“No,” said Thornnastor.
“Again I remind you,” O’Mara continued, “my interest in anything you tell me is purely clinical. Anything I learn will be a privileged communication, and I shall not be judgmental or feel shocked by anything you say. Now, is there something in your tape donor’s mind that has triggered past memories or experiences of your own, something about which you now feel ashamed?”
“No,” said the other loudly.
“Calm yourself,” said O’Mara. “I had no intention of giving offense. But I do need information. You said that you felt intense feelings of homesickness, for friends you never met and places you have never been and, initially, you appeared to feel shame over these feelings. Is it your mind partner who feels this shame or – “
“No,” said Thornnastor again.
“So it’s you who feels the shame,” said O’Mara. “Tell me why you feel it, in your own words and time. Tell me what is wrong with you, or what you think is wrong with you, because you are the only person who can give me a clue to what that is.”
“No.”
O’Mara took a deep breath then let it out slowly. He said, “Thornnastor, I am becoming very irritated by your continuing use of that word. If you won’t talk to me about the problem, will you at least tell me why?”
“For three reasons,” said Thornnastor. “You are not a medic and would not appreciate my special difficulty, and you cannot know the complete workings of my mind or those of my mind partner. With respect and apologies, O’Mara, you are wasting your time here, there is nothing you can do to help me.”
O’Mara nodded. “Possibly not,” he said. “But I can be patient and talk all around the problem, perhaps attack it from different directions. Would that help?”
“No,” said Thornnastor.
At least, O’Mara thought sourly as he left the Tralthan’s quarters, the other’s replies had been consistently negative. But if there was one thing he hated it was being told what he could or could not do.
When he returned to the department there was a message for him saying that Craythorne would be absent from his office for the next two hours. That, he thought, should give him enough time to read more than the first page of Thornnastor’s psych file and to study the available information on the entity who had donated that troublesome mind tape.
But the Tralthan’s file revealed much that was new and nothing that was useful. It seemed that Thornnastor was an exemplary trainee, a self-starter from the beginning, able, serious, strong-willed, and with an unusually stable and well integrated mind of which it was justifiably proud. Although it was otherwise polite and well-behaved in its same- and other-species contacts, the pride showed in its tendency to argue with its tutors during lectures, when it had the irritating habit of usually proving them wrong.
The information on Thornnastor could have been a copy of the material that appeared in all of the senior medical staff’s psych files. Barring unforeseen accidents, it was the psychological profile of a person who was heading for the top of its professional tree. The personal information on its mind partner, a Kelgian DBLF called Marrasarah, was sparse but interesting.
It began with a general explanation of the Educator-tape system and its uses followed by a warning to the effect that the donors of the mind tapes were not to be contacted for consultation regarding the material they had donated, or for any other purpose, unless their own express permission or that of a close relative was obtained. And even then the request would have to be investigated and approved by a special subcommittee of the Galactic Medical Council set up for the protection of the privacy of mind tape donors.
The principal reason for this many-layered protection was simply the passage of time. A person with the necessary eminence in its field to be invited to donate a mind tape was, in the usual course of events, at its professional and mental peak and already of advanced years. Such a being would not want to be subjected to the general hassle of questioning, no matter how polite and respectful the questioners were, regarding details of the mental legacy it had left by rising younger medics trying to second-guess it, especially if the donor mind in question had begun to age-deteriorate during the time since the tape had been made. O’Mara could understand that. It was simply a matter of showing consideration for the feelings of the old who had once been great.