A long exhalation of the patient’s breath pressed gently against Lioren’s face, and then Mannen said weakly, “Lioren, you are . . . a cold fish.”
Within a few minutes it was asleep and Lioren was on the way back to the office. Several times he collided with other life-forms, fortunately without injury on either side, because his mind was on the patient he had left rather than the ever-present problem of corridor navigation.
He was using the remaining hours or days of an emotionally distressed and terminal patient as a means of furthering a simple, unimportant, and nonurgent investigation, as he would use any suitable tool that came to hand which would enable him to complete a job. If in the process he altered or increased the efficiency of the tool, that was not an important consideration. Or was it?
He was remembering that on Cromsag he had been involved in solving a problem. On that occasion, too, he had considered the solution to be more important than any of the individuals involved, and his intellectual pride and his impatience had depopulated a planet. On his native Tarla that pride and high intelligence had been a barrier that none could penetrate, and he had had superiors and subordinates and family but no friends. Perhaps Mannen’s singularly inaccurate physiological description, which he had put down to the mental confusion of fatigue, had been correct and Lioren was a cold fish. But it might not be entirely correct.
Lioren thought of the wasted and barely living entity he had just left, the pitiful and fragile tool that was performing exemplary work, and he wondered at the strange feelings of hurt and sadness that arose in him.
Was his first experience of friendship, like his first friend, to be short-lived?
As soon as Lioren entered the office he knew that something was wrong, because both Cha Thrat and Braithwaite swung round to face him. It was the Earth-human who spoke first.
“O’Mara is at a meeting and is not to be disturbed and, frankly, I have no idea how to advise you about this,” Braithwaite said in a rapid, agitated voice. “Dammit, Lioren, you were told to be discreet in your enquiries. What have you been saying about your assignment, and to whom? We have just had a message from Senior Physician Seldal. It wants to see you in the Nallajim staff flocking lounge on Level Twenty-three.”
Cha Thrat made the Sommaradvan gesture of deep concern, and added, “At once.”
Chapter 12
SlNCE the Nallajim LSVOs often entertained other-species colleagues, their lounge was spacious enough not to cause Lioren any physical inconvenience, but he wondered at the choice of meeting place. In spite of their fragile, low-gravity physiology, the birdlike species could be as abrasive in their conversational manner as any Kelgian, and if this one had found cause for complaint against Lioren, the expected course would have been for it to present itself in the Psychology Department and demand to see O’Mara.
Of one thing he felt very sure, Lioren thought as he moved between the nestlike couches filled with sleeping or quietly twittering occupants toward Seldal, this would not be a social occasion.
“Sit or stand, whichever is more comfortable for you,” the
Senior Physician said, lifting a wing to indicate the couch’s food dispenser. “Can I offer you anything.”
It v/as wrong, Lioren told himself as he lowered his body into the downy softness of the couch, to feel sure about anything.
“I am curious about you,” the Nallajim Senior said, the rapid twittering of its voice making an impatient background to the slower, translated words. “Not about the Cromsag Incident because that has become common knowledge. It is your behavior toward my patient Mannen that interests me. Exactly what did you say to him, and what did he say to you?”
If I told you that, Lioren thought, this meeting would not long remain a social occasion.
Lioren did not want to lie, and he was trying to decide whether it would be better to avoid telling all of the truth or simply remain silent when the Nallajim spoke again.
“Hredlichi tells me,” it said, “and I use the Charge Nurse’s words as clearly as I can recall them, that two of O’Mara’s Psych types, Cha Thrat and yourself, approached it asking permission to interview its patients, including the terminal case, Mannen, regarding some planned improvements in ward environment. Hredlichi said that it was too busy to waste time arguing with you, and your physical masses were such that it could not evict you bodily, so it decided to accede where the patient Mannen was concerned knowing that the ex-Diagnostician would ignore you as it had done everyone else who tried to talk to it. But Hredlichi says that you spent two hours with the patient, who subsequently left instructions that you could visit it at any time.