James White - Mind Changer

O’Mara closed it without speaking. He was too surprised and pleased to have anything to say.

Craythorne stood up, leaned across his desk, shook his hand firmly, and said, “I know how you hate these embarrassing formalities, but this is probably the last chance I’ll have to tell you exactly what I think of you, which is a lot. My warmest congratulations, O’Mara. The promotion is well deserved and, when the Corps submitted a list of several other possible candidates, the hospital’s seniors would accept nobody but you…?

He walked around his desk, still shaking O’Mara’s hand and letting go of it only to point at his vacant chair.

“Sit down,” he ended, “while it’s still warm.”

The biggest problem during the first few weeks following Major Craythorne’s departure and the installation of Lieutenant Braithwaite was remembering that he was supposed to sit in that chair instead of being sent all over the hospital to talk to and assess troubled staff members who just might become the department’s patients. Now Lieutenant O’Mara wasn’t sent to deal with them because, unless they were biting their tails or otherwise throwing emotional fits all over their wards, they had to make appointments to see the newly promoted Major O’Mara. A large part of the problem was convincing himself that he was now Sector General’s chief psychologist and acting the part because he just could not learn, never in a thousand years, to behave like his predecessor.

O’Mara had tried very hard. He had forced himself to smile at people more often, a strange and uncomfortable process for facial muscles unused to that form of exercise, and he felt sure that anyone capable of reading his expression would think that he was projecting the worst kind of insincerity, that of trying to act like the diplomat he most definitely was not, or that he was unsure of himself, unhappy with his new responsibility, or, worst of all, that he was unable to do his job. That was not so. He was fully capable of doing the job, provided he could do it his own way.

Trying to say one thing while meaning another had never come easy to him, and with the totally open and honest personality of Marrasarah sharing his mind, diplomacy was next to impossible. The people in the hospital, regardless of their species, social graces, or the kind of personal feelings they held toward him, would have to be told that. Fortunately, O’Mara thought as he summoned his staff to the inner office, he no longer had to tell them in person.

He looked up at them through lowered brows as they filed in to stand in front of his desk, the frail, old, and gentle Padre Lioren and the eager, fresh-faced, and impeccably uniformed Braithwaite, who constantly reminded O’Mara of his former chief except that the lieutenant had more and darker hair. Presumably their consciences were clear, because neither of them looked ill at ease, just warily expectant. In Other-Species Psychology one learned to expect the worst.

“Relax,” he said, “I am about to impart information, not add to your workload. And stand. You won’t be here long enough to warrant the expenditure of energy sitting down and getting up again.”

He placed his hard, callused hands fiat on the desk for a moment before looking up, then went on, “As a person my predecessor, Major Craythorne, was known throughout the hospital as a kind, gentle, and very approachable man. I am none of those things. For the past few weeks since he left us I have been trying to emulate him and, judging by the reactions I had to this new, softspoken, and polite O’Mara, totally without success. So I’ve decided to stop trying.

“I shall, of course,” he went on, “continue to treat my share of the patients, or rather the emotionally distressed doctors, nurses, and maintenance personnel who may become our patients, as and when necessary. These cases I shall handle with the degree of sensitivity and expertise required. I am, as you know, very good at this job. But I shall not, repeat not, try to be nice to people, regardless of their species or rank, unless I consider their particular condition warrants a soft approach. The old, nasty O’Mara is back. Is that understood?”

The padre nodded and said, “Good.” Braithwaite’s nod was more hesitant. As the new boy he hadn’t had the opportunity of meeting the old, nasty O’Mara and was worrying about what the future might hold.

“Since I have the rank,” he went on, “it seems a pity not to abuse it. My behavior toward patients will be as their conditions warrant. With the medical and maintenance staff, my friends if any, working colleagues, and those others I consider to be mentally healthy or at least quasi-normal, I reserve the right to relax and be my nasty, sarcastic, infuriating self.

“I know how much work you have out there waiting for attention” he added. “Standing there gaping at me isn’t getting it done.”

As they were leaving, O’Mara overheard the padre saying softly, “Relax, Lieutenant, he thinks we’re quasi-normal. Don’t you know a professional compliment when you hear one?”

O’Mara continued paying the same form of professional compliment and, thanks to the padre and Braithwaite talking freely about their chief, the people with whom he came into contact became more relaxed and even pleased in inverse proportion ~3 his degree of nastiness. His subordinates had done a good job of convincing everyone that, psychologically speaking, black was white. Only the seriously distressed personnel got as far as his inner office, his staff were fond of telling each other when he was within earshot, because the less troubled people preferred to trust themselves to the friendlier padre or Braithwaite-if they didn’t have second thoughts and decide to solve their problems themselves. Which was fine by O’Mara, because he had always held that in the long term self-help was the best kind.

As the weeks and months passed into years, O’Mara grew accustomed to his new rank, mostly by completely ignoring it and treating the higher and lower ranks as if they were the same. He saved the increased salary and duly took all of the leave to which a major was entitled, although sometimes he returned saddened and angry rather than relaxed. But Iron Man O’Mara, as rumor had it, was capable of suffering nothing less than metal fatigue, so he was not supposed to have emotional problems. If anyone out of polite curiosity asked where he had been or whether or not he had enjoyed himself there, he told them nothing in such a way that they never asked him again.

But there were times when he could not be impolite even with those people he admired and thought of as the closest thing he had to friends. Thornnastor-who had been appointed diagnosticianin-charge of Pathology, although it preferred to keep its subjects alive and advise on their cure rather than dissect them postmortem-had many problems. They were not its own because, in spite of its mind carrying six different other-species Educator tapes, it was the most intelligent and emotionally stable entity in the hospital. But it had to discuss the emotional upsets, interstaff conflicts, and possible xenophobic reactions within its department’s widening sphere of influence, as well as requesting psychiatric support with patients whose conditions included a psychological component. And there was Senior Tutor Mannen (whose other-species students insisted that he and his dog had a symbiotic relationship), who worried continually about the mental health and professional future of his charges. Mannen was especially concerned, as was O’Mara himself, about a male and a female Earth-human, both of whom were exemplary students with bright futures in other-species medicixie ahead of them. It was small consolation that the trouble they might cause themselves, their colleagues, and the succession of less brilliant superiors they would encounter on their climb to medical eminence would not be their own fault.