“I’m sorry about hitting that one, sir,” said Haslam, “and I don’t think it was badly hurt. But it looks as though we’ve taught them a lesson because they’ve decided to pull out.”
“Don’t bet on that, Lieutenant,” said Fletcher dryly. He was raising his hand to point at the scene in the forward viewscreen when the communicator chimed and its screen lit with the image of Dr. Prilicla. “Friend Fletcher,” said the Cinrusskin. “The traces of emotional radiation emanating from your crew have been characteristic of excitement, tension and concern, all of which feelings have suddenly diminished in strength. A long and tricky surgical procedure is about to be attempted—once, that is, we solve an associated non-medical problem. Can you tell me whether or not we can proceed without outside emotional interruptions or distractions?”
“Doctor,” Fletcher said, laughing softly, “you will be free of distractions for the rest of the day. Judging by the look of that sky there is a heavy rainstorm, not just a squall, moving in. The spiders are returning to their ships as we speak.”
They watched the dark grey clouds on the horizon expanding to fill the sky and the paler curtain of heavy rain rushing closer. The spiders and their aircraft were safely on board and the sail shields of the three ships were closed tight before the deluge arrived, but they could hear it rattling and bouncing off the flattened dome-like hulls which, he realized suddenly, looked very much like umbrellas.
“This must be the first time,” Haslam said, “that a battle was called off because of rain.”
.
CHAPTER 28
The patient had been prepped for surgery, the operating team of Danalta, Naydrad, and himself had been standing by the table for more than twenty minutes, and friend Murchison was still trying to solve Prilicla’s associated non-medical problem. It was trying with such intensity to be patient and reasonable that its emotional radiation was making him tremble.
“Keet,” it was saying, “your life-mate Jasam is unconscious and will not feel pain, either during or while recovering from this procedure. You, however, are feeling the non-material pains of concern, uncertainty, and the continuing emotional trauma over what you think will be the loss of a loved one. To be brutally honest, we may lose Jasam, but we would have a better chance of saving it if you would cooperate by moving out of visual range. Untutored as you are in medical matters, not seeing every incision, resection, and repair as they take place would be easier on you, too. Besides, would Jasam want you to suffer needlessly like this?”
Keet lay watching the towel-draped form of its life-mate from its litter, which it had insisted be moved into the operating room. It made no reply.
“In all my nursing experience,” said Naydrad, its fur ruffling in disapproval, “never has the next of kin, or any other nonmedically-oriented relative, been allowed to witness a procedure of this complexity. On all the civilized worlds I know of, it is just not done. If this is the custom on Trolann, I think it is a misguided, unnecessarily painful, completely wrong, and barbaric custom.”
Prilicla was about to apologize for Naydrad’s forthright speech, but stopped himself because the reasons for the Kelgian species’ lack of tact had already been explained to it, but Keet didn’t give him a chance to talk.
“It is not the custom on Trolann,” it said, radiating anger at the insult. “But neither is it the custom to have a druul present in our operating theaters working on us. Ever.”
He could feel the pathologist beginning to lose its temper, but not completely, because the words it used were intended to • achieve a precisely calculated effect.
Murchison said calmly, “The experiences you shared on your ship, your searchsuit as you call it, when Jasam was badly injured and you were unable to leave your control pod to help or comfort or even to be physically close to it, has made a deep impression on your mind. You don’t want to be separated from Jasam—especially, as now, when you think that there is the danger of never seeing it alive again. I can understand and sympathize with that feeling.