Before Hewlitt could reply, Two-Twenty-One said, “Please excuse our friend, small air-breather. A combination of impatience, boredom, and homesickness has eroded its manners. Usually its behavior is much better, well, a little better, than this. But its question remains-why are you here and what do you want to say to us?”
Hewlitt waited while the three of them changed position until they hung side by side facing him. The sight of one Chalder jaw and triple set of teeth had almost unnerved him, but three of the enormous mouths gaping open within a few meters of his head was ridiculous rather than frightening, and he felt himself begin to relax. He decided that this was another time to be sparing and perhaps a little inventive with the truth.
“I don’t know what I want to talk about,” he replied. “The subject doesn’t matter, I just want a few minutes’ conversation. I am neither a medic nor a psychologist, just a former patient helping with some follow-up research. Until I am allowed to leave the hospital there is nothing interesting for me to do, so I asked, and was given permission, to spend the time meeting and talking to as many patients and members of the staff as possible.
“Practically every member species of the Federation is represented here,” he went on, “while on Earth I would be lucky to meet five off-worlders in a lifetime. The opportunity was too good to miss.”
“But there are over a hundred Chalders on Earth,” said Two-Eleven. “They are advising on the repopulation and education of the semisapient ocean mammals which your ancestors nearly rendered extinct.”
“Most of them are Chalder scientists and their families,” said Hewlitt. “Only a few Earth-human marine biologists are given permission to meet or work with them. Nonspecialist visitors like myself were forbidden, but here visits between fellow patients are allowed.”
“Even so,” said One-Ninety-Three, “it seems to me that a lifeform as physically fragile as yours is taking a serious risk simply to avoid the boredom of waiting to go home. The Chalder environment is friendly compared with some that you will find here. Was there a psychological component to your former illness?”
“Most of the medics at home thought there was,” said Hewlitt, knowing that the irony was lost on them, “but in Sector General the cause of the trouble was removed and the Earth doctors were proved wrong. There is no serious risk, because Padre Lioren has agreed to be my guide and guardian.”
“The hospital must feel an obligation to you,” said the other, “to grant such an unusual request. What was wrong with you?”
He was still trying to think of a suitably unrevealing reply when One-Ninety-Three said, “Probably it was one of those disgusting reproductive problems that these non-egg-layers are prone to. You can see that it doesn’t want to tell us, and anyway, I don’t think I want to know.”
Hewlitt wanted to protest at the implication that he was a non-egg-laying female, but if he did not know whether he was talking to male or female Chalders he could hardly object to them making the same mistake with him.
“Usually,” he said, “the juiciest gossip is associated with some physical or emotional aspect of the reproductive process. You will find me less reticent when telling you about other people’s embarrassments.”
“We understand,” said One-Ninety-Three, “but right now we would prefer to know when we are likely to be sent home. Have you heard anything on that subject?”
“Sorry, no,” said Hewlitt. “But I will try to find out.”
That much is true, he thought, remembering the warning to Rhabwar and the emergency drills that had been held in his former ward. Whether or not he would be allowed to pass on his findings was another matter, because he was beginning to suspect that the explanation was neither simple nor pleasant. But it soon became clear that all the Chalders really wanted to talk about was home.
At first he had expected that their attempts to explain the water world of Chalderescol to him would be like trying to describe a sunset to a person who was color-blind, but he was wrong. Within a few minutes he was experiencing the freedom of an ocean that, apart from two small areas at the poles, covered the planetary surface in places to a depth of over a hundred miles.
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