Because of inadequacies in the Kelgian speech organs, their spoken language lacked modulation, inflection, and any emotional expression, but they were compensated by the fur, which acted, so far as another Kelgian was concerned, as a perfect but uncontrollable mirror of the speaker’s emotional state. As a result the concept of lying or being diplomatic, tactful, or even polite was completely alien to them. A Kelgian said exactly what it meant or felt because its fur revealed its feelings from moment to moment, and to do otherwise would have been considered a stupid waste of time. The opposite also held true, because politeness and the verbal circumlocutions used by many other species simply confused and irritated them.
“Nurse Tarsedth,” Lioren said suddenly, “I am feeling very unwell, but on the psychological rather than the physical level. The therapy O’Mara is using in my case is not yet clear to me, but the fact that I have visited the dining hall for the first time since the trial, even though accompanied by two protectors, suggests that it is beginning to work, or that my condition may be improving in spite of it. If your questions are prompted by more than mere curiosity and the offer of help intended to be taken as more than a verbal kindness, I suggest that you ask for details of the therapy and its progress, if any, from the Chief Psychologist.”
“Are you stupid?” the Kelgian said, its silvery pelt tufting suddenly into spikes. “I would not dare ask a question like that. O’Mara would tear my fur off in small pieces!”
“Probably,” Cha Thrat said as Tarsedth was leaving, “without benefit of anesthetic.”
Their food trays slid from the table’s delivery recess to the accompaniment of an audible signal that kept him from hearing the Kelgian’s reply. Braithwaite said, “So that’s what Tarlans eat,” and thereafter kept its eyes averted from Lioren’s platter.
In spite of having to eat and speak with the same orifice, the Earth-human kept up a continuous dialogue with Cha Thrat, during which they both left conversational gaps enticingly open so that Lioren could join in. Plainly they were doing their best both to put him at ease and keep his attention from the nearby tables where everyone was watching him, but, with a member of a species who had to make a conscious mental effort not to look in every direction at once, they were having little success. It was also plain that he was undergoing psychotherapy of a not very subtle form.
He knew that Cha Thrat and Braithwaite were fully informed about his case, but they were trying to make him repeat the information verbally so as to gauge his present feelings about himself and those around him. The method they were using was to exchange what appeared to be highly confidential and often personal information about themselves, their past lives, their personal feelings about the department and toward O’Mara and other entities on the hospital staff with whom they had had pleasant or unpleasant contact, in the hope that Lioren would reciprocate. He listened with great interest but did not speak except in answer to direct questions from them or from staff members who stopped from time to time at their table.
Questions from the silver-furred Kelgians he answered as simply and directly as they were asked. To the shy well-wishings of a massive, six-legged Hudlar whose body was covered only by a recently applied coat of nutrient paint and the tiny ID patch of an advanced student nurse he replied with polite thanks. He also thanked an Earth-human called Timmins, wearing a Monitor Corps uniform with Maintenance insignia, who hoped that the Tarlan environment in his quarters had been properly reproduced, and said that if there was anything else that would make him feel more comfortable he should not hesitate to ask for it. A Melfan wearing the gold-edged band of a Senior Physician on one crablike arm stopped to say that it was pleased to see him making use of the dining hall, because it had wanted to speak to the Tarlan but that, regrettably on this occasion, it was due in ELNT Surgery. Lioren told it that he intended using the dining hall regularly in the future and that there would be other opportunities to talk.