“Does that mean,” he said, trying to control his irritation, “that there is something that you are still not telling me? For my own peace of mind, naturally.”
“Yes,” said Lioren.
This time it was Hewlitt who erected the wall of silence, because the words he felt like using were not those normally spoken to a Padre, and it was Lioren who was trying to demolish it.
“The next call,” it said, “is to a patient in the SNLU ward. It is an ultra-frigid, methane life-form with a crystalline tissue structure that is hypersensitive to bright light and minute increases in temperature. The environmental-protection vehicle is cumbersome, heavily insulated, fitted with sensory enhancement and remote manipulator systems. Because of the patients’ extreme aural sensitivity it is necessary to attenuate external sound output and amplify the input. It is a very quiet ward. You will be able to move close to my patient, and the three others who are under treatment, when I introduce you, but then you must leave the two of us alone as you did in the Chalder ward and talk to the others. You will not have to concern yourself with your vehicle’s controls; one of the staff will guide it remotely from the nurses’ station.”
Still feeling angered by the other’s implication that he could not be trusted with sensitive information without losing his emotional control, Hewlitt remained silent.
“You will find,” Lioren added, “that the SNLU environment will cool even the hottest temper.”
CHAPTER 29
Not only was the ward cold and dark, but heavy shielding and insulation protected it from the trace quantities of radiation and heat given off by ship traffic in the vicinity of the hospital. There were no windows, because even the light that filtered in from the distant stars could not be allowed to penetrate to this area. The images that appeared on his display had been converted from the nonvisible spectrum, giving them the ghostly, unreal quality of fantasy, so that the scales covering the patients’ eight-limbed, starfish bodies shone coldly through the methane mist like multihued diamonds, making them resemble a species of wondrous, heraldic beast.
When he turned off his translator while moving between patients so as to listen to their natural voices, the sound was like nothing he had ever heard before. So clear and cold and beautiful were the sounds that he could almost imagine that he was hearing the musical, amplified chiming of colliding snowflakes. Even though there were no virus hosts in the ward, and Hewlitt doubted that anything other than an SNLU could survive for more than a few minutes in that environment, it surprised him how sorry he felt when the time came to leave.
Lioren’s next visit was to the quarters of an off-duty Melfan nurse called Lontallet. Again he was introduced and, after removing it from their suspect list of former virus hosts, he waited in the corridor while the other two went inside to talk.
The wait was neither long nor boring, because the corridor was invaded by a slow-moving column of patients. He counted thirty of them comprising five different oxygen-breathing species, several of whom were being transported in gravity litters. From the overheard conversations of the nursing attendants he discovered that it was both an evacuation drill and an utter shambles. The last of them was moving away when the Padre rejoined him.
“Did they pass by slowly enough for detection?” it asked. “Did you feel anything from them?”
“Yes,” said Hewlitt. “And no. Where to next?”
“To the dock airlock on Level One,” Lioren replied, “and calling on the wards and scanning all the passersby in the corridors between. We will have to work much faster now. No longer may we speak at length to any of the patients. A few words or a brief visual contact is all we can allow ourselves. Are you feeling tired?”
“No, curious,” said Hewlitt. “And hungry. We haven’t eaten since-”
“In the short term,” the Padre broke in, “our hunger is not lifethreatening. I contacted the department from Nurse Lontallet’s room. O’Mara is in conference, this time by communicator with the waiting ships’ captains, but it left a message for us. The situation has worsened but so far the exact nature of the technical emergency has not been made public. At present there are three separate evacuation drills in progress, but as yet there are no ships at the boarding locks. The patients are complaining about the inconvenience, the medical staff know that something serious is going on and are wanting answers, and in spite of their efforts to project clinical calm, their uncertainty is being communicated to their patients and each other. Psychologically, this is a dangerous situation which must not be allowed to continue.”
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