He remembered an explosion of pain as he hit the ground, but nothing else until one of the rescue party that had responded to the flyer’s automatic distress beacon asked him where he was hurt.
According to the report, the flyer’s canopy had been speared by one of the treetops and was found still lodged in the upper branches, while the rest of the ship crashed to the ground and rolled down the mountain for a distance of forty-five meters before breaking up and catching fire. Because the local vegetation was sodden after a day of heavy rain, the flames did not travel up the slope to the point where the sole survivor, the seven-year-old Hewlitt boy, was lying. The report went on to discuss at length the technical evidence gathered by the investigators, which Prilicla passed over for later study by Captain Fletcher, and ended with brief details of the autopsy, disposal, and treatment of the victims.
His parents had sustained massive trauma, and the indications were that they had probably died, and were certainly unconscious, before the fire engulfed them. Hewlitt had been found in a state of shock and confusion but otherwise unharmed, and it was assumed that the small patches of blood on his clothing belonged to his mother. Although unhurt, he had been kept under observation in hospital for the nine days it took the next-of-kin, his grandmother, to arrive and collect him and arrange for the disposal of his parents’ remains.
His grandmother had not allowed Hewlitt to see the bodies because, he now realized, the cremation had simply completed the process already started by the fire.
For a moment the old but never quite forgotten pain of loss and grief returned like a great, dark vacuum filling his chest, and he tried hard to control his feelings because Prilicla was watching him and becoming unsteady in its flight. He pushed the remembered pain out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the next report that was coming up on the screen.
“Thank you, friend Hewlitt,” said the empath, and went on, “As we can see, this report relates to the medical condition, treatment, and behavior of the survivor during its nine-day stay in hospital. Even then the younger Hewlitt was presenting its doctor with problems.
“They began,” Prilicla went on, “when the base medical officer, Surgeon-Captain Telford, prescribed oral sedation. Although uninjured, the patient was close to physical exhaustion and emotionally distressed by the loss of its parents and was unable to sleep. The result was a violent but nonspecific reaction that included abdominal discomfort, respiratory difficulty, and a rash covering the skin of the lower chest and back. While the surgeon-captain was still trying to discover what was happening, the symptoms subsided. A different type of sedation was prescribed and, as a precaution, only a minute initial dose was administered, by subcutaneous injection. This time the result was a cardiac arrest which lasted for two-point six minutes, accompanied by a brief recurrence of respiratory impairment, both of which passed without any detectable aftereffects.
“As you can see,” Prilicla continued, indicating the treatment summary at the bottom of the screen, “Dr. Telford diagnosed a hyperallergenic reaction, cause unknown, and forbade further medication. Instead, the emotional problems were treated with verbal tranquilization and reassurance provided by a same-species nurse who was nearing retirement age, and by allowing the child, who was apparently neither ill nor injured, to tire himself out and forget some of his grief by allowing him to visit and talk to other patients, who included serving space officers with many interesting stories to tell …”
“That nurse was very nice to me,” Hewlitt broke in, his voice quiet with remembered sadness that he had not felt for many years, “and I realize now that some of those stories might not have been true. But the treatment worked and … I’m sorry for interrupting, Doctor, I didn’t mean to remember out loud.”
“Don’t apologize, friend Hewlitt, your memories of the time are valuable to us,” said Prilicla. A moment later it went on, “There is an entry here to the effect that the then Surgeon-Lieutenant Telford was completely mystified by your atypical reaction to two simple and well-tried types of sedative medication. But it had no opportunity to discover, identify, and list what he assumed to be the allergenic substances that were causing the reaction before your relative arrived to take you to Earth. Dr. Telford had no reason, other than its unsatisfied curiosity, for keeping an otherwise healthy child in hospital.
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