“I was given precise instruction,” she said in a tone which contained both puzzlement and relief, “regarding my behavior toward you for the next few weeks or months. The Chief Psychologist said that I should avoid intimate physical contact, maintain a professional and clinical manner during all conversations, and generally consider myself a widow until you had either come to terms with the tapes riding you, or you had been forced to resume your former Senior Physician status. It was an extremely serious matter, I was told, and great amounts of patience and sympathy would be required to see you through this difficult time. I was to consider you a multiple schizophrenic, with the majority of the personalities concerned feeling no emotional bond with me, and in many cases reacting toward me with physical revulsion. But I was to ignore all this because to do otherwise would be to subject you to the risk of permanent psychological damage.”
She kissed the tip of his nose and gave a long, gentle sigh. She went on. “Instead I find no evidence of physical revulsion and… Well, you don’t seem to be entirely your old self. I can’t say exactly what the difference is, and I’m not complaining, but you don’t appear to be having any psychological difficulties at all and … and O’Mara will be pleased!”
Conway grinned. “I wasn’t trying to please O’Mara he began, when the communicator beeped urgently at them.
Murchison had set it to record any nonurgent messages so that he could sleep undisturbed, and obviously someone thought his problem urgent enough to wake him. He escaped from her clutches by tickling her under the arms, then directed the communicator’s vision pickup away from the devastated bed before answering. It was possible that there was an Earth-human male DBDG at the other end.
Edanelt’s angular, chitinous features filled the screen as the Melfan Senior said, “I hope I did not disturb you, Conway, but Hudlar’s Forty-three and Ten have regained consciousness and are pain-free. They are feeling very lucky to be alive and have not yet had time to think about the disadvantages. This would be the best time to talk to them, if you still wish to do so.
“I do,” Conway said. He could not think of anything he wanted to do less just then, and the watching Edanelt and Murchison both knew it. He added, “What about Three?”
“Still unconscious but stable,” the Senior replied. “I checked its condition a few minutes before calling you. Hossantir and Yarrence left some hours ago to indulge in these periods of physical and mental collapse which you people seem to need at such ridiculously short intervals. I shall speak to Three when it comes to. The problems of adjustment there are not so serious.”
Conway nodded. “I’m on my way.
The prospect of what lay ahead of him had brought the Hudlar material rushing in to fill virtually all of his mind, so that his goodbye to Murchison was nonphysical and lacked even verbal warmth. Fortunately, she had come to accept this kind of behavior from him and would ignore it until he was his old self again. As he turned to go, Conway wondered what there was so special about this pink, flabby, ridiculously weak and unbeautiful entity with whom he had spent most of his adult life.
CHAPTER 17
you have been very fortunate,” Conway said, “very fortunate indeed that neither the baby nor you have suffered permanent damage.”
Medically that was quite true, Conway told himself. But the Hudlar in his mind thought otherwise, as did the members of the recovery ward staff who had withdrawn to a discreet distance to enable the patient and its physician to talk privately.
“Having said that,” Conway went on, “I regret to tell you that you, personally, have not escaped the long-term and perhaps emotionally distressing effects of your injuries.”
He knew that he was not being very subtle in his approach, but in many ways the FROB life-form was as direct and forthright as the Kelgians, although much more polite.
“The reason for this is that organ replacement surgery was necessary to keep both of you alive,” he continued, appealing to the patient’s maternal instincts in the hope that the good news about the young Hudlar would in some measure diminish the misfortune which would shortly befall the older one. “Your offspring will be born without complications, will be healthy, and will be fully capable of leading a normal life on or off its home planet. You, regrettably, will not.”