direct reception of the subject’s emotional radiation. As a healer you, too,
must have a degree of empathy with your patients, and on many occasions are able
to sense their condition, or changes in their condition, without direct physical
investigation. But no matter how refined the faculty may be, your thoughts are
still private, exclusively your own property, and it is simply your stronger
feelings that I detect—”
“The dining hall,” Braithwaite said suddenly. It turned into the wide, dooriess
entrance, narrowly avoided colliding with a Nidian and two of the silver-furred
beings who were leaving, and barked softly as they made derogatory remarks about
its clumsiness. It pointed. “Over there, an empty table!”
For a moment Cha Thrat could not move a single limb as she stared across the
vast expanse of highly polished floor with its regimented islands of eating
benches and seats, grouped by size and shape to accommodate the incredible
variety of beings using them. It was much, much worse than her experience of the
corridors, where she had encountered the creatures two or three at a time. Here
there were hundreds of them, grouped together into species or with several
different life-forms occupying the same table.
There were beings who were terrifying in their obvious physical strength and
range of natural weapons’, others who were frightening, horrifying, and
repugnant in the color and slime-sheen and nauseous growths covering their
teguments; and many of them were the phantasms of Sommaradvan nightmare given
frightful solidity. At a few of the tables were entities whose body and limb
configurations were so utterly ridiculous that she had trouble believing her
eyes.
“This way,” said Danalta, who had been waiting for Cha Thrat’s limbs to stop
trembling. It led the way to the table claimed by Braithwaite, and she noticed
that the furiture suited neither the physiologies of the Earth-humans nor the
trio of exoskeletal crustaceans who were vacating it.
She wondered if she would ever be able to adapt to the ways of these chronically
disorganized and untidy beings. At least on Sommaradva the people knew their
place.
“The mechanism for food selection and delivery is similar to that on the ship,”
Braithwaite said as she lowered herself carefully into the dreadfully
uncomfortable chair and her weight made the menu display light up. “You tap in
your physiological classification and it will list the food available. Until the
catering computer hasbeen programmed with details of the combinations,
consistencies, and platter displays you favor, it is likely to come in unsightly
but nutritious lumps. You’ll soon get used to the system, but in the meantime
I’ll order for you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
When it arrived the biggest lump looked like an uneven block of tasam. But it
smelled like roasted cretsi, had the consistency of roasted cretsi, and, she
found after trying a small corner, it tasted like roasted cretsi. She realized
suddenly that she was hungry.
“It sometimes happens,” Braithwaite continued, “that the meals of your fellow
diners, or even the diners themselves, are visually distressing to the point
where it is affecting your appetite. You may keep one eye on your platter and
close all the others; we won’t be offended.”
She did as it suggested, but kept one eye slightly open so that she could see
Braithwaite, who was still watching her intently while pretending, for some odd,
Earth-human reason, not to do so. While she ate, her mind went back to the
incident with the ship ruler on Som-maradva, the voyage, and her reception here,
and she realized that she was becoming suspicious, and irritated.
“On the subject of your stronger feelings,” Danalta said, seemingly intent upon
resuming the lecture it had broken off at the entrance, “do you have any strong
feelings against discussing personal or professional matters in the presence of
strangers?”
The ship ruler, Chiang; paused with what looked like a piece of what had once
been a liying creature halfway to its eating orifice. It said, “On Sommaradva
they prefer to hear directly what other people think of them. And conversely,
the presence of interested witnesses during a discussion of their affairs is
often considered beneficial.”
Braithwaite, she saw, was concentrating too much attention on its disgusting