Prilicla caught a brief, complex burst of emotion whose meaning was unmistakable, composed as it was of the strange combination of yearning, tenderness, and a feeling of grief over the impending loss of someone with whom one was deeply and emotionally involved. They were the feelings, he felt sure, of and for a life-mate.
“Believe me,” said Prilicla, “you will be together again soon.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Irisik, “or anything else that you or the other meat gatherers say to me.”
“I understand,” said Prilicla, “so I shall instruct my meat gatherers, as you insist on calling them, not to speak to you at all. You and the other sources of meat may talk to each other if and when either of you wish. The charge nurse will continue to administer food, medication, and to periodically check on your condition and that of the others, but without speaking to you…”
“Good,” said Naydrad, rippling its fur. “I hate being called a liar, especially when my people don’t even know what a lie is.”
“… until, that is,” he ended, “you ask to speak to us. All other members of the medical staff including myself will leave you now.”
Irisik was radiating surprise, confusion, and uncertainty. It said, “I know you aren’t telling the truth, but your lies are interesting and I want to listen to more of them before I am killed. Please stay.”
“No,” said Prilicla firmly. “Until you believe that you are being told the truth, including the truth that we mean no harm to you, your people, or your world and the animal life here, we will not speak again. And remember, I know exactly how you are feeling about everything from moment to moment, and it is impossible to lie with the emotions. When I feel that you are ready to believe me, I shall speak with you again.”
He led Murchison and Danalta into the communications room where Fletcher, displaying the symptoms of Earth-human elevated blood pressure, was glaring at them from the viewscreen. His two assistants were bursting to speak, but the captain got its question in first.
“Doctor,” it said, “this is an unnecessary waste of time. I know the feelings of a person of your medical seniority and emotional sensitivity must be hurt at being treated as a liar. You wouldn’t be human—I’m sorry, I mean Cinrusskin—if you didn’t feel angry about that six-legged doubting Thomas. But I’m sure that with a little more patience and forbearance on your part you will be able to convince it that…”
“I know its present feelings, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla broke in, “well enough to know that I won’t be able to change them. It is a strong-minded, stubborn entity who considers itself to be one of the many victims around it who are shortly to be terminated and eaten. It won’t believe us, but hopefully our other so-called victims will be able to disabuse it and the other spider patients of that idea.”
“Very quickly, I hope,” Fletcher said, its features losing some of their high color. “If there is a sustained attack lasting more than thirty-six hours, the screen will go down. Before then we will have to make a main-drive takeoff and crisp a few hundred spiders. That is not the Federation’s idea of making friendly contact with another intelligent, if temporarily misguided, species. All our careers are on the line here, apart from the psychological trauma we’ll suffer if things go that badly wrong.”
“Yes, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla, feeling the other’s tortured, emotional radiation all the way from the ship and trying to do something about it. “But there is a precedent. This is on a smaller, less bloody scale, but remember what happened when Sector General was caught in the middle of the Federation-Etlan War. Due to massive overcrowding the casualties from both sides were treated in the same ward. There is a close similarity to our present situation.”
“Is there,” said the captain, its mind obviously contemplating a future where all was desolation. Irritably it added, “I wasn’t there, Doctor, and it wasn’t a war. It was a large-scale police action.”
Prilicla well remembered that vicious and incredibly violent battle which had been waged around Sector General, when six of the Federation’s sector subfleets including three of its capital ships had opposed a much heavier force from the Etlan Empire, whose ruler had fed his people totally wrong information about the other side. He didn’t want to argue with the captain who, like the rest of its Monitor Corps colleagues, were touchy about the fact that their organization comprised the greatest assemblage of military might that the galaxy had ever known.