Conway waited for a full minute to give Arretapec plenty of time to answer the question, but the VUXG kept silent. He could only mumble “I don’t know” and leave quickly.
The next door they entered was boldly labeled “Dietitian-in-Chief- Species DBDG, DBLF and FGLJ. Dr. K. W. HARDIN.” Inside, the white-haired and distinguished head of Dr. Hardin raised itself from some charts he was studying and bawled, “And what’s biting you.. .
While Conway was impressed by and greatly respected Dr. Hardin, he was no longer afraid of him. The Chief Dietitian was a man who was quite charming to strangers, Conway had learned; with acquaintances he tended to be a little on the abrupt side, and toward his friends he was downright rude. As briefly as possible Conway tried to explain what was biting him.
“You mean I have to go around replanting the stuff it’s eaten, so that it doesn’t know but that it grew naturally?” Hardin interrupted at one point. “Who the blazes do you think I am? And how much does this dirty great cow eat, anyway?”
Conway gave him the figures he had worked out.
“Three and a half tons of palm fronds a day!” Hardin roared, practically climbing his desk. “And tender green shoots of… Ye Gods! And they tell me dietetics is an exact science. Three and a half tons of shrubbery, exact! Hah…!”
They left Hardin at that point. Conway knew that everything would be all right because the dietitian had shown no signs of becoming charming.
To the VUXG Conway explained that Hardin had not been non cooperative, but had just sounded that way. He was keen to help as had been the other two. Arretapec replied to the effect that members of such immature and short-lived races could not help behaving in an insane fashion.
A second visit to their patient followed. Conway brought a C-belt along with him this time and so was independent of Arretapec’s telejortive ability. They drifted around and above the great, ambulating mountain of flesh and bone, but not once did Arretapec so much as touch the creature. Nothing whatever happened except that the patient once again showed signs of agitation and Conway suffered a periodic itch deep inside his ear. He sneaked a quick look at the tell-tale which was surgically embedded in his forearm to see if there was anything foreign in his bloodstream, but everything was normal. Maybe he was just allergic to dinosaurs.
Back in the hospital proper Conway found that the frequency and violence of his yawns was threatening to dislocate his jaw, and he realized that he had had a hard day. The concept of sleep was completely strange to Arretapec, but the being raised no objections to Conway indulging in it if it was necessary to his physical well-being. Conway gravely assured it that it was, and headed for his room by the shortest route.
What to do with Dr. Arretapec bothered him for a while. The VUXG was an important personage; he could not very well leave it in a storage closet or in a corner somewhere, even though the being was tough enough to be comfortable in much more rugged surroundings. Nor could he simply put it out for the night without gravely hurting its feelings-at least, if the positions had been reversed his feelings would have been hurt. He wished O’Mara had given instructions to cover this contingency. Finally he placed the being on top of his writing desk and forgot about it.
Arretapec must have thought deeply during the night, because there was a three inch hole in the desktop next morning.
III
During the afternoon of the second day a row started between the two doctors. At least Conway considered it a row; what an entirely alien mind like Arretapec’s chose to think of it was anybody’s guess.
It started when the VUXG requested Conway to be quiet and still while it went into one of its silences. The being had gone back to the old position on Conway’s shoulder, explaining that it could concentrate more effectively while at rest rather than with part of its mind engaged in levitating. Conway had done as he was told without comment though there were several things he would have liked to say: What was wrong with the patient? What was Arretapec doing about it? And how was it being done when neither of them so much as touched the creature? Conway was in the intensely frustrating position of a doctor confronted with a patient on whom he is not allowed to practice his craft: he was eaten up with curiosity and it was bothering him. Yet he did his best to stand still.