Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [37]
Like now.
Jos had been staring at the floor; now he looked up and met Merit’s eyes again. They were large for the fur-covered face, slate gray in color; an Equani’s eye pig-mentation always matched his fur, Jos had read in one of the many medicrons he’d had to study while a resi-dent. And right now they were fixed on him.
"Explore, for a minute, your feelings for Tolk," he said gently.
Jos leaned back, and the formchair obediently flowed, like warm mercury, into a new configuration to accom-modate him. Of course, Jos thought; it has to be able to adapt comfortably to any species. Even Hutts, proba-bly. He suppressed a shudder at the thought.
I sure hope someone wipes it down afterward...
"Jos," Merit said. His voice was quiet and noninsis-tent, but somehow it penetrated the surgeon’s thoughts like a particle beam. "You’re not trying very hard," the minder continued.
"You’re right. Sorry."
"It’s your time," Merit said. "You’re allotted one hour a week to get things off your chest-or to ’up-chuck gizzard trichobezoars,’ as the Toydarians so col-orfully put it. How you spend that time is up to you. You can talk to me-in which case I might be able to help you work through some things-or you can sit there and enjoy the furniture."
Jos grinned. "All right, Klo. I guess I’m going to talk about things whether I want to or not."
The minder smiled. "It’s always hardest to help your-self." He waited a moment, then prodded gently, "About Tolk...?"
Jos sighed. "It’s like I just noticed her yesterday. Be-fore that, she was just another pair of hands at the table-smart, don’t get me wrong, she’s an excellent nurse-but no more than that. Outside the room, she was someone to have a drink with, someone to com-plain about this pit of a planet with..."
"And now?"
"Now she’s... more. But she can’t be."
Merit said nothing, but his expression said, Go on. So Jos explained briefly about the beliefs of his family and his clan, about how he couldn’t flout them by mar-rying an esker.
"They’re your family’s beliefs," Merit said. "But are they your beliefs?"
Jos opened his mouth, then closed it. He was making an honest effort to find the answer to that question, but his mind was having none of it. He found himself think-ing about the formchair again. Wonder how much one costs...
After another fairly fruitless ten minutes, Merit glanced at the chrono and said, "We have to stop."
Jos felt relieved, and then felt irritated at himself for feeling relieved. "I guess I’m just not a very introspec-tive sort," he told Merit at the door. "My family and clan are big on tradition, not communication. My dad’s idea of a revealing moment is forgetting to lock the ’fresher."
"All you need to know about yourself is in you," the minder replied. "You may have to dig a little deeper and a little harder, but it’s there."
"Maybe the Padawan could help me," Jos mused. "Can’t Jedi read minds, that kind of thing?"
"I wouldn’t know. The Equani species is-was-by nature rather resistant to the powers of the Jedi. But I think you need to find your own answers instead of looking to others for them."
The multiple-repulsor drone of incoming medlifters filtered into Barriss’s sleep, and the siren that sounded almost immediately afterward meant that everybody within earshot needed to get to the OT. Now.
She dressed hurriedly and headed for the triage area. It was only twenty meters from her cubicle, but the hu-midity was so high today, she felt that she was wading through a pool of heated fleek oil.
When she got to the building, she stopped, momen-tarily unable to believe her eyes.
Thirty-five or forty wounded troopers lay on stretchers, on gurneys, on the floor itself, being tended by doctors, nurses, droids, techs-anybody, in short, who could help.