“What is shyness?” said Morredeth. “My translator assigns no Kelgian meaning to the word.”
If a being always said exactly what it thought, it could not be expected to understand shyness. Explaining shyness to such a being might be like trying to describe color to a blind person, but he would try.
“Shyness is a psychological barrier to social interaction,” he said. “It is a nonphysical wall that keeps a person from saying or doing what he or she is wanting very badly to say or do; for emotional reasons, usually involving inexperience or oversensitivity or even cowardice, the words or actions are suppressed. Among Earthhumans it is very common during puberty, when the initial social contacts between the sexes are being made.”
“That is ridiculous,” said Morredeth. “On Kelgia the feeling of a male or female for one of the opposite sex is impossible to hide. If the attraction felt by one for the other is very strong but is not reciprocated, the first has the option of persisting in its attempt to influence the second until the feeling is returned or of transferring the affections elsewhere. The successfully persistent ones usually make the best life-mates. Did the psychological treatment enable you to break through your shyness barrier eventually and allow normal coupling?”
“No,” said Hewlitt.
For the first time in his experience the Kelgian’s fur almost stopped moving, but only for a moment before it became even more agitated. Morredeth said, “I’m sorry. That situation must be very frustrating for you.”
“Yes,” he said.
“The senior physician might be able to help you,” said Morredeth, trying to mix reassurance with honesty. “If it cannot solve your problem, Medalont will take it as a personal insult. No matter how serious the disease or injury, Sector General has the reputation of curing everything and everybody. Well, nearly everybody.”
For a moment Hewlitt stared at the other’s fur, which was being stirred into waves and eddies as if it were an agitated pool of mercury; then he said, “The senior physician has my medical history, but as yet it hasn’t asked me about my involuntary celibacy. Maybe, like the university’s psychologist, it thinks the trouble is all in my mind. But the problem wasn’t, isn’t, painful so long as I avoid close, one-to-one female contact.
“When it became clear that the psychologist was getting nowhere,” he went on, keeping his eyes on the increasing agitation of Morredeth’s fur, “he decided that I was stubbornly refusing to respond to all his attempts at psychotherapy. I was told that living out my life without female companionship, which was probably what I secretly wanted to do, was rare but not in itself unhealthy. Many highly respected people in the past had done so, and made significant contributions to philosophy and the sciences while devoting themselves to the religious celibate life as writers and teachers, or by sublimating their sexual urges in scientific research …”
He broke off because Morredeth’s body as well as its fur was showing increasing agitation. The underlying bands of muscle were going in and out of spasm, causing it to twist and turn and bounce against the bed.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “Shall I call the nurse?”
“No,” said the Kelgian, the upper part of its body threatening to roll onto the floor. “I don’t want any more of your stupid interference.”
Hewlitt wondered if he should raise the screens so that the bed would be visible from the nurses’ station, then remembered that the other was probably on a monitor. He looked at the writhing body again and said, “I was only trying to help you.”
“Why are you doing this cruel thing?” said Morredeth. “Who told you to do this to me?”
“I, I don’t understand you,” he said, feeling baffled. “What did I say?”
“You are not a Kelgian,” said Morredeth, “so you do not fully understand the mental hurt I feel. First you talked about stroking your furry pet, and then apologized for your insensitivity. Now you are talking about yourself and the impossibility of you ever finding a mate, but it is plain that you are really talking about me and my problems. You must have been told to do this. When Lioren tried to do these things to me earlier, I closed my ears. Who told you to talk to me like this? Lioren? Braithwaite? The senior physician? And why?”