White, James – Sector General 10 – Final Diagnosis

For several minutes he watched while the screen showed the fruit going through its cycle of green bud to small, dark brown sphere to the fully ripe, green-and-yellow-striped pear shape. It was so familiar that he had a twinge of remembered stomach cramps, and the feeling was so strong that he missed hearing the library computer’s boring recitation of the relevant nonvisual information.

“That is it,” he said again. “Definitely. Now do you believe me?”

“Well,” said Braithwaite, shaking his head in a way that suggested confusion as much as negation, “I now have another reason why that monitor medic didn’t believe you. And you haven’t been listening. That tree doesn’t reach the fruit-bearing stage until it is fifteen to twenty meters tall, and the fruit hangs from the topmost branches. If the tree was overhanging a ravine, and you fell from the top, you should have broken your stupid little four-year-old neck. Instead you escaped without a scratch.

“I suppose it is possible that intervening branches slowed your fall,” he went on, “or you fell into a thick bush before hitting the side of the ravine and rolling down. Stranger accidents have happened before now, and it would explain why you, an intelligent and seemingly well balanced person, are sticking to this incredible story. But that isn’t all you say you did. Don’t talk, Patient Hewlitt, just listen.”

In the silence the calm, impersonal voice of the library computer sounded clear and almost loud.

“ … While the fruit is ripening,” it was saying, “the spongy internal mass absorbs all of the juice and grows to fill the striped envelope which, before parturition, becomes tough and flexible. When the semiliquid, sponged-filled fruit strikes the ground, it bounces or rolls a short distance until chemical sensors in the skin indicate an underlying soil type suitable for germination, whereupon the area of skin in contact with the ground decomposes, enabling the sponge to release its liquid content and seeds into the soil and begin its own slower process of decomposition. This has a twofold purpose, in that the rotting spongy material promotes initial growth in the seeds, while the juice permeates the surrounding soil and inhibits or kills off competing growths.

“Warning,” it went on. “The fruit of the Pessinith tree is highly toxic to all known warm-blooded oxygen-breathing physiological classifications as well as the native Etlan life-forms of all species. It has been investigated for possible medicinal use in trace quantities without success. Two cubic centimeters of the juice ingested by an entity of average body mass, such as an adult Orligian, Kelgian, or Earth-human, causes a rapid loss of consciousness and termination within one standard hour, and three cubic centimeters would have the same effect on a Hudlar or Tralthan. The effect is irreversible and there is no known antidote…”

“Thank you, Library,” said Braithwaite. His voice was calm, his face expressionless, but he hit the communicator’s cutoff key so hard that it might have been a mortal enemy. For a long moment the lieutenant stared at him without blinking. Hewlitt told himself that it was going to happen again, that another medical person was about to tell him that he had imagined everything. But when the psychologist spoke there was curiosity rather than disbelief in his voice.

“A few drops of Pessinith fruit juice will kill a fully-grown man,” he said calmly, “and you were a four-year-old child who sucked dry the contents of a whole fruit. Can you explain that, Patient Hewlitt?”

“You know I can’t.”

“Neither can I,” said the lieutenant.

Hewlitt took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he trusted himself to speak. He said, “I have been talking to you for over four hours, Lieutenant. Surely that is long enough for you to establish whether or not I am a hypochondriac. Tell me-and be truthful, not polite.”

“I’ll try to be both,” said the psychologist. He sighed, then went on, “You are not a simple case. There are episodes in your childhood that could have led to severe emotional disturbance in later life, but so far I have found nothing to indicate that any lasting psychological damage was done. Your personality is well integrated, your intelligence is above average, and you appear to be coming to terms with your initial xenophobia. Apart from being hypersensitive and constantly on the defensive because up to now nobody has believed that there is anything wrong with you … ”