The truth was that Lioren did not know how his patients felt, about themselves or anyone or anything else, and the stock question of the attending physician, “How do you feel?,” was never answered.
Rhabwar was due in two days’ time, and he decided that this particular patient would be among those transferred to the ambulance ship for investigation and treatment at Sector General, and that he would ask for a consultation with the vessel’s senior medical officer.
Doctor Prilicla was a Cinrusskin, and, as a member of the Federation’s only empathic species, it knew how everyone felt.
Lioren asked that the meeting take place on Rhabwar’?, casualty deck, rather than summoning Prilicla to the overcrowded sick bay of Vespasian, for reasons both practical and personal. The level of background emotional radiation from patients was much higher on Vespasian and would doubtless have distressed his visitor—it did no harm to show consideration to a professional colleague. On the ambulance ship there was less likelihood of his uncertainties regarding the Cromsaggar becoming known to his subordinates. It was his firm belief that a leader should display certainty at all times to the led if he was to receive their respect and total obedience.
Perhaps the empath held the same belief, but it was more likely that Prilicla had detected Lioren’s emotional radiation at a distance, correctly analyzed it, and insured that their meeting would be private. He was grateful but not surprised. It was in the other’s own selfish interest to minimize the generation of unpleasant emotional radiation around it, because to do otherwise would be to expose itself to exactly the same degree of unpleasantness.
The Cinrusskin positioned itself at eye level above one of the treatment tables, an enormous, incredibly fragile flying insect rendered small only by Lioren’s greater body mass. From its tubular, exoskeletal body there projected six pencil-thin legs, four even more delicately fashioned manipulators, and four sets of wide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings that were beating slowly as, with the aid of the gravity nullifiers strapped’to its body, it maintained a stable hover. Only on Cinruss, with its thick atmosphere and gravitational pull of one-eighth standard G, could a species of flying insect have evolved intelligence, civilization, and star travel, and Lioren knew of no race within the Federation who did not consider them to be the most beautiful of all intelligent life-forms.
From one of the narrow openings in the delicate, convoluted eggshell that was its head came a series of musical trills and clicks which translated as “Thank you, friend Lioren, for the complimentary feelings you are harboring, and for the pleasure of meeting you in person for the first time. I also detect strong emotional radiation which suggests that the purpose of our meeting is professional and urgent rather than social.
“I am an empath, not a telepath,” it ended gently. “You will have to tell me what is troubling you, friend Lioren.”
Lioren felt sudden irritation at the other’s continuing use of the word “friend.” He was, after all, the medical and administrative director of the disaster relief operation on Cromsag, and a Surgeon-Captain in the Monitor Corps, while Prilicla was a civilian Senior Physician at Sector General. His irritation was making the empath’s whole body tremble and causing its hovering flight to become less stable. He suddenly realized that he was attacking a being with a weapon, his feelings, against which it had no defense.
Even the pathologically warlike Cromsaggar would scorn to attack such a weak and defenseless enemy.
Lioren’s irritation quickly changed to shame. This was a time to forget the feelings of justified pride in his high rank and in the many professional accomplishments that had earned it. Instead he should try, as he had often done in the past, to make the most effective use of the abilities of a subordinate whose feelings were easily hurt, and to control his emotions.
“Thank you, friend Lioren, for the mental self-discipline you have just displayed,” Prilicla said before he could speak. It settled like a feather onto the top of the examination table, no longer trembling, and added, “But I detect strong background emotional radiation that you are finding more difficult to control and that, I feel sure, concerns the Cromsaggar. My own feelings of concern over the situation here are strong, perhaps as strong as yours, and shared feelings about other persons or situations cause me lesser discomfort. So if there is some way that I can help you please do not hesitate to speak.”