“You are in bed eighteen,” it continued. “As well as being the most convenient position to the toilet facilities, it is farthest from the ward entrance and the nurses’ station. There is a generally held belief within the hospital, which has never been officially denied, that the closer a patient is to the ward entrance, where the doctor on call and the ward nurses can reach it with minimum delay, the more serious is its clinical condition and prognosis. You may like to take some comfort from that knowledge.
“And now, Patient Hewlitt,” it went on briskly, “please undress, put on the hospital garment lying across your chair, and get into bed quickly before Charge Nurse arrives. I will remain outside the screen. If you need help, call me.
The nurse and its litter moved aside and the bed screens unrolled silently from their recess in the ceiling.
For what seemed like a long time Hewlitt held the hospital garment in his hands without moving. It was smooth, white, shapeless, and, like all the others he had known, at least two sizes too small. He did not want to lie in bed dressed in this thing; he wanted to sit in the chair and maintain some feeling of independence by wearing his own impeccably styled clothing. But then he remembered the nurse’s vast strength and its closing remark that, if he needed help, he should call it. Had that been a politely worded threat to the effect that if he did not undress himself he would be undressed by force?
He would not give that tentacled monster the satisfaction, or perhaps the pleasure, of undressing one of its juicy ETs.
While he was climbing into bed, Hewlitt heard someone else approaching his bed, someone who made a soft, slithering noise rather than the sound of walking feet as it came. There was an unpleasant background sibilance to the translated words when it spoke.
“Nurse,” it said sharply, “your paint is flaking. Give me the patient’s case notes and your report, quickly, then go to your dining area without delay.”
“Yes, Charge Nurse,” the other replied. “When Treevendar’s medical officer, a Monitor Corps surgeon-lieutenant called Turragh-Mar, gave me the case notes, it said that there had been no observable symptoms or change in Patient Hewlitt’s physical condition, but suggested the presence of a psychological component. The only evidence of this was its marked xenophobic reaction displayed during the ride here. I assumed from our earlier conversation that the patient has had very limited—if any—contact with other-species beings, and was likely to be disturbed by the sight of the hospital staff using the intervening corridors; and that my instructions to allow it to see them was intended to prepare it for the closer, in-ward contacts that it would experience later. By the time we reached the ward, the patient seemed to have its xenophobia under partial control, except for one species that it still finds visually distressing …
“Thank you, Nurse,” the other voice broke in. “Now go at once for a respray before you collapse from hunger at my feet. I will take over from here.”
The screens rose and disappeared into the ceiling to reveal the ghastly thing standing at the foot of his bed. Instinctively he pressed himself against the backrest in a vain effort to put more space between them.
“How are we feeling today, Patient Hewlitt?” it said. “I am Charge Nurse Leethveeschi and, as you have already noticed, I am an Illensan.”
CHAPTER 2
Inside its chlorine envelope the thick, fleshy, yellow-green leaves twitched and slid open to reveal two stubby legs covered by what looked like oily blisters as the creature moved back from the foot of the bed.
“Do not be afraid, Patient Hewlitt,” Leethveeschi said. “I have no intention of coming closer, much less of touching you, unless some future clinical emergency requires it. It may be helpful to consider the visual effect of your flabby, pink, smooth-skinned body on my aesthetic sensibilities. So please stop trying to push yourself backward through the wall and listen to me. You may close your eyes, if it helps. First, have you eaten recently? Second, do you have an urgent need to eliminate body wastes?”