“No,” said O’Mara.
“I felt the cranial itching,” said Thornnastor, being ponderously clinical, “but not from between my ears, which are, as you must know, differently situated in my species. It was accompanied by a confusion of mental noise but no message. What did it say?”
Conway had returned all of his attention to the operating screen and was speaking quickly as he worked.
“It said an awful lot in such a short time,” he said, “and I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now we need about twenty minutes to complete this procedure and withdraw, but we could stay here all day if need be without suffering any mental ill effects. For a while there I was off the mental rails, feeling useless and afraid and suspicious of everybody. I apologize for anything I said. You two must have been having similar feelings. But now we’re all back to normal and our troubles, all of our troubles, are over. We can begin repopulating the evacuated levels. Tunneckis is no longer telepathically deaf and dumb and is feeling fine.”
“Much as I dislike having to disagree with a colleague, friend Conway,” said Prilicla as it flew into the room to hover above the operating table, “I must say that you are guilty of a gross understatement Friend Tunneckis is radiating feelings of relief, gratitude, and intense happiness.”
CHAPTER 33
They met early on the following day in his old office because that was where he felt most comfortable and that was where he wanted to begin saying his goodbyes. Conway, Thornnastor, Prilicla, and all the members of the Psychology Department staff were distributed over the available furniture and making the place look crowded and more untidy than usual. Conway was standing beside the big diagnostic screen and summing up his report on the Tunneckis operation.
“… During the first procedure,” he was saying, “we assumed that analyzing the mineral and crystal content of the brain fluid in the area and reintroducing it in concentrated form would encourage the natural healing process but, unknowingly at the time, we were simply replacing it with more contaminated material in a much higher concentration. The result was that the growth of the clusters of pale crystals, which we now know were the telepathic receivers, became increasingly stunted while the darker ones, the transmitters, became grossly enlarged, structurally deformed, and grew out of control. In that state they were increasingly amplifying their telepathic output, but they could not transmit thoughts, only feelings. At the time Tunneckis was in bad mental shape, fearful of its surroundings, of its unthinkable future as a telepathic mute, and was suffering from a deep, clinical depression that seemingly would continue for the rest of its life. It would be difficult for normal people like us to imagine such depths of despair, but we don’t have to imagine it because for a while we, and a number of others beginning with the patient’s medical attendants, shared it. Tunneckis felt really bad, and so did we.”
“But now the patient is recuperating and feeling well,” he went on. “During the few seconds when my atrophied Earth-human telepathic faculty was kicked into life, we learned a lot about each other, and especially that it is impossible for a telepath to lie with the mind. The mental contagion of senseless fear and utter despair that it was broadcasting with increasing intensity over the past days ceased with its cure and, without the continual reinforcement of that signal, the effects will gradually disappear. Knowing and agreeing with my idea for keeping it here for a period of clinical observation and recuperation, it also said that bringing the most severe cases into close proximity with it for a few hours at a time would actively advance the curative process. I was thinking, sir, that as Cerdal is the worst affected being in the hospital as well as a contender for your job, you should give it the first chance with the Tunneckis treatment.”
“That will be done,” said O’Mara, and added silently. But not by me.
Conway moved away from the screen to sit on the edge of a Melfan relaxer before he went on, “The base commander on Kerm has asked me to spend a few months there. It says that my glimpse into Tunneckis’s mind will reduce their cultural contact problems as well as giving me the chance to gather information on native Kerma medicine in case another one turns up in Sector General, hopefully with something less disrupting. Maybe by the time I get back you’ll have made your choice and I might be calling Dr. Cerdal ‘sir’.”