“I don’t know,” the Padre said. “Anything. Everything. Something that will enable me, as you Earth-humans say, to get my teeth into this problem.”
“Teeth?” said Hewlitt, his eyes still on the other’s open mouth. He forced a laugh and went on, “As a matter of fact I did have some trouble with my teeth. It was when I was a child, on Etla, but it was a minor problem. I was seven years old and the first two of my second set of teeth were beginning to grow and the old ones were refusing to come out. My mouth was painful, but I was more worried about not getting money from the tooth fairy in exchange for the loosened teeth when I left them on my pillow during the night. Do you know about the Earth tooth fairy? I’ll tell you about it later. When the third new tooth pushed up and the old one stayed in place, our dentist lost patience and pulled out all three of the old ones. After that my teeth behaved normally and the money was waiting on the pillow as expected. But I don’t think the tooth business is important.”
“Who knows what is important in your case,” said the Padre, “but in this instance I agree with you. Are there any other unrecorded and possibly unimportant incidents you can remember?”
The longer Hewlitt talked the more he remembered. A few of the minor incidents, he was surprised to discover, had been included in his case history. The rest was a boring catalogue of the usual childhood and teenage skin eruptions and rashes, none of them serious or long-lasting, and the accidentally cut fingers, bumps on the head, and skinned knees sustained at home or in school. His cuts and abrasions had always healed quickly, even when they had looked at first to be serious enough to require sutures.
“I didn’t like doctors when I was young,” he went on, “because they insisted on prescribing medication that made me feel worse instead of better. At first I thought Medalont was going to do the same, but instead it took me off all medication and, apart from the arrest on the first night, there has been no trouble. Shall I go on, Padre? Is this the kind of information you’re looking for?”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for, Patient Hewlitt,” said the Tarlan, “or if I’d recognize it if I found it. But if all you and your many doctors say is true, and taking into account the two inexplicable clinical episodes that have involved you since you came here, there is only one obvious explanation that remains. Naturally it is more obvious to me than to you even though I myself am most reluctant to accept it.”
The Tarlan was leaning so far over the bed that Hewlitt wondered if its bottom-heavy, inherently stable body would overbalance and fall on him. The features were unreadable but its tension could almost be felt.
“Patient Hewlitt,” it said, “are you a member of a religious sect?”
“No,” he said.
“Before they died in the flyer accident,” it went on, leaning even closer, “were your parents or subsequently your grandparents members of such a sect? It may have been very small, probably restricted in numbers because of its inability to proselytize among a largely materialistic population, but it would have been highly moral, intensely devout, and utterly certain in its beliefs. Even though you were very young at the time, did your parents or grandparents, or perhaps a teacher at school, instruct you in the beliefs and disciplines of such a faith?”
“No,” he said again.
“You have not taken enough time to search your memory, said Lioren. “Please do so now.”
Its body swayed backward until it was upright again, and Hewlitt was not sure whether the movement signified a relaxation of tension or disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Padre,” he said. “When you mentioned religion to me earlier, and I refused your offer of spiritual consolation, I assumed that you would know that I was not a religious person. Why are you asking so many religious questions? I have never been a believer.”
When it replied, Hewlitt was glad that a hush field was around his bed, because the Padre’s voice would have carried to the other end of the ward. It said, “I am asking them because they must be asked, and because religious beliefs can often have a strong effect on a psychological or medical condition. Mostly I am asking them because of what you did last night.