“Very well, Senior Physician,” it said coldly. “Against my expressed wishes and
on your own responsibility, the boarding tube will remain open. You may move
freely between there and the casualty deck, but the rest of this ship will be
closed to your people and that;.. that thing you insist is a survivor. The
matter of Cha Thrat’s gross insubordination, with the strong possibility of a
charge of incitement to mutiny, will be pursued later.”
“Thank you, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla said. Then, switching off its mike, it
went on. “And you, friend Cha. You have displayed great resourcefulness as well
as insubordination. But I am afraid that, even when it is proved that you acted
correctly, the Captain’s present feelings toward you are of the kind that I have
found to be not only unfriendly but extremely long-lasting.”
Murchison did not speak until they were in the Rhiim compartment, when it paused
in its scanner examination of Crelyarrel to look at her. The expression and tone
of voice, Cha Thrat knew from the Earth-human component of her mind, expressed
puzzlement and sympathyas it said, “How can one being get into so much trouble
in such a short time? What got into you, ChaThrat?”
Prilicla trembled slightly but did not speak.
Chapter 20
Cha Thrat’s arrival for her appointment with the Chief Psychologist was punctual
to the second, because she had been told that O’Mara considered being too early
to be as wasteful of time as being too late. But on this occasion the
impunctuality, although indirectly her fault, was on O’Mara’s side. The
Earth-human Braithwaite, who was the sole occupant of the large outer office,
explained.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Cha Thrat,” it said, inclining its head toward
O’Mara’s door, “but that meeting is running late. Senior Physician Cresk-Sar
and, in order of seniority, Colonel Skempton, Major Fletcher, and Lieutenant
Tim-mins are with him. The door is supposed to be soundproof, but sometimes I
can hear them talking about you.”
It smiled sympathetically, pointed to the nearest of the three unoccupied
console desks beside it, and said, “Sit there, you should find that one fairly
comfortable while we’re waiting for the verdict. Try not to worry, Cha Thrat,
but if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my work.”
Cha Thrat said that she did not mind, and was sur-prised when the screen on the
desk she was occupying lit up with Braithwaite’s work. She did not know what the
Earth-human was doing, but while she was trying to understand it the realization
came that it was deliberately giving her something to occupy her mind other than
the things they were probably saying about her in the next room.
As one of the wizard’s principal assistants, Braith-waite was capable of working
a few helpful spells of its own.
Since her return to the hospital, Cha Thrat had been relegated to a kind of
administrative hyperspace. Maintenance Department wanted nothing to do with her,
the Monitor Corps ruler she had so grievously offended on Rhabwar seemed to have
forgotten her very existence, and the medical training people treated her with
sympathy and great care, much as they would a patient who was not expected to be
long among them.
Officially there was nothing for her to do, but unofficially she had never been
busier in her whole life.
Diagnostician Conway had been very pleased with her work on Goglesk, and had
asked her to visit Khone as often as possible because Cha Thrat and itself were
the only people that the FOKT would allow within touching distance, although
that situation was beginning to change for the better. With behind-the-scenes
assistance from the Chief Psychologist and Prilicla, progress was being made
toward breaking down the Gogleskan racial conditioning, and Ees-Tawn was working
on a miniature distorter, permanently attached to the subject and triggered
automatically during the first microseconds of a distress call, which would make
it impossible for the wearer to initiate one of the suicidal joinings.
O’Mara had warned them that the final solution to the Gogleskan problem might
take many generations, that Khone would never be completely comfortable at the
close approach or touch of another person, regardless of species, but that its
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