After rounds he was scheduled to give an initial midwifery lecture to a class of DBLF nurses. The DBLFs were furry, multipedal beings resembling outsize caterpillars and were native to the planet Kelgia. They also breathed the same atmospheric mixture as himself, which meant that he was able to do without a pressure suit. To this purely physical comfort was added the fact that talking about such elementary stuff as the reason for Kelgian females conceiving only once in their lifetime and then producing quads who were invariably divided equally in sex, did not call for great concentration on his part. It left a large section of his mind free to worry about the alleged cannibal in his observation ward.
CHAPTER 2
Half an hour later he was with the two Ian doctors in the Hospital’s main dining hall-the one which catered for Tralthan, Kelgian, human and the various other warm-blooded, oxygen-breathers on the Staff-eating the inevitable salad. This in itself did not bother Conway unduly, in fact, lettuce was downright appetizing compared with some of the things he had had to eat while playing host to other e-t colleagues, but he did not think that he would ever get used to the gale they created during lunch.
The GKNM denizens of Ia were a large, delicate, winged life-form who looked something like a dragonfly. To their rod-like but flexible bodies were attached four insectile legs, manipulators, the usual sensory organs and three tremendous sets of wings. Their table manners were not actually unpleasant-it was just that they did not sit down to dine, they hovered. Apparently eating while in flight aided their digestions as well as being pretty much a conditioned reflex with them.
Conway set the Path report on the table and placed the sugar bowl on top of it to keep it from blowing away. He said, “. . . You’ll see from what I’ve just been reading to you that this appears to be a fairly simple case. Unusually so, I’d say, because the patient is remarkably clear of harmful bacteria of any type. Its symptoms indicate a form of epithelioma, that and nothing else, which makes its unconsciousness rather puzzling. But maybe some information on its planetary environment, sleeping periods and so on, would clarify things, and that is why I wanted to talk to you.
“We know that the patient comes from your galaxy. Can you tell me anything at all about its background?”
The GKNM on Con way’s right drifted a few inches back from the table and said through its Translator, “I’m afraid I have not yet mastered the intricacies of your physiological classification system, Doctor. What does the patient look like?”
“Sorry, I forgot,” said Conway . He was about to explain in detail what an EPLH was, then he began sketching on the back of the Path report instead. A few minutes later he held up the result and said, “It looks something like that.”
Both Ians dropped to the floor.
Conway who had never known the GKNMs to stop either eating or flying during a meal was impressed by the reaction.
He said, “You know about them, then?”
The GKNM on the right made noises which Con way’s Translator reproduced as a series of barks, the e-t equivalent of an attack of stuttering. Finally it said, “We know of them. We have never seen one of them, we do not know their planet of origin, and before this moment we were not sure that they had actual physical existence. They. . . they are gods, Doctor.”
Another VIP… ! thought Conway , with a sudden sinking feeling. His experience with VIP patients was that their cases were never simple. Even if the patient’s condition was nothing serious there were invariably complications, none of which were medical.
“My colleague is being a little too emotional,” the other GKNM broke in. Conway had never been able to see any physical difference between the two Ians, but somehow this one had the air of being a more cynical, world-weary dragonfly. “Perhaps I can tell you what little is known, and deduced, about them rather than enumerate all the things which are not .