“The evidence is not disputed,” Lioren broke in impatiently. “It is not relevant.”
“As a result of this timely warning and subsequent actions,” O’Mara continued, ignoring the interruption, “the adult Cromsaggar under treatment here were separated before they could attack each other, and the young, both here and on Cromsag, were saved. Altogether thirty-seven adults and two hundred and eighty-three children, with a roughly equal distribution of sex, are alive and well. I have no doubt that, after a lengthy period of reeducation, resettlement, and specialized assistance in breaking their conditioning, Cromsag will be repopulated, and, now that the plague has been removed, its people will return to living together in peace.
“It is understandable that the accused should feel an overwhelming guilt in this matter,” the psychologist went on in a quieter voice. “Had that not been so, it would not have caused this court-martial to be convened. But it is possible that the great guilt that it feels over the Cromsag Incident, together with its urgent need to discharge that guilt and its impatience to receive punishment for the alleged crime, has caused it to exaggerate its case. As a psychologist I can understand and sympathize with its feelings, and with its attempts to escape the burden of its guilt. And I am sure that there is no need to remind the court that, among the sixty-five intelligent species who make up the Galactic Federation, not one of them practices judicial execution or physical chastisement during confinement.”
“You are correct, Major O’Mara,” the fleet commander said. “The reminder is unnecessary and time-wasting. Make your point briefly.”
The color of O’Mara’s facial skin deepened slightly, and it said, “The Cromsaggar are not extinct, and they will continue to survive as a race. Surgeon-Captain Lioren is guilty of exaggeration, but not genocide.”
All at once Lioren felt anger, despair, and a terrible fear. He kept one eye on O’Mara and directed the other three individually toward the officers of the court and forced calmness and clarity onto his mind as he said, “The exaggeration, this small inaccuracy that was intended only as a simplification of a terrible truth, is unimportant because the enormity of my guilt is beyond measure. And I should have no need to remind Major O’Mara of the punishment, the destruction of a medic’s professional future rather than life, which is meted out to any member of the staff whose carelessness or lack of observation leads to the clinical deterioration or death of a patient.
“I am guilty of negligence,” Lioren went on, wishing that the translator could reproduce the desperation in his voice, “and the defense counsel’s attempt to belittle and excuse what I have done is ridiculous. The fact that others, including the hospital personnel concerned with the trials of the medication, were also surprised by the Cromsaggar behavior is not an excuse. I should not have been surprised, because all the information was available to me, all the clues to the puzzle were there if I had correctly read the signs. I did not read them because I was blinded by pride and ambition, because a part of my mind was thinking that a rapid and total cure would enhance my professional reputation. I did not read them because I was negligent, unobservant, and mentally fastidious in refusing to listen to patients’ conversations relating to Cromsaggar sex practices which would have given a clear warning of what was to happen, and because I was impatient of superiors who were advocating caution—”
“Ambition, pride, and impatience,” O’Mara said, rising quickly to its feet, “are not crimes. And surely it is the degree of professional negligence, if any, that the court must punish, not the admittedly terrible and far-reaching effects of what is at most a minor transgression.”
“The court,” Fleet Commander Dermod said, “will not allow counsel to dictate to it, nor will it allow another such interruption of the prosecution’s closing statement. Sit down, Major. Surgeon-Captain Lioren, you may proceed.”
The guilt and the fear and the desperation were filling Lioren’s mind so that the finely reasoned arguments he had prepared were lost and forgotten. He could only speak simply of how he felt and hope that it would be enough.