He called Captain Williamson.
The Captain hemmed a coupled of times when Conway had finished speaking and there was a distinctly embarrassed note in his voice when he replied. He said, “We’ve had a number of officers, both medical and cultural contact people, searching for the Empire for the last two months, Doctor. One of them has been successful and sent in a preliminary report. It comes from a medical officer who was not attached to the Ella project, and knows very little of what has been happening here, so it may not be as informative as you might wish. I’ll send you a copy with the material on Teltrenn.”
Coughing slightly, Williamson ended, “Lonvellin will have to be informed of this, naturally, but I must leave it to your discretion when you tell it.”
Suddenly Conway laughed out loud. “Don’t worry, Colonel, I’ll sit on the information for a while. But if you are found out you can always remind Lonvellin that the function of a good servant is to anticipate the wishes of his master.
He continued laughing softly after Williamson signed off, then all at once the reaction set in.
Conway hadn’t laughed much since coming to Etla. And he had not been guilty of over-identifying with his patients-no half-way decent doctor with the good of his charges at heart would commit that crime. It was just that nobody laughed very much on Etla. There was something in the atmosphere of the place, a feeling comprised both of urgency and hopelessness which seemed to intensify with each day that passed. It was rather like the atmosphere in a ward where a patient was going to die, Conway thought, except that even in those circumstances people found time to make cracks and relax for a few minutes between crises.
Conway was beginning to miss Sector General. He was glad that in a few days he would be going back, despite his feeling of dissatisfaction over all the loose ends he was leaving untied. He began to think about Murchison.
That was something he had not done very often on Etla, either. Twice he had sent messages to her with the Elan specimens. He knew that Thornnastor in Pathology would see that she got them, even though Thornnastor was an FGLI with only the barest of passing interests in the emotional involvements of Earth-human DBDGs. But Murchison was the undemonstrative type. She might consider that going to the trouble of smuggling back a reply would be giving him too much encouragement, or maybe that kiss and run episode at the airlock had soured her on him completely. She was a peculiar girl. Very serious-minded, extremely dedicated, absolutely no time for men.
The first time she agreed to date him it had been because Conway had just pulled off a slick op and wanted to celebrate, and that previously he had worked with her on a case without once making a pass. Since then he had dated Murchison regularly and had been the envy of all the male DBDGs in the hospital. The only trouble was that they had nothing to be envious about…
His lugubrious train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of a Corpsman who dropped a folder onto his desk and said, “The material on Teltrenn, Doctor. The other report was confidential to Colonel Williamson and has to be copied by his Writer. We’ll have it for you in fifteen minutes. ~
“Thank you,” said Conway . The Corpsman left and he began to read.
Being a colony world which had not had the chance to grow naturally, Etla did not have national boundaries or the armed forces which went with them, but the police force enforcing the law on the planet were technically soldiers of the Emperor and under the command of Teltrenn. It had been a force of these policemen-soldiers who had attacked, and were still attacking, Lonvellin’s ship. At first appraisal, the report stated, the evidence pointed to Teltrenn having a personality which was proud and power-hungry, but the cruelty usually found in such personalities was absent. In his relations with the native population-the Imperial Representative had not been born on Etla-Teltrenn showed fairness and consideration. It was plain that he looked down on the natives-way down, almost as if they were members of a lower species. But he did not, openly, despise them, and he was never cruel to them.