As soon as he stood up the room tilted alarmingly. He had to grab the ridiculous piece of furniture he had been sitting on to keep his balance and later while he was walking awkwardly around it. Then he steadied himself, tried not to look down at a floor that was much too far away, and moved toward the door.
He barely made it, because he was suddenly falling forward and had to put out his hands to the door surface to steady himself, but he still couldn’t stop himself from dropping painfully onto his knees. Then he climbed awkwardly to his feet, straightened up, and turned so that his back was propped securely against the door before he looked back at the suddenly distant chair and the two Earth-humans.
The one called Craythorne was watching him, the two semicircles of facial fur above its eyes drawn down in what some alien group of memories deep within his mind identified as a frown of concern. The other one nodded, showed its teeth briefly in what the same area of memory suggested was a smile of reassurance, and spoke.
“Very good, Lieutenant,” it said. “Now walk back again.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said O’Mara angrily. “I’ve only got two bloody feet!”
“I know,” said the other gently, “but try anyway.”
O’Mara used words that he did not remember knowing, steadied himself, and walked carefully into the middle of the room. He had gone only a few paces when he felt himself swaying to one side. Instinctively he raised and extended sideways his two thick, ungainly, Earth-human arms. For some reason this enabled him to maintain his balance until he reached the chair. He dropped onto it and used more words that he hadn’t known he knew.
The older Earth-human reached forward and flipped a switch on the side of O’Mara’s helmet. Without it changing appearance in any way, .the office and the people in it were suddenly familiar again.
“That’s enough for now, Lieutenant,” said Davantry briskly. “Your mind tape has been erased. But you’ll want to discuss the experience with the major before you run more tests. Remember to extend the exposure time gradually until you are comfortable with your mind partner and are quite sure of which one of you is boss….”
To Craythorne he went on, “A good initial session, Major, and from now on you’ll be teaching yourselves. I have to return to my ship now; a councilor’s work is never done. Contact me only if you run into a serious problem.”
He was moving toward the door when the major said quickly, “Sir, my apologies. I hope you weren’t offended by the lieutenant’s disrespectful language and – “
Councilor Davantry raised a hand without turning. “Don’t worry about it, Major. Lieutenant O’Mara wasn’t quite himself. He was disrespectful, outspoken, and abusive because he had a Kelgian senior physician riding his mind, and Kelgians always behave that way.”
When the door had closed behind him, Craythorne laughed softly.
“I suppose that was not the right time,” he said, “to tell him that Lieutenant O’Mara always behaves that way, too.”
CHAPTER 10
Then as well as now there had been problems with Educator tapes, O’Mara thought dourly, except that with the passage of time the problems were more familiar and much more numerous, and now it was he rather than Craythorne who had the rank and ultimate responsibility for solving them – even when, as now, he was able to dump some of them onto his chief assistant. In that respect at least, nothing had changed.
“Braithwaite,” said O’Mara sourly, “how the blazes do you always manage to look so neat? The only creases in your uniform are where they’re supposed to be, the vertical ones in your pants. Is it Monitor Corps conditioning, something in your DNA, or have you, sold your soul to some sartorial devil?”
The lieutenant knew a rhetorical question when he heard one and replied with a polite smile.
“All right,” said O’Mara. “Diagnostician Yursedth. What happened?”
Braithwaite smiled again and said, “Initially there was a frank exchange of views. It said that, considering its position within the hospital, it deserved the attention of the chief psychologist. I told it that was so, normally, but as the new administrator you had more urgent matters to attend to and were being forced to delegate. It became personally uncomplimentary, toward both of us, and some of the phrases from the Tralthan component of its mind were particularly… inventive. But after a few minutes letting off steam, it agreed to talk to a substandard psychiatrist, me.”
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