As Conway watched, the great reptile continued to churn up the mud in obvious agitation. Then abruptly it fell onto its knees and its great neck curved around and inward until its head muzzled underneath its own underbelly. It was a ridiculous but oddly pathetic posture.
“It is badly frightened,” said Arretapec. “These conditions do not adequately simulate its true environment.~~
Conway could understand and sympathize with the beast. The ingredients of its environment were no doubt accurately reproduced but rather than being arranged in a lifelike manner they had just been thrown together into a large muddy stew. Probably not deliberately, he thought, there must have been some trouble with the artificial gravity grids on the way out to account for this jumbled landscape. He said:
“Is the mental state of the patient of importance to the purpose of your work?”
“Very much so,” said Arretapec.
“Then the first step is to make it a little more happy with its lot,” said Conway, and went down on his haunches. He took a sample of the lake water, the mud and several of the varieties of vegetation nearby. Finally he straightened up and said, “Is there anything else we have to do here?”
“I can do nothing at present,” Arretapec replied. The Translated voice was toneless and utterly without emotion, naturally, but from the spacing of the words Conway thought that the other sounded deeply disappointed.
Back at the entry lock Conway made determined tracks toward the dining hall reserved for warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms. He was hungry.
Many of his colleagues were in the hall-DBLF caterpillars who were slow everywhere but in the operating theater, Earth-human DBDGs like himself and the great, elephantine Tralthan-classification FGLI-who, with the little OTSB life-form who lived in symbiosis with it, was well on the way to joining the ranks of the lordly Diagnosticians. But instead of engaging in conversation all around, Conway concentrated on gaining all the data possible on the planet of origin of the reptilian patient.
For greater ease of conversation he had taken Arretapec out of its plastic container and placed it on the table in a space between the potatoes and gravy dish. At the end of the meal Conway was startled to find that the being had dissolved-ingested-a two inch hole in the table!
“When in deep cogitation,” Arretapec replied when Conway rather exasperatedly wanted to know why, “the process of food-gathering and ingestion is automatic and unconscious with us. We do not indulge in eating as a pleasure as you obviously do, it dilutes the quality of our thinking. However, if I have caused damage…
Conway hastily reassured him that a plastic tablecloth was relatively valueless in the present circumstances, and beat a quick retreat from the place. He did not try to explain how catering officers could feel rather peeved over their relatively valueless property.
After lunch Conway picked up the analysis of his test samples, then headed for the Maintenance Chief’s office. This was occupied by one of the Nidian teddy bears wearing an armband with gold edging, and an Earth-human in Monitor green whose collar bore a Colonel’s insignia over an Engineering flash. Conway described the situation and what he wanted done, if such a thing was possible.
“It is possible,” said the red teddy bear after they had gone into a huddle of Conway’s data sheets, “but-”
“O’Mara told me expense is no object,” Conway interrupted, nodding toward the tiny being on his shoulder. “Maximum cooperation, he said.”
“In that case we can do it,” the Monitor Colonel put in briskly. He was regarding Arretapec with an expression close to awe. “Let’s see, transports to bring the stuff from its home planet-quicker and cheaper in the long run than synthesizing its food here. And we’ll need two full companies of the Engineers’ Division with their robots to make its house a happy home, instead of the twenty-odd men responsible for bringing it here.” His eyes became unfocused as rapid calculations went on behind them, then: “Three days.”
Even allowing for the fact that hyper-drive travel was instantaneous, Conway thought that that was very fast indeed. He said so.
The Colonel acknowledged the compliment with the thinnest of smiles. He said, “What is all this in aid of, you haven’t told us yet?”