The image showing the site of Tunneckis’s telepathic faculty remained steady on the wall screen, but the conversation of the operating team discussing it became so densely technical that O’Mara found it difficult to follow even with both his minds. He was glad when the regrown crystals in their growth medium arrived and were injected slowly into the cerebral fluid.
It was obvious even to O’Mara that there were problems.
The newly introduced crystals refused to attach themselves to stalks. Conway stepped up the magnification several times and, sweating in his effort to make minimal movements, tried to use his micro instruments to nudge and hold them together, in vain. The emotional radiation in the room was so intense that Prilicla, trembling in every limb, was forced to land. Finally Conway shook his head, regained enough control over his feelings for the empath to stop trembling, and looked up.
“The receptor cups on the stalks appear to fit the new crystals,” he said calmly, “which means that either the reproduction of the new crystals or the fluid in which they were grown was at fault, or both, so that they are either rejecting or temporarily ignoring the stalks. I’m hoping, in fact I’m being hopelessly optimistic, that it is the latter and that the joining process simply requires more time. That being the case, and unless anyone has any other ideas, I suggest we withdraw at once in the hope that the patient, as so many of them do, proceeds to heal itself.”
There was total silence in O’Mara’s office as Conway switched off the wall screen before turning to face them again.
“The rest of this is simply the op debriefing and my general instructions to the medical staff of the recuperation ward,” he went on, “and frankly I dislike listening to myself making excuses. Patient Tunneckis did not recover. In addition it has become emotionally disturbed to the stage where psychiatric assistance was requested. It’s gratifying to belong to a hospital with the reputation of doing the medically impossible, but, regrettably, we can’t do it all the time. Patient Tunneckis, I’m afraid, remains as it was, telepathically deaf and dumb.”
Conway silently resumed his seat and the silence lengthened.
Thornnastor and Prilicla joined the others in saying nothing. O’Mara was totally surprised and very pleased when it was the usually quiet and self-effacing Lieutenant Braithwaite who broke the silence.
“Diagnostician Conway,” he said politely, “I completely disagree.”
CHAPTER 29
Conway, Thornnastor, Prilicla, and O’Mara turned their total open eyes on the lieutenant, who kept his fixed unwaveringly on Conway. He spoke again before the other could react.
“There is evidence to suggest,” Braithwaite continued, respectfully but firmly, “that your patient is making some form of protective telepathic contact with the members of several different species, specifically those belonging to the medical staff who have been or are attending it. So far as I can gather from their reported conversations with the patient, Tunneckis and they are completely unaware of what is happening.”
Conway looked quickly toward O’Mara, then back to Braithwaite. He smiled and said, “Has your chief made you aware of the brain-itch phenomenon, Lieutenant? It’s very rare, but I’ve experienced it a few times myself around telepaths. It’s a temporary irritation, not a physical or mental health risk.”
Braithwaite nodded. “I’m aware of it, sir. It occurs when a member of a species who is not normally telepathic but whose distant ancestors possessed the gene for a telepathic faculty, and evolved speech and hearing instead, encounters a transmission that its long-atrophied receiver cannot process. The result, if they feel anything at all, is an unlocalized itching deep inside both ears. Occasionally, as happened with you, a complete telepathic mind-picture is received which fades within seconds. The effect with Tunneckis is more insidious and, I believe, dangerous.”
“Since you took part in the operation,” he went on, looking briefly toward Prilicla and Thornnastor, “are any of you aware of uncharacteristic changes in your behavior or thought patterns, however small? Do any of you find yourselves feeling unusual levels of irritation toward other-species colleagues or subordinate staff? Are you worried about what they might do to you someday? Do you find yourselves wishing you had own-species assistants rather than a bunch of weird aliens who…”