“Their environment is hostile,” said Lioren, “not the people. And very few Federation citizens need to meet or learn about the Telfi person-to-person, so your lack of knowledge is not a reason for you to feel offended. Before you meet this patient you will have to learn a little about how the Telfl live, and, more important in this case, how they die. Are you able to absorb knowledge while moving your lower limbs a little faster, I hope?”
“I’ll be able to keep up with you,” said Hewlitt.
Lioren ignored the deliberate ambiguity and went on. “I have promised to touch and listen to the last thoughts, if it still has the strength to articulate them for the translator, of the dying Telfl astrogator part Cherxic. So far we have had no success with our search for the virus. I want to take a little of the time we seem to be wasting to keep my promise.”
“And do you have a little time,” said Hewlitt, “to listen to me?”
“Yes,” said the Padre without hesitation. “For some time I have sensed in you an emotional disturbance, but whether it is anger directed at me because of unsatisfied curiosity or some more serious, personal concern that distresses you I do not know. If the latter, is the matter urgent? Either way I will listen, now or later, but you know as well as I do that now is not a good time. Can you tell me simply, and I hope briefly, what is troubling you?”
Hewlitt did not look at the other as he replied, “You are right, Padre. I am curious and angry with you for not satisfying my curiosity, and I am growing increasingly frightened by the fact that you have been forbidden to satisfy it. So I keep asking myself questions that I’m not qualified to answer, and worrying. There is something about this whole business that bothers me.”
“Go on,” said Lioren, stopping before a rail containing Earthhuman radiation protection suits in various sizes. “Put one on without removing the garment you are wearing. It would be better if you talked while I help you to dress.”
It would also waste less time, he thought, but the Padre was too polite to say that.
“Right,” said Hewlitt. “So far as we know, the only beings to be infected or invaded by this virus creature were myself, my cat, Morredeth, you, and some other as yet unknown person or persons. It left us with a legacy of unusually good health and, for some reason, a strange ability to recognize former hosts. Why would it want to do that? And what exactly did it do to us?”
Without waiting for a reply he went on, “Is it telepathy, or an empathic faculty like Prilicla’s? We can’t receive each other’s thoughts or feelings with accuracy, so probably not. I don’t know enough about xenobiology or the behavior of extraterrestrial viruses, intelligent or otherwise, and nobody, yourself included, will answer questions. But am I right in thinking that the recognitive ability could only have come about as the result of a physical change of some kind within us? Was this invisible, two-way name tag that identifies us to other hosts merely a side effect and did something else happen, something the virus does to everyone it occupies? Has the long-term survival of the creature’s species got anything to do with it? Have we all been seeded by the thing and are busy growing virus- creature embryos?”
He had stopped moving and was standing balanced on one foot and with the other one pushed deep into the leg section of the radiation suit. The Padre was standing behind him, supporting the upper body section and not moving or speaking, either. The lengthening silence was broken by the Padre.
“I was forbidden to answer your questions,” Lioren said, “for the reasons you have already been given. It was to avoid causing you mental distress by listing our more frightening speculations. But I will not continue to withhold answers when it is plain that you are discovering them for yourself.”
Hewlitt was silent. He was no longer sure that he wanted his questions answered.