“You have been working for half an hour,” said Prilicla, who had flown silently into the room. “During my last visit you were all too busy to notice me so I left without speaking when I found that the emotional-radiation levels were optimum.”
“Half an hour?” said Conway, incredulously. “It shows how fast time passes when you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Conway!” said O’Mara sharply. “That was a particularly insensitive remark to make in the presence of a conscious patient, especially one who might not understand Earth-human sarcasm.”
“Insensitive?” said Conway, looking suddenly worried. “Am I being… affected?”
“I don’t think so, friend Conway,” Prilicla broke in. “Your emotional radiation, like that of everyone else here, is being distorted by fear, but it is diffuse and may be based on your general fear for the patient’s well-being. Friend Tunneckis is also feeling intense fear, but that is normal for the circumstance and it is trying hard to keep it under control.”
“And I do understand sarcasm,” Tunneckis added, “wherever it originates, so an apology is unnecessary.”
Conway gave a short, relieved laugh and was back at work before it ended.
The procedure was slow, painstaking, and seemingly endless. As Conway used his micro-instruments carefully to crush and detach the large crystals from their stalks, large only because of the ultra-high magnification, and withdraw them through a tiny suction tube, O’Mara thought that it was like watching a particularly inefficient underwater vacuum cleaner at work. But with the crystalline debris was going a measured quantity of the toxin-filled liquid that Thornnastor was replacing with the uncontaminated fluid in which, they were hoping, the new, healthy crystals would grow. Slowly and steadily the proportion of toxic material was diminishing, and it seemed that a few of the crystalline flowers of both kinds were attaching themselves to empty stalks. Conway was sweating in concentration and all four of Thornnastor’s eyes were directed at its instruments. Prilicla paid four more visits but came and went without comment. It was not until the seventh visit that it spoke.
“The security detail is standing by at a safe distance,” it said, maintaining a stable hover just inside the entrance, “but they can be here within three minutes. I must remind you that you have been in close proximity to your patient for nearly two hours and – “
“No, dammit!” Conway broke in. “We could be nearly there. I’m not stopping now.”
“Nor I,” rumbled Thornnastor.
“The ambient emotional radiation here is – “ Prilicla began, when Conway broke in again.
“Thornnastor,” he said urgently, “if our empathic friend calls in the security heavies, will you block the door with your body? They won’t dare do anything too violent to the hospital’s senior diagnostician even if our administrator tells them otherwise. Right?”
“Right,” said Thornnastor.
“Your administrator,” said O’Mara firmly, “will order them to keep their distance.”
Conway’s expression was puzzled but very pleased as he looked up briefly at O’Mara and then at Prilicla before going on, “Please listen to me. I’m not afraid of anybody here, or anywhere else for that matter. There’s no xenophobia that I’m aware of…” For a moment his voice was tinged with doubt. “… unless losing my temper like this with a good friend is an early symptom. But I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with my mind. How is the patient feeling?”
“I know exactly what and how you feel, friend Conway,” said Prilicla, “and friend Tunneckis is feeling frightened, disoriented, and badly confused.”
“Tunneckis,” said Conway urgently, “what’s happening?”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” the other replied angrily. “My mind is flashing pictures and sounds. They are disconnected, unrelated, and, and nonverbal. What, what did you just do to me?”
“It would take too long to explain right now,” Conway replied, “but I intend doing it again for as long as I can.” Keeping his hands’ inside the step-down gauntlets and his eyes fixed on the operating screen, he said excitedly, “The patient’s reaction proves it. We’re beginning to get results.”
“Friend Conway, I don’t know what’s happening, either,” said Prilicla. “Based on the staff distance and exposure tables we worked out for friend Tunneckis’s telepathic, ah, shouting, all of you should be showing marked changes in emotional radiation and behavior by now. Instead your symptoms, with one exception, are minimal. I can only attribute this to the presence of several tape-donor entities within your minds. These tapes, which are the recordings of the past donors’ knowledge and memories, are not subject to modification by a mental influence of the present, so they may be serving as a mental anchor for the minds concerned. As diagnosticians in possession of many mind partners, you are being kept stable by the thoughts and feelings of your taped entities. But this is buying you only a little tune, how much exactly I can’t say, because I can already feel your minds being affected. You will need to leave soon.”