Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [78]
“Yes, Doctor.” As much as anyone could understand the impossible, she thought.
“He wants you to stay. Or he might have meant something else when he whispered ‘Don’t’ to you. We don’t know yet. We don’t know anything. No one knows except him.” Turning, he gazed speculatively at the figure in the bed. “His reactiveness tonight might have been a one-time fluke. Or it might be the harbinger of future stirrings. We can’t take any chances with this man. He might be nothing important. Or he might be able to manage only another sentence or two. They might be sentences twenty billion humans are waiting to hear.” He took a step back from her.
“Until we know what he meant when he said ‘Don’t’ to you, you are to stay with him. Continue with your usual duties. Bathe him, check his hydration and nutrients and medicine drip. Stay close.” His tone softened. “I know you’re not a statue, not a machine. You can use the room’s tridee. Whatever you want to make you as personally comfortable as possible will be sent in. The room monitors will remain on, recording twenty-four hours a day just as they have been for more than a month, so you don’t have to worry about missing something of significance. If one of his eyelids twitches, it will be noted and recorded.”
“What—” She tried to gather herself, to make sense of everything that had happened in the past few frenetic minutes. “—what else should I do?”
Reaching out to her, Chimbu gently squeezed her shoulder. “Be here. For him. If he wants to whisper, you listen. If he wants to converse, you talk.”
She nodded. “Do you want me…Do you want me to ask him about Treetrunk?”
The doctor considered. “No. The important thing right now is to encourage any progress in his condition. I’m still the Chief of Staff here, and I’ll shield you. From the government, from the military. So will my colleagues. If he speaks, let him talk about whatever he wants. If he improves enough, we’ll consider putting questions to him later. In the meantime his health is the most important thing. Don’t worry—if he lets something important or relevant slip, it will be recorded.” He released her shoulder.
Around them, curative instrumentation and devices hummed and clicked softly. On the bed, a single figure lay unmoving. Tse and Chimbu contemplated it together.
“Is there anything else, Doctor?”
“Yes,” Chimbu murmured. “If the opportunity arises, be kind to him. He needs it.”
12
Having heard only one word in the course of one month, Tse did not expect tirades to spill from the mouth of the afflicted. But she was surprised when, upon awakening on the morning of the fourth day after being moved into the room, she sat up rubbing sleep from her eyes to find Alwyn Mallory staring at her.
Nothing else had changed; nothing in the room had been disturbed, though she knew that down in Central doctors and other important people must by now be glued to viewscreens in response to the patient’s action. It must be demanding a tremendous effort on their part, she reflected as she turned and slid her legs off the inflatable bed, for them to stay out of the room.
Not only was he staring at her, he had raised his head slightly to get a better look. Now it fell back, the inches it had inclined forward proving too much for the man’s weakened muscles to sustain.
“Don’t stress yourself,” she heard herself saying to him. “I’ll come over there.” Aware that monitors were everywhere, including the bathroom, she simply slipped out of the sleeping gauze and into her uniform.
By the time she sat down in the chair that had been placed by the right side of the bed, he had ignored her advice to remain still and had turned his head to face her. Then he smiled. So brightly unexpected was it, so warm and full of thanks, of the simple joy of being alive, that this time it was her own eye she found herself daubing at.
“Well, that’s better.” It was all she could think of to