“It is Conway’s expectation and our hope,” Khone concluded, “that this two-pronged attack on the problem will enable the Gogleskans to build with permanence and advance to a level of civilization commensurate with their intelligence.”
Normally Lioren found it difficult to detect emotional overtones in translated speech, but this time he felt sure that there was a deep uncertainty within the other’s mind that had not been verbalized.
“This trainee may be in error,” Lioren said, “but it senses that the Gogleskan healer patient is troubled. Is there dissatisfaction with the treatment it is receiving? Are there doubts regarding the abilities or expectations of Conway—?”
“No!” Khone broke in. “There was one brief and accidental sharing of minds with the Diagnostician when it visited Gog-lesk. Its abilities and intentions are known and are beyond criticism. But its mind was crowded with other minds full of strange experiences and thoughts so alien that the Gogleskan wanted to call for a joining. Much was learned from the mind of Conway and much more remains incomprehensible, but it was plain that the proportion of the Diagnostician’s mind available for the Gog-lesk project was small. When doubts were first expressed, the Diagnostician listened and its words were confident, reassuring, and dismissive, and it may be that Conway does not fully understand the nonmedical problem. It cannot or will not believe that, out of all the intelligent races that make up the Federation, the Gogleskan species alone is accursed and doomed forever to self-inflicted barbarism by the Authority which Orders All Things.”
Lioren was silent for a moment, wondering if he was about to become involved once again in a problem that was philosophical rather than clinical, and unsure of his right or ability as a Tarlan unbeliever to engage in a debate on other-species theology. “If there was a telepathic touching,” he said, “then the Diagnostician must have seen and understood what is in the healer’s mind, so that the doubts may be groundless. But the trainee is completely ignorant in this matter. If the healer wishes it, the trainee will listen to these doubts and not be dismissive. A fear was mentioned that the situation on Goglesk would never change. Can the reason for this fear be explained more fully?”
“Yes,” Khone said in a quieter voice. “It is a fear that one entity cannot change the course of evolution. It was evident from Conway’s mind, and from the thoughts and beliefs of those entities who shared that mind when the touching occurred, that the situation on Goglesk is abnormal. On the other worlds of the Federation there is a struggle between the destructive forces of environment and instinctive, animal behavior on one side and the efforts of thinking and cooperating beings on the other. By some entities it is called the continuing battle to impose order upon chaos, and by many the struggle between good and bad, or God against the Evil One. On all of these worlds it is the former, at times with great difficulty, who is gaining ascendancy over the latter. But on Goglesk there is no God; only the prehistoric but still all-powerful Devil rules there …”
The Gogleskan’s erect, ovoid body was trembling, its hair was raised like clumps of long, many-colored grass, and the four yellow spikes that were its stings were beaded with venom at the tips. For it was seeing again the images that had been indelibly printed into its racial memory, the terrible pictures complete with their telepathically shared death agonies as the gigantic predators had torn its joined forebears into bloody tatters. Lioren suspected that the signal of ultimate distress, the Call for Joining, would have already gone out if Khone had not controlled its instinctive terror with the reminder that the only other Gogleskan capable of linking telepathically with it was its own sleeping offspring.
Gradually Khone’s trembling diminished, and when the erect hair and stings were again lying flat against its body, it went on. “There is great fear and even greater despair. The Gogleskan feels that the help of the Earth-human Diagnostician, with goodwill and the resources of this great hospital at its disposal, are not enough to alter the destiny of a world. It is a stupid self-delusion on the part of this healer to think otherwise, and a gross act of ingratitude to tell Conway of these feelings. Everywhere in the Federation there is a balance between order and chaos, or good and evil, but it is inconceivable that a Gogleskan and its child could alter the destiny, the habits and thinking and feelings of an entire planetary population.”
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