“No,” said the other. “I wouldn’t like to, because I don’t like you. I don’t want you near me and I don’t believe what you say. You’ll just go back and talk about me to the Earth-humans and that horrible Sommaradvan in your department. Everybody in this place says things they don’t mean and they don’t have the fur to show what they truly feel. I don’t trust any of you because the only people I can trust are other Kelgians. For your information there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I don’t have a personal or ethical or any other kind of problem. Just go away.”
After that tirade, Lioren thought sadly, there was nothing else to do.
And in another part of the hospital Cha Thrat, recently described as the department’s horrible Sommaradvan, was beginning tactfully to probe the suspected emotional difficulties of an Earth-human trainee nurse. Her great size and disposition of limbs made it necessary for her to interview the subject through the other’s open door.
“I’m sorry for calling during an off-duty period, Nurse Patel,” said Cha Thrat, “but Senior Tutor Cresk-Sar is becoming increasingly concerned about your recent inattention and general behavior during lectures. Since you joined the hospital it tells me that your multi-species anatomical studies and general practical work on the wards has been exemplary, but recently there has been a marked deterioration both in the quality of your work and in your professional contacts with other-species colleagues and patients. So far none of this is serious enough for the Psychology Department to take official notice of it, which means that it hasn’t gone into your psych file, but I was asked to have an unofficial word with you about it and, perhaps, give you a word of advice. Cresk-Sar wonders if the cause lies outside the training program. Is there anything that you would like to tell me, Nurse?”
The other’s already dark facial skin coloration darkened some more. In Earth-humans, Cha Thrat had learned, this was an indication of the presence of a strongly felt emotion such as anger or embarrassment.
“Yes,” said the nurse loudly, “I would like to tell you that Cresk-Sar is a nosy, small-minded, flea-bitten runt…” She twitched her shoulders. “… who gives me the creeps every time it comes near me. And you’re as bad as it is, only bigger.”
As a Nidian, the senior tutor possessed just over half the body mass of the Earth-human female, but Cha Thrat doubted that its tight, curly body fur harbored insect parasites. Plainly it was the other’s emotions rather than its reason that was talking. Like the warrior-surgeon she had been and the trainee ruler-wizard she had become, she tried to bury her own emotional response under a deep layer of reason and, above all, control her usually short temper.
“I have need of information about you, Nurse Patel,” said Cha Thrat, “not Senior Tutor Cresk-Sar.”
“Then you still need it,” the other replied, speaking too loudly considering the short distance separating them. “Why should I tell you anything about me, you outsized pervert? We know all about you, how your own people got you sent here by pulling political strings, and how you cut off one of your own arms during an op and, and… A warrior-surgeon, indeed. You’re a bloody sword-swinging, Sommaradvan savage. Go away.”
Cha Thrat forced herself to speak in a quiet, reasonable voice as she said, “I am not a warrior, a wielder of weapons, or, as it is in these civilized times, a user of dangerous technology. The term signifies my medical rank only. At the bottom are the menial-physicians, who deal out potions and poultices to the workers; then there are the warrior-surgeons like myself who used to treat the wounds of those hurt in battle before warfare was outlawed; and then, the most important, are the wizards, the healers of the mind, that is, whose duty it is to keep the mentalities of the rulers and sub-rulers in stable good health. Naturally, if a menial were to sustain a serious injury or a mental dysfunction, the nearest warrior-surgeon or ruler-wizard would attend…”
Cha Thrat stopped speaking when Nurse Patel’s door hissed shut in her face. After a moment’s pause for thought, she moved quickly to the nearest communicator and keyed for staff information.