of the wizards, but not enough to risk treating it, and that I lacked the status
and authority to summon a wizard to the hospital.”
“What was the response to that?” O’Mara asked.
“None,” Cha Thrat said. “It would not speak to methereafter.”
Abruptly they were looking into the AUGL’s open mouth, but it was keeping its
uncomfortably short distance as it said, “You were not like the others, who did
nothing and promised nothing. You held out the hope of a cure by your wizards,
then withdrew it. You cause me pain that is many times worse than that which
keeps me here. Go away, Cha Thrat. For your own safety, goaway.”
The jaws crashed shut and it swept around them and headed for the other end of
the ward. They could not see clearly but, judging by the voices coming from the
Nurses’ Station, it seemed intent on wrecking the place.
“My patients!” Charge Nurse Hredlichli burst out. “My new treatment frames and
medication cabinets…”
“According to the monitors,” Cresk-Sar broke in, “the patients are still all
right, but they’ve been lucky. I’m sending in the transfer team now to knock out
One Sixteen. It will be a bit tricky. Both of you get back here,quickly.”
“No, wait,” O’Mara said. “We’ll try talking to it again. This is not a violent
patient and I don’t believe that we are in any real danger.” On Cha Thrat’s
frequency it added, “But there is always a first time for being wrong.”
For some reason a picture from Cha Thrat’s childhood rose suddenly to the
surface of her adult mind. She saw again the tiny, many-colored fish that had
been herfavorite pet, as it circled and butted desperately and hopelessly
against the glass walls of its bowl. Beyond those walls, too, lay an environment
in which it would quickly asphyxiate and die. But that small fish, like this
overlarge one, was not thinking of that.
“When One Sixteen gave you its name,” O’Mara said with quiet urgency, “it placed
a binding obligation on both of you to help the other in every way possible, as
would a life-mate or a member of your family. When you mentioned the possibility
of a cure by your Sommarad-van wizards, regardless of the efficacy of such
other-species treatment, you were expected to provide the wizard regardless of
any effort, cost, or personal danger to yourself.”
There were noises of tearing metal and the complaining voices of the other AUGLs
being transmitted through the green water, and Hredlichli sounded very agitated.
O’Mara ignored them and went on. “You must keep faith with it, Cha Thrat, even
though your wizards might not be able to help One Sixteen any more than we can.
And I realize that you haven’t the authority to call in one of your wizards. But
if Sector General and the Monitor Corps were to put their combined weight behind
you—”
“They wouldn’t come to this place,” Cha Thrat said. “Wizards are notoriously
unstable people, but they are not stupid— It’s coming back!”
This time One Sixteen was coming at them more slowly and deliberately, but still
too fast for them to swim to safety, nor could the transfer team with their
anesthetic darts reach them in time to do any good. There was no sound from the
patients in the ward and the beings watching from the Nurses’ Station. As the
AUGL loomed closer she could see that its eyes had theferal, manic look of a
wounded predator, and slowly it was opening its mouth.
“Use its name, dammit!” O’Mara said urgently. “Mu-Muromeshomon,” she
stammered. “My—my friend, we are here to help you.”
The anger in its eyes seemed to dim a little so that they reflected more of its
pain. The mouth closed slowly and opened again, but only to speak.
“Friend, you are in great and immediate danger,” the AUGL said. “You have spoken
my name and told me that the hospital cannot cure me with its medicines and
machines, and it no longer tries, and you will not help me even though you have
said that a cure is possible. If our positions were reversed I would not act, or
refuse to act, as you have done. You are an unequal friend, without honor, and I