Alien Emergencies - James White [136]
O’Mara was still in the ward, steadying himself in the close to zero-gravity conditions with a hand on an equipment rack while he and Prilicla watched the scene in the operating theater.
“Conway, stop that!” O’Mara said sharply.
He had tried not to react when he had seen the empath’s condition. But half his mind belonged to a Cinrusskin, a member of a species acknowledged to be the most sensitive and sympathetic intelligent life-form known to the Federation who was regarding a brother in extreme distress while the Earth-human half was feeling for a friend in the same condition, and it was difficult to be cool and clinical for both of them.
“I’m sorry,” he said inadequately.
“I know you are, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, turning toward him. “You should not have taken that tape.”
“He was warned,” O’Mara said gruffly, but his expression showed concern.
Conway was a member of an empathic race. All the memories and experience of his GLNO life were those of a normally healthy and happy empath, but now he was no longer an empath. He could see, hear, and touch Prilicla, but the faculty was missing which enabled him to share the other’s emotions and which subtly colored every word, gesture, and expression so that for two Cinrusskins to be within visual range was unalloyed pleasure for both. He could remember experiencing empathic contact, remember having the ability all his life, but now he was little more than a deaf-mute. What he was feeling from Prilicla so strongly was a product of his imagination: It was sympathy, not empathy.
His human brain did not possess the empathic faculty, and it was not bestowed by filling his mind with memories of having had it. But there were other memories as well, covering a lifetime’s experience of Cinrusskin clinical physiology, and these he could use.
“If you don’t mind, Doctor Prilicla,” Conway said with cool formality, “I would like to examine you.”
“Of course, friend Conway.” Prilicla’s uncontrollable shaking had diminished to a steady, continuous trembling, an indication that Conway’s emotional radiation was under control. “There are more symptoms, Doctor, which are causing severe discomfort.”
“I can see that,” Conway said as he gently moved aside one of the incredibly fragile wings to place his scanner against the empath’s thorax. “Describe them, please.”
In the two hours since Conway had last seen it, Prilicla had changed in ways which were individually subtle but cumulatively marked. There was a strange lack of animation and concentration in the large, triple-lidded eyes; the delicate structure which supported the wing membranes had softened and warped so that the translucent and iridescent membrane had fallen into unsightly folds and wrinkles; its four tiny, wonderfully precise manipulators, which should one day make it one of the finest surgeons in the hospital, were quivering in spite of being gripped tightly together, and the overall aspect was of a GLNO who was old and grievously ill.
While Conway continued the examination, the Cinrusskin part of his mind shared his bafflement at the findings and described symptoms. They were both sure, and in this their agreement was based on the GLNO tape donor’s personal experience and Conway’s knowledge acquired over many years in Sector General, that Prilicla was close to death.
The empath’s trembling increased sharply, then diminished as Conway once again forced a feeling of clinical detachment on himself. He said calmly, “There is no evidence of deformation, obstruction, lesion, or infection which might cause the symptoms you describe. Neither can I see any cause for the respiratory difficulty you are experiencing. Some degree of empathic hypersensitivity occurs in adolescents of your species, my Cinrusskin alter ego tells me, but in nothing like the intensity you describe. It is possible, I suppose, that there is a nonpathogenic and nontoxic involvement with the central nervous system.”
“You think it’s psychosomatic?” O’Mara said harshly, jabbing a finger