while the operation is in progress.”
“Well—” Conway began.
“I am not a telepath, as you know,” Prilicla said, so weakly that Conway had to
increase the gain on his translator to hear
it. “But your feelings, if you do not intend to keep this promise, will be clear
to me.”
Conway had never known the normally timid Prilicla to be so forthright in its
manner. Then he thought of what the empath was asking him to do—to subject it,
in its hypersensitive state, to the emotional trauma of a lengthy operation
during which, because of the patient’s strange physiological classification and
metabolism, the effectiveness of the anesthetics could not be guaranteed. His
hard-held clinical detachment slipped for a moment and he felt like any
concerned friend or relative watching a patient whose prognosis was uncertain.
Prilicla began to shake in its harness, but the sedative was taking effect, and
very soon it was unconscious and untroubled by Conway’s feelings for it.
“This is Reception,” a flat, translated voice said from the Control Deck’s main
speaker. “Identify yourself, please. State whether visitor, patient, or staff