It hesitated for a moment, and he was able to detect distant feelings of embarrassment mixed with determination as it went on. “To me the most urgent priority here is the gathering of information, knowledge that could be of vital importance to a great many beings throughout the Federation. After all, your patients were intent on killing themselves, so restoring one of them to a condition in which he can tell us why is …”
“Friend Fletcher,” Prilicla broke in gently, “your words are giving rise to intense feelings of disagreement and anger which the medical team is trying hard not to verbalize, and in the present circumstances those words are an unwanted distraction. The clinical condition of the three casualties is critical but stable, and it is possible that they may not survive, much less regain consciousness.”
“In that case,” the captain said, “why not bring one of them round in case they die before they can give us the information we need? It will be tough on the person concerned, but they are Monitor Corps, after all, and would be the first to understand the priorities in this situation.”
For a long moment Prilicla tried hard to reduce the tremor that the other’s suggestion had caused in his limbs, but succeeded only in keeping his operating hands steady. Finally he spoke.
“We will discuss this matter at a more convenient time,” he said, without his customary politeness. “You may continue to observe, but you will refrain from making any further suggestions until the procedure has been completed.”
The captain remained silent but watchful during the remainder of the operation, and the additional surgery needed on the other two casualties. Prilicla assumed that the other was breathing through its nasal openings because never before had he seen Earth-human lips pressed so tightly and continuously together. But when it was obvious to the layest of laypersons, which the captain was not, that the procedures on all three patients was completed, it spoke again.
Dr. Prilicla,” said the captain, “we must have a serious talk as soon as possible after—”
“Captain Fletcher!” Murchison broke in, its words calm and cold and quiet, although the feelings that accompanied them shared none of those qualities. “Dr. Prilicla has been operating here for nearly two hours, to which must be added its rescue time on Terragar. By now a space officer in your position must be aware of the physical limitations of the GLNO life-form, including its lack of stamina which requires that it rest frequently and often. We’re all tired right now, and not just the boss …”
It broke off as the captain raised a hand for silence and said sharply, “I’m well aware of my senior medical officer’s requirements, and I had been about to say that we must talk very seriously as soon as possible after it has rested. It may well be that the situation we have here transcends any considerations of medical ethics. Sleep well, Doctor.”
After a final check of the patients’ monitors, Murchison, Naydrad, and himself retired, leaving Danalta on watch. In the shape-changer’s utterly savage home-planet environment, all life-forms who required regular periods of unconsciousness to recharge their organic batteries had not survived their unsleeping natural enemies to develop intelligence, so remaining awake was no hardship for it. In the present situation it extruded an eye and a large, sensitive ear which it kept trained on the patient monitors. There were times when Prilicla almost envied the unsleeping Danalta, but not often, because normally he needed and welcomed those periods of non-thinking and non-feeling when he did not have to empathize with anything or anybody.
When Cinrusskins slept, there was an external sensory shutdown. Neither loud noises nor bright lights nor the most acrid of smells would awaken them. Only a sharp, physical stimulus or the close presence of a source of danger, a legacy of his own prehistoric past, could do that. Even Cinrusskin dreams were brief, being nothing more than a few subjective seconds of bright, confused imagery from the recently experienced past or, as some of the more unorthodox Healers of the Mind argued, from possible futures. They were nothing more than the steeply shelving shallows at each end of a journey across the ocean of sleep.