Alien Emergencies - James White [130]
Not that anyone would have wanted to hurt the little being—it was far too well liked. The Cinrusskin’s empathic faculty forced it to be considerate to everyone in order to make the emotional radiation of the people around it as pleasant for itself as possible—except when its professional duties exposed it to pain and associated violent emotion in a patient or to the unintentionally unpleasant feelings of its colleagues.
“You should be sleeping, Prilicla,” Conway said with concern, “or are Murchison and Naydrad emoting too loudly for you?”
“No, friend Conway,” the empath replied timidly. “Their emotional radiation troubles me no more than that of the other people on the ship. I came for a consultation.”
“Good!” Conway said. “You’ve had some useful thoughts on the treatment of our—”
“I wish to consult you about myself,” Prilicla said, committing the—to it—gross impoliteness of breaking in on another’s conversation without prior apology. For a moment its pipestem legs and body shook with the strength of Conway’s reaction, then it added, “Please, my friend, control your feelings.”
Conway tried to be clinical about the little Cinrusskin who had been his friend, colleague, and invaluable assistant on virtually every major case since his promotion to Senior Physician. His sudden concern and unadmitted fear of the possible loss of a close friend were not helping that friend and were, in fact, causing it even greater distress. He tried hard to think of Prilicla as a patient, only as a patient, and slowly the empath’s trembling abated.
“What,” Conway said in time-honored fashion, “seems to be the trouble?”
“I do not know,” the Cinrusskin said. “I have no previous experience and there are no recorded instances of the condition among my species. I am confused, friend Conway, and frightened.”
“Symptoms?” Conway asked.
“Empathic hypersensitivity,” Prilicla replied. “The emotional radiation of yourself, the rest of the medical team, and the crew is particularly strong. I can clearly detect the feelings of Lieutenant Chen in the Power Room and those of the rest of the crew in Control with little or no attenuation with distance. The expected, low-key feelings of disappointment and sorrow caused by the unsuccessful rescue bid are reaching me with shocking intensity. We have encountered these tragedies before now, friend Conway, but this emotional reaction to the condition of a being who is a complete stranger is—is—”
“We do feel bad about this one,” Conway broke in gently, “perhaps worse than we normally do, and the feelings are cumulative. And you, as an emotion-sensitive, could be expected to feel them much more strongly. This might explain your apparent hypersensitivity.”
The empath trembled with the effort needed to express disagreement. It said, “No, friend Conway. The condition and emotional radiation of the EGCL, highly unpleasant though it is, is not the problem. It is the ordinary, everyday radiation of everyone else—the minor embarrassments, the bursts of irritation, the odd emotions associated with the feeling you Earth-humans call humor and the like, are registering so strongly with me that I find difficulty in thinking clearly.”
“I see,” Conway said automatically, although he could not see at all. “Apart from the hypersensitivity, are there any other symptoms?”
“Some unlocalized discomfort in the limbs and lower thorax,” Prilicla replied. “I checked the areas with my scanner but could find no obstructions or abnormalities.”
Conway had been reaching for his own pocket scanner but thought better of it. Without taking a Cinrusskin physiology tape he would have only a vague idea of what to look for, and besides, Prilicla was a first-class Diagnostician and surgeon and if it said that there were no abnormalities then that was good enough for Conway.
“Cinrusskins are susceptible to illness only during childhood,” Prilicla went on. “The adults do occasionally suffer from nonphysical