Hewlitt had yet to meet the dying Cherxic, but already he was feeling a little ashamed that his sympathy for the other was being outweighed by his own selfish fear.
“What do they look like?” he asked. “And when you said close contact, how close did you mean?”
“We’ll go in now,” said Lioren. “Follow me and don’t worry, the radiation where we are going is all in the visible spectrum.”
The airlock seal swung open to reveal a boarding tunnel whose other end blazed like a square sun. By the time they had traversed it, his eyes had grown accustomed to the intense light, but in spite of his glare shield he still had to look through slitted eyes to see the details of the compartment beyond. The equipment projecting from the walls and ceiling was a blur to him, both visually and intellectually, but in the center of the deck there was a tethered gravity litter with two long, opened metal boxes resting on it. He followed as the Padre moved across the room to stand beside them, thinking that a coffin looked much the same on any world, although putting them in their last resting place before they were clinically dead showed a certain lack of sensitivity.
“These two are dead,” said Lioren in a quiet, disapproving voice, making Hewlitt realize that he had been thinking aloud. “Both of them died within a few minutes of my arrival. They were left in the lock chamber close to the boarding tube so that the physical presence of their bodies would not cause distress to the living members of their gestalt, and for the convenience of Pathology, which will be sending someone to collect them. Since the Telfi do not reverence their dead other than in memory, the bodies have been donated to the hospital for research purposes on the understanding that the remains will ultimately be consigned to the surface of a sun, any sun. It is a custom among the members of their space-traveling gestalts that this be done. Excuse me, I must ask whether it is possible to meet Cherxic again. It may already have died, but please remember that death must never be mentioned in conversation with a Telfi.”
“Right,” said Hewlitt. “But earlier you mentioned making contact …”
“Padre Lioren and Patient Hewlett, an Earth-human DBDG, wish contact with the damaged part Cherxic,” it said into the communicator. “Is this possible, and convenient?”
The sound in his earpiece resembled a long, modulated burst of static which the translator reproduced as, “You are welcome, Lioren, as is the stranger Hewlitt. A short visit is possible. Please wait.”
The Padre moved closer to Hewlitt and joined him in looking down at one of the dead Telfi. When Lioren spoke there was sadness in its voice as it said, “The suffering and loneliness is long and there is little we can do to ease either, but the part Cherxic still lives.”
After all that he had heard about this exotic, radiation-eating species, Hewlitt had not expected them to look so ordinary.
Apart from the extra set of forelimbs growing from the base of the neck, the Telfi resembled nothing so much as a large terrestrial lizard just under five feet long from bulbous head to vestigial tail. The body was lying on its stomach so that the two tiny, lidless eyes and the mouth, which was closed, were the only features visible. All four of the stubby walking limbs were bent double to lie flat against the body while the two, longer forward manipulators were stretched forward and crossed so as to allow the chin to rest on the crossover point. The skin was pale grey with a mottled and veined effect all over that made the body resemble a sculpture in unpolished marble.
Hewlitt felt the need to comment, and remembering that one should never speak ill of the dead, he said, “The, ah, skin color is interesting. Beautiful, in fact.”
“You must not say that to Cherxic when you meet it,” said the Padre sharply. “To a Telfi the pale skin is neither interesting nor beautiful, it is a symptom of advanced radiation starvation and a lethal failure of the absorption mechanism. You may touch it if the act is not repugnant to you. Rest your bare hand anywhere on the body surface.”