“And you said?” O’Mara prompted.
“That you had given me sole responsibility for its case and that if you did speak to it, that was the first thing you would say,” the lieutenant replied, then hesitated. “I don’t know what the second thing would be.”
“The same as the first,” said O’Mara carefully. “I expect you to talk to me about the case and report progress, if any. If you consider it necessary you may discuss it with your colleagues in the outer office, but not to the extent that you would be dividing the responsibility for treatment. I am not going to advise or second-guess you with Yursedth. So don’t worry, Lieutenant, this psychological hot, medium-roasted, or cold mashed potato is all yours.”
“But I am worrying, sir,” said Braithwaite, “mostly about my proposed line of treatment. I was ashamed of even suggesting it. Just wiping all four mind partners is, is crude, like amputating a leg on the off chance of curing a sprained ankle. I want to try something a little more sophisticated, and I’m not asking for advice…”
“Good,” said O’Mara, “because you wouldn’t get it.”
“… but I would appreciate your technical supervision,” Braithwaite went on, “during a tape impression of Yursedth’s suspect Melfan mind partner into another subject. Instead of working from subjective verbal data secondhand, I’d like to have a close look around that Melfan donor’s mind myself from the inside – “
“No!”
Braithwaite looked surprised. “I know we don’t usually do it, sir,” he said, “and that technically it’s against the rules, but I believe this to be a special problem which I might not be able to solve in any other way without wasting several days or weeks of Yursedth’s teaching and operating time as well as subjecting it to a lot of emotional hassle. With respect, sir, it was you who made the rules and, from what I’ve heard, broke them all before they could be made official.”
That was then, O’Mara remembered, during the early years before Craythorne and the newly promoted and eager Lieutenant O’Mara knew what they were doing. He had insisted on doing more while knowing much less than the major and he still carried the mental scars, many of them willingly, to prove it. We lived, as the old Chinese curse phrased it, in interesting times. He shook his head.
“No,” he repeated in a conversational tone, “because the staff in this department are expected to be more or less sane. Failing that, they are expected at very least to know exactly who and what they are at all times and in all circumstances. To function effectively a therapist in this place must retain his, her, or its mental objectivity. That cannot be done if you assimilate and go probing into a donor mind that may be psychologically suspect because the experience, no matter how hard you tried to be objective, is intensely and dangerously subjective. A form of insidious psychological merging takes place, and traces of the emotional involvement with the donor entity remain even after the tape has been erased. You know the rule and, if you’ve temporarily forgotten it, I’m reminding you now. If you go exploring in alien mental territory, Lieutenant, you might bring back mental mud on your boots. So your mind, such as it is, must remain exclusively your own.”
O’Mara paused for a moment to stare hard into the other’s eyes. Without raising his voice he added, “If one of my staff was to break that rule, they would need to urgently consider other work options. Is that clearly understood?”
“Yes, sir,” said Braithwaite. “But what about the diagnosticians and seniors who carry anything up to six long-term tapes each?
Were they told the psychological reason for that rule, and about the risks?”
O’Mara shook his head. “No,” he said, “because the risk for them is nil, or at most very slight. All they are interested in is obtaining the other-species tape donor’s medical knowledge and experience for use in a current op or research project. The personality of the entity sharing their minds, be it nice, nasty, egocentric, or whatever, is something they try hard to ignore because they are physicians and surgeons who have neither the inclination nor the time to waste on delving into the reasons for their mind partner’s emotional behavior. The donor’s subconscious surfaces often enough when they sleep, or for some other reason lose concentration and awareness of their own identity. But when this happens they instinctively fight it and are, therefore, safe. To be sure of that we always check periodically for any sudden change in their psych profiles during long-term mind impressions.”