Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [29]
If they think they can soften me up by assigning me to someone they think I won't dare be rude to—he thought savagely, as the young man glided the Chair toward him. Conniving beggars—
"Professor Brogen?" said the ridiculously young, vulnerable-looking man, holding out his hand. "I'm Doctor Sorg."
"If you think I'm going to—" Brogen began, not reaching out to take it—then the name registered on him and he did a classic double-take. "Doctor Sorg? Doctor Uhua-Sorg?"
The young man nodded, just the barest trace of a smile showing on his lips.
"Doctor Kennet Uhua-Sorg?" Brogen asked, feeling as if he'd been set up, yet knowing he had set up himself for this particular fall.
"Yes indeed," the young man replied. "I take it that you weren't—ah—expecting me to meet you in person."
A chance for an out—not a graceful one, but an out—and Brogen took it. "Hardly," he replied brusquely. "The Chief of Neurosurgery and Neurological Research usually does not meet a simple professor on behalf of an ordinary child."
"Tia is far from ordinary, Professor," Doctor Sorg responded, never once losing that hint of smile. "Any more than you are a 'simple' professor. But, if you'll follow me, you'll find out about Tia for yourself."
* * *
Well, he's right about one thing, Brogen thought grudgingly, after an hour spent in Tia's company while hordes of interns and specialists pestered, poked and prodded her. She's not ordinary. Any "ordinary" child would be having a screaming tantrum by now. She was an extraordinarily attractive child as well as a patient one; her dark hair had been cropped short to keep it out of the way, but her thin, pixie-like face and big eyes made her look like the model for a Victorian fairy. A fairy trapped in a fist of metal . . . tormented and teased by a swarm of wasps.
"How much longer is this going to go on?" he asked Kennet Sorg in an irritated whisper.
Kennet raised one eyebrow. "That's for you to say," he replied. "You are here to evaluate her. If you want more time alone with her, you have only to say the word. This is her second session for the day, by the way," he added, and Brogen could have sworn there was a hint of—smugness?—in his voice. "She played host to another swarm this morning, between nine and noon."
Now Brogen was outraged, but on the child's behalf. Kennet Sorg must have read that in his expression, for he turned his chair towards the cluster of white-uniformed interns, cleared his throat, and got their instant attention.
"That will be all for today," he said quietly. "If you please, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Brogen would like to have some time with Tia alone."
There were looks of disappointment and some even of disgust cast Brogen's way, but he ignored them. The child, at least, looked relieved.
Before he could say anything to Kennet Sorg, he realized that the doctor had followed the others out the door, which was closing behind his chair, leaving Brogen alone with the child. He cleared his own throat awkwardly.
The little girl looked at him with a most peculiar expression in her eyes. Not fear, but wariness.
"You're not a Psych, are you?" she asked.
"Well—no," he said. "Not exactly. I'll probably ask some of the same questions, though."
She sighed, and closed her blue eyes for a moment. "I'm very tired of having my head shrunk," she replied forthrightly. "Very, very tired. And it isn't going to make any difference at all in the way I think, anyway. It isn't fair, but this—" she bobbed her chin at her chair "—isn't going to go away because it isn't fair. Right?"
"Sad, but true, my dear." He began to relax, and realized why. Kennet Sorg was right. This was no ordinary child; talking with her was not like talking to a child—but it was like talking to one of the kids in the shell program. "So—how about if we chat about something else entirely. Do you know any shellpersons?"
She gave him an odd look. "They must not have told you very much about me," she said. "Either that, or you didn't pay very much attention.