explanations or pretensions of humility, and it would be better if the true
explanation was never given. With any luck Pathologist Murchison would believe,
and go on believing, that Cha Thrat was a self-opinionated maintenance
technician and one-time trainee nurse with delusions of grandeur and, for the
time being at least, the team leader was leaving her ears unpinned.
“Explain,” Prilicla said.
Quickly Cha Thrat reviewed the current clinical picture, gravely worsened now by
the extreme debilitation that, even in a healthy Gogleskan, followed a joining.
When she said that Rhone lacked the strength and physical resources to withstand
major surgery—it would have to be a cesarean procedure rather than a simple
enlargement of the birth opening—she spoke with absolute certainty because she
had the patient-healer’s viewpoint of the case as well as her own. But she did
not mention that, saying instead that Rhone’s emotional radiation would confirm
her observations.
“It does,” the empath said.
She went on quickly. “The FOKT classification is one of the few life-forms
capable of resting in the upright position, although they can also lie down.
Since their ancestors emerged from the oceans, their bodies and internal organs
have been acted on by vertical G forces, as are those of the Hudlars and
Tralthans and Rhenithi. I am reminded of a case in Tralthan Maternity a few
years ago that was broadly similar to this one and required—”
“You didn’t learn that from Cresk-Sar,” Murchison broke in suddenly. “Trainee
nurses aren’t told about the near-failures, at least not in first year.”
“I liked to study odd cases outside me syuauus, ^u
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