Valleschni was the off-duty charge nurse on Tunneckis’s recovery ward, which meant that, when they asked and received permission to talk to it in its private quarters, they had to wear their protective suits while the chlorine-breather wore nothing. The personal nature of the conversation made it impossible for one of them not to look at the obnoxious thing. After a brief nod of greeting, O’Mara kept his attention fixed on a lank bunch of something oily and decaying hanging from one wall (it was probably decorative vegetation and, for a chlorine-breather, sweet-smelling) while he allowed Braithwaite to do the talking.
“I had thought,” said the Illensan when the lieutenant had finished, “that a visit from two psychiatrists presaged important and perhaps fearful revelations concerning my own mental state. Instead you want to know precisely how much nursing time has been spent on Patient Tunneckis, which in my own case is only a few minutes per day, and whether there have been any self-observed changes in my own personality or behavior or in members of my subordinate nursing staff who, you say, may or may not require therapy; and you tell me that these changes that are so subtle that I could be forgiven for missing them.”
“Are you quite sure,” it added, squelching closer on legs that looked like stubby columns of yellow-green, oozing seaweed, “that it isn’t the psychiatrists who are in need of therapy?”
O’Mara started to laugh softly, then thought better of it. Unlike Kelgians, the Illensan were capable of polite conversation when they felt like it. Perhaps this one wasn’t in the mood. Or maybe it was feeling hostile and uncooperative because it had developed a low order of xenophobia after being exposed to Tunneckis’s psychological contagion, whose existence Braithwaite had still to prove. But more likely it was simply irritated at them for wasting its off-duty time.
“I am aware of mood swings and behavioral changes in myself and my staff every day,” Valleschni went on, “and some of them aren’t subtle. They can be caused by many things – worry about a tutor’s remarks in lectures, a sex-based relationship with a colleague that is not progressing well so that the ward work is suffering, or many things that have a purely subjective importance to the people concerned. These minor losses of temper or flashes of insubordination are directed toward myself as a person. My culture is fortunate in its scientific accomplishments, particularly in other-species medicine, and unfortunate in that the stupid, small-minded majority of oxygen-breathers like yourselves considers us less than physically beautiful. Even your own superior prefers to look at a stupid flower rather than at me. This being the case, it is understandable that we dislike each other, but I do not believe that xenophobia is the problem.”
“And I believe,” said Braithwaite, momentarily losing his temper, “that xenophobiais the problem and that…”
O’Mara cut him off by gently clearing his throat. The lieutenant caught what was plainly a nonverbal signal to disengage.
“Now that we have made you officially aware of the problem,” said Braithwaite, regaining his calm, “our department would appreciate having any further information you can provide. We will, of course, be interviewing the other members of the ward staff who have had close contact with patient Tunneckis. Thank you for your cooperation, Charge Nurse.”
When they were in the corridor, the lieutenant shook his head, nodded toward Valleschni’s door, and said, “Illensans are not usually so impolite, sir. That could be an early indication of a xenophobic reaction.”
“It’s still your case, Lieutenant,” said O’Mara. “Where to next?”
Normally O’Mara did not use the dining hall, because he had always been uncomfortable making polite small talk with people discussing a subject – medicine – in which he had no training, or whose conversation might reveal the early symptoms of an emotional disturbance, or who were merely swapping hospital gossip, of which he might also have to take professional cognizance. His well-known irascibility and impatience with people, although they never suspected it, was principally due to the fact that he still carried the memories and personality of his mind partner, Marrasarah, and over the years that honest and intensely forthright Kelgian tape donor and himself had become very close in their thinking. He had chosen therefore to eat privately in his office or living quarters, and so now all the diners were going to stare at him and wonder why the hell he was breaking with precedent. But in the event he and Braithwaite might just as well have been invisible, because the center of attention was elsewhere.