O’Mara smiled and left quickly. He had to talk to Thornnastor again and sell it on the multiple-tape idea before it retired for the night. It might take a long time and he as well as the Tralthan might lose a lot of sleep. But that, at least, would cut down on the volume of snoring in the area.
The glass-walled OR was in readiness when Thornnastor and O’Mara arrived outside punctually the next day. As it was primarily an examination of the surgeon’s procedure as well as an attempt to rectify serious traumatic damage to the patient, the room was more crowded than usual. The patient was already anesthetized and the other members of the operating team, two Melfans and .one Earth-human, were standing by the table to assist, as were, not quite as close, Mannen and a Nidian tutor. Before they entered, O’Mara put a hand against the Tralthan’s leathery flank.
“Wait,” he said worriedly. “How are you feeling?”
Softly, for a Tralthan, Thornnastor growled, “How should a person with a quadruple split personality feel? I think I’ll be all right”
O’Mara nodded and followed it inside; then he moved across the room to stand between Mannen and the other tutor.
“Recorders on?” said Thornnastor calmly. “Very well, I’ll begin. This is patient Murrenth, physiological classification DBLF, a shipboard technician in the Kelgian space service. It presented with internal injuries sustained as the result of being trapped briefly by shifting cargo, briefly because fellow crew members were able to rescue it within a few minutes. Initially it was thought that no serious trauma had occurred because the patient, perhaps for psychological reasons including the fact that the accident was partly its own fault, did not report any physical discomfort. Two days later it began losing fur mobility over the back and one side of the body. Its condition was reclassified to DBLF Emergency Three and it was rushed here.”
One of the Tralthan’s tentacles rose to pull down the scanner attached to the ceiling by a telescoping arm until it was positioned above the operative field. It curled an eye toward the wall-mounted diagnostic screen which was showing a massive enlargement of the scanner image.
“It was discovered that serious trauma had in fact occurred,” Thornnastor continued, “but too subtle for detection by the equipment available on the patient’s ship. The temporary pressure of the cargo that fell on Murrenth’s back and side caused a minor constriction of the blood flow through the capillary system in those areas. This caused micro-clots to form which reduced the blood supply to the delicate muscles and nerve network controlling fur mobility. The condition has been worsening, an immediate surgical intervention is indicated, and…”
“And the prognosis is lousy,” Mannen said softly to O’Mara. “I’m afraid this is going to be an examination for surgical technique, not for a successful result.”
“… care must be taken,” Thornnastor was saying, “to comb the fur carefully from both sides of the entry-wound position before making the incision. Each individual strand of fur is a delicate part of the body to which it belongs, and the possession of its living and undamaged fur has immense psychological and interpersonal social significance for the being concerned…”
What it was not saying, O’Mara knew, was that to any Kelgian even the slightest blemish on their beautiful, silvery body fur or the smallest area of restricted mobility was the ultimate physical disfigurement, one that caused them to withdraw voluntarily from all social contact with their fellows as if they had been old-time Earth-human lepers. The fur motions were a completely involuntary process that could not be halted or modified in any way. This meant that the deep, helpless sympathy and revulsion that a whole Kelgian felt for such a disfigured one could not be hidden either, so that withdrawing from society was the only option short of suicide.
The mind-tape donor, the brilliant and gifted Kelgian surgeon Marrasarah, whose physical beauty had been surpassed only by the brilliance of her mind and warmth of her personality, had been driven to resign a promising career because of fur damage. Almost certainly a similar fate awaited patient Murrenth, so it was no wonder that its Kelgian mind partner had affected Thornnastor’s own mind so deeply. In many respects the personalities of the patient and surgeon were the same – and, now that he was so intimately aware of Marrasarah’s mind, feelings, and personality, O’Mara was finding it difficult at times to think of her as an “it”.