meal. She turned as many eyes as would bear on the shape-changer, ignoring the
many things she did not want to see in the background.
“Very well,” Danalta said, turning its alien mimic’s eyes on her. “You must
already have realized, Cha Thrat, that your situation is unlike that of the
other staff members who join the hospital for a probationary period.
Appointments to Sector General are much sought after, and candidates must pass
rigorous professional examinations and deep psychological investigation on their
home worlds to ensure that they will have a fair chance of adapting to a
multispecies hospital environment so that they will profit from our training.
“You were not screened in this manner,” her alien twin went on. “There were no
professional examinations, no birth-to-maturity psych profiles, no objective
measure of your worth as a healer. We know only that you come with a very high
recommendation, from the Cultural Contact department of the Monitor Corps and,
presumably, your professional colleagues on Sommaradva, a world and society
about which we know little.
“You appreciate our difficulty, Cha Thrat?” it continued. “An untrained,
unprepared, single-species-oriented being could cause untold harm to itself and
to the hospital staff and patients. We have to know what exactly it is that
we’re getting, and quickly.”
The others had stopped eating and so did she, even though there was a mouth free
for speaking. She said, “As a stranger arriving and expecting to take up an
appointment here, I thought that my treatment showed a lack of sensitivity, but
I decided that alien behavior patterns, of which I have very limited experience,
were to blame. Then I began to suspect that the harsh and insen-sitive treatment
was deliberate, and I was being tested in some fashion. You have confirmed this
suspicion, but I am seriously displeased that I was not informed of the test.
Secret tests, to my mind, can often show a failure in the examiner.”
There was a long silence. She looked at Danalta and away again. The
shape-changer’s body and features and expression were the mirror of her own, and
told her nothing. She turned her attention to Braithwaite, who had been taking
such a continuous and covert interest in her, and waited for a reaction.
For a moment the Earth-human’s two recessed eyes looked calmly into her four,
and she began to feel very sure that the being was, in fact, a ruler and not a
warrior as it said, “A secret test is sometimes given to avoid the
unpleasantness of telling a candidate that it has failed. By pretending that no
test took place, another and more acceptable reason, one that does not imply any
lack of professional competence or psychological or emotional weakness, can be
given for refusing the candidate an appointment. I’m sorry that you are
displeased by the covert nature of the test, but in the circumstances we decided
that it was better to… to…”
It broke off and began to bark quietly, as if there was something humorous in
the situation, then went on. “We Earth-humans have an expression that covers
your position very well. We threw you in at the deep end of the pool.”
“And what,” Cha Thrat said, deliberately omitting the gesture of politeness due
a ruler, “did you discover from this secret test?”
“We discovered,” Braithwaite said, and this time it did not bark, “that you are
a very good swimmer.”
Chapter 2
BRAITHWAITE left before the others had finished eating, saying that O’Mara would
have its intestines for hosiery supports if it was late back from lunch two days
in a row. Cha Thrat knew nothing of the entity other than that it was a greatly
respected and feared ruler of some kind, but the punishment for tardiness
sounded a bit extreme. Danalta said that she should not worry about it, that
Earth-humans frequently made such ridiculously exaggerated statements, that
there was no factual basis to the remark, and that it was some kind of
linguistic code they used among themselves which had a tenuous connection with
the mental associative process they called humor.
“I understand,” Cha Thrat said.
“I don’t,” Danalta said.
Ship ruler Chiang barked quietly but did not speak.