proximity with it, were regarding it with the eyes and the same strength of
feeling as that of its life-mate. And if the others were to suspect as well, the
emotional radiation from the team would be extremely painful and distressing to
me.”
“I understand,” Cha Thrat said.
“Pathologist Murchison is highly intelligent,” the Cinrusskin continued, “and in
time she will realize what has happened, if she doesn’t learn it from Khone
first. That is why 1 would like you to explain this delicate situation to friend
Khone at the first opportunity, and ask for its silence in this matter.
“Friend Khone,” Prilicla added gently, “has the memories and feelings of Cha
Thrat as well as Con way.”
For a moment Cha Thrat could not speak as the Gog-leskan healer’s mind
threatened to engulf her own with its peculiar mixture of fear, curiosity, and
parental concern. Finally she said, “Will Khone be able to speak?”
“I have the feeling, not a suspicion, that both our Gogleskans are doing well,”
Prilicla replied, shaking out its wings in readiness for flight. “But now, if we
don’t end this conversation soon, the others will wonder what I am doing to you,
and will be expecting you to arrive back bruised and bleeding.”
The idea of Prilicla inflicting any kind of injury on anyone was so ridiculous
that even a Gogleskan as well as a Sommaradvan and Earth-human considered it
funny. Cha Thrat laughed out loud as, with the down-draft from the empath’s
wings stirring her hair, they followed the others back to the lander.
“You realize, friend Cha,” the empath said, its trembling limbs a visible
apology for the words that would diminish her pleasure, “that O’Mara will have
to be told.”
Chapter 15
By the time they had been transfered from the lander to the special FOKT
accommodation of Rhab-war’s casualty deck, both patients were fully conscious
and making loud hissing noises. The sounds that the younger one was making did
not translate, but Khone’s were divided into repeated expressions of gratitude
for its survival and weak but very insistent reassurances about its clinical
condition. The healer’s self-diagnosis was supported by the biosensors and
confirmed by the less tangible but even more accurate findings of the
emotion-sensitive Prilicla. And now that it was separated from its friendly
off-world monsters, and its subconscious fears thereby allayed, by a thick
transparent partition, Khone was quite happy to speak to anyone at anytime.
That included the nonmedical crew members who, with Captain Fletcher’s
permission, left their positions in Control and the Power Room briefly to
congratulate the patient and tell complimentary lies about the obvious
intelligence, parental resemblance, and great beauty of the new arrival, a male
child of greater than average weight. In spite of Prilicla’s urgings that it
should rest and refrain from overexcitement, the atmosphere around Khone’s
accommodation more closely resembled a birthday party than the casualty deck of
an ambulance ship.
207When Captain Fletcher arrived, they did not need an emphatic faculty to feel
the atmosphere change. To Khone the Earth-human made a perfunctory inquiry about
its health, then turned quickly to Prilicla.
“I need a decision, Senior Physician,” it went on, “one that only you people can
make. The hospital signaled us a few minutes ago, saying that an emergency
beacon had been detected in this sector. The distressed ship is about five hours
subspace flight away; the distress beacon was not one of the types used by the
Federation, so the casualties might be a species new to us. That makes it
difficult to estimate the time needed for the rescue. It could take a couple of
days rather than hours.
“The question is,” it ended, “do your patients require hospitalization before or
after we respond to this distress call?”
It was not an easy decision to make because their patients, although stable and
not in need of urgent treatment, belonged to a life-form about which little was
known clinically, so that unexpected complications might arise at any time.
Surprisingly the discussion, which was animated but necessarily brief, was ended
by Khone itself.
“Please, friends,” it said during one of the rare lulls, “Gogleskan females
recover quickly once the birth trauma is over. I can assure you, both as a