“So you’re awake, young man,” he said. “What have you been doing to yourself. But first, where does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt now,” he replied, pushing a hand against his stomach and then feeling the side of his head. “It doesn’t hurt anywhere.”
“Good,” said the man. From a satchel hanging from his shoulder he produced a flat instrument with a tiny lighted screen on one side and began moving it slowly across the surface of Hewlitt’s head, limbs, and body.
“I ate some fruit from that tree up there,” he went on. “It gave me a bad tummy ache and I fell off.”
“That is a very tall tree,” said the other, in the same tone of voice Hewlitt’s father used when he thought he was being told a very tall story. “Put your hand down again and don’t move until I’ve finished scanning you. Did you fall asleep at any time since the fall?”
“Yes,” he replied, “but I don’t know how long. The sun was going down when I fell. You woke me up.
“Out for four, maybe five hours,” said the man in a quiet, worried voice. “When I help you to sit up, tell me if anything hurts, right? I want to do a head scan.”
This time the scanner was moved very slowly over the front, top, and sides of his head and down to the back of his neck; then the monitor put the instrument back in his satchel and stood up. Before he could speak, Hewlitt’s parents arrived. His mother knelt down and grabbed him so tightly in both arms that he could hardly breathe, and she cried while his dad asked questions.
“He is a very fortunate young man,” he heard the medic say in a quiet voice. “As you can see, his clothes are cut to ribbons, probably from playing among the war relics and from a long slide down into the ravine, but there isn’t a scratch on him. He told me that he had eaten some fruit from that Pessinith tree up there. He says it gave him stomach cramps and that he fell from it and has been unconscious since before sunset. Now it isn’t my job to argue with an overimaginative child, but look at the facts. The stomach disorder has disappeared; a fall from the top of that tree should have resulted in cuts, abrasions, fractures, and concussion, but his skin isn’t even broken. A four-hour period of unconsciousness should be accompanied by some form of traumatic wounding that I could not have missed.
“From the state of his clothing,” the monitor went on, “I would guess that he overtired himself playing among the wreckage, and when he climbed down here he simply fell asleep. The stomach ache and his alleged fall could be an appeal for sympathy and an attempt to divert parental wrath.”
His mother had stopped crying and was asking him if he was really all right, but between her words he could hear his father saying that the wrath would be minimal because they were so glad to find him safe and sound.
“Children wander off and get lost sometimes,” said the monitor, “and sometimes it doesn’t end so well. We’ll give him a ride home in our gravity sled, but only because he may still be overtired. I’ll call in and check on him again tomorrow, although it really isn’t necessary-he is in fine shape. You have a very healthy young man there, and there isn’t a thing wrong with him …
The warm feeling of his mother’s arms around him and the sight of the floodlit ravine and the overtalkative monitor medic faded, to be replaced by the familiar surroundings of Ward Seven and another monitor officer who was watching him and saying nothing.
CHAPTER 6
He thought I was lying,” said Hewlitt, trying to hide his anger. So did my parents, the few times I tried to tell them about it, and so do you.”
Lieutenant Braithwaite studied him in silence for a moment before he said, “The way you have just told it, I can understand why. He had good medical and anatomical reasons for thinking you were lying and, because most people trust the members of the medical profession, your parents believed him rather than their, well, imaginative four-year-old son. I don’t know what or who to believe, because I wasn’t there and the truth can be a very subjective thing. I believe that you believe you are telling the truth, but that is not the same as me believing you are a liar.”