The Gogleskan rose a few inches onto its short legs and moved to the side, apparently to have a better view of Lioren’s lower body, which had been hidden by one of the display screens, before it spoke.
“The first question is,” it said, “what is the trainee training to be?”
“A Healer of the Mind,” Lioren replied.
“No surprise is felt,” Khone said.
Chapter 19
THE questions were many and searching, but so polite and impersonal was the interrogation that no offense could be taken. By the time it was over, the Gogleskan healer knew almost as much about Lioren as he did himself. Even then it was obvious that Khone wanted to know more.
The young one had been transferred to a tiny bed at the back of the compartment, and Khone had overcome its timidity to the extent of moving forward until its body touched the transparent dividing wall.
“The Tarlan trainee and onetime respected healer,” it said, “has answered many questions about itself and its past and present life. All of the information is of great interest, although plainly much of it is distressing to the listener as well as the speaker. Sympathy is felt regarding the terrible events on Crom-sag and there is sorrow and helplessness that the Gogleskan healer is unable to give relief in this matter.
“At the same time,” Khone went on, “there is a feeling that the Tarlan, who has spoken openly and in detail of many things normally kept secret from others, is concealing information. Are there events in the past more terrible than those already revealed, and why does the trainee not speak of them?”
“There is nothing,” Lioren said, more loudly than he had intended, “more terrible than Cromsag.”
“The Gogleskan is relieved to hear it,” Khone said. “Is it that the Tarlan is afraid lest its words be passed on to others and cause embarrassment? It should be informed that a healer on Goglesk does not speak of such matters to others unless given permission to do so. The trainee should not feel concern.”
Lioren was silent for a moment, thinking that his utter and impersonal dedication to the healing art and the self-imposed discipline that had ruled his past life had left him neither the time nor the inclination to form emotional ties, It was only after the court-martial, when any thought of career advancement was ridiculous and the continuation of his life was the cruelest of all punishments, that he had become interested in people for reasons other than their clinical condition. In spite of their strange shapes and even stranger thought processes, he had begun to think of some of them as friends.
Perhaps this creature was another.
“A similar rule binds the healers of many worlds,” he said, “but gratitude is expressed nonetheless. The reason other information has been concealed is that the beings concerned do not wish it to be revealed.”
“There is understanding,” Khone said, “and additional curiosity about the trainee. Has the repeated telling reduced the emotional distress caused by the Cromsag Incident?”
Lioren was silent for a moment; then he said, “It is impossible to be objective in this matter. Many other matters occupy the trainee’s mind so that the memory returns with less frequency, but it still causes distress. Now the trainee is wondering whether it is the Gogleskan or the Tarlan who is better trained in other-species psychology.”
Khone gave a short, whistling sound which did not translate. “The trainee has provided information that will enable a troubled mind to escape for a time from its own troubles because this healer, too, has thoughts which it would prefer not to think. Now the Tarlan visitor no longer seems strange or threatening, even to the dark undermind that feels and reacts but does not think, and there is an unpaid debt. Now the trainee’s questions will be answered.”
Lioren expressed impersonal thanks and once again sought information on the functioning, and especially the symptoms of malfunctioning, of the Gogleskan telepathic faculty. But to learn about their telepathy was to learn everything about them.
The situation on the primitive world of Goglesk was the direct opposite of that on Groalter. Federation policy had always been that full contact with a technologically backward culture could be dangerous because, when the Monitor Corps ships and contact specialists dropped out of their skies, they could never be certain whether they were giving the natives evidence of a technological goal at which to aim or a destructive inferiority complex. But the Gogleskans, in spite of their backwardness in the physical sciences and the devastating racial psychosis that forced them to remain so, were psychologically stable as individuals, and their planet had not known war for many centuries.