James White - Mind Changer

“Sir,” said Braithwaite, “this matter is serious. And it may be urgent.”

O’Mara continued to stare at Braithwaite’s face for a moment, while the other stared unblinkingly at his, which was very unusual behavior for the lieutenant. “Tell me exactly what help you need, begining with mine.”

Braithwaite gave a relieved sigh, then went on quickly, “First I’d like you to open Cerdal’s psych profile to me, or better yet, discuss its contents. From its initial job interview and during a few later conversations with it, I formed the opinion that it was a stable, well-integrated, if a trifle self-important, personality…

“You mean bigheaded,” said O’Mara.

… who would have no difficulty adapting to the multiplicity of life-forms we have here,” the other went on. “Over the past few days, since I assigned patient Tunneckis to it at its own request, Cerdal has displayed a marked change in its professional and social behavior, and there are clear indications of a worsening case of xenophobia. This behavior seems to me to be totally uncharacteristic in the entity I thought I knew. I made discreet inquiries and discovered that the people with whom it had had recent contact also noticed a change for the worse in its behavior, so much so that some of them have come to dislike it so much that they can barely bring themselves to speak to it anymore, and they, too, are exhibiting xenophobic behavior, of a lower intensity.

“I know that a mental abnormality isn’t contagious,” Braithwaite went on quickly, “whether it stems from patient Tunneckis or Dr. Cerdal. But Tunneckis is the one common factor in all this because Cerdal, and to a lesser extent the people associated with the patient’s post-op medical care, are the only ones affected. Ridicubus as the idea sounds, the mental-contagion theory has to be eliminated from the investigation before I clutch at some other stupid straw.”

The lieutenant took a deep breath and continued, “There could be a simple explanation for this behavior if Tunneckis bears a physical resemblance to something or someone in its past life about which Cerdal has a deeply buried phobia or if, during the course of Cerdal’s therapy, the patient has revealed something about itself that triggered this extreme phobic reaction. That’s why I wanted to look at its psych profile.”

O’Mara nodded, tapped keys on his console, then swung the screen around so that they both could read it.

“Move closer, Lieutenant,” he said, “and be my guest.”

Without appearing to do so, he was studying the information on the screen as intently as Braithwaite was doing. When they were finished the other sighed, sat back, and shook his head. O’Mara allowed a little sympathy to enter his voice.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said, “this is the profile of a person who is in all respects sane, well-adjusted, and completely lacking in xenophobic tendencies.”

Braithwaite shook his head again, stubbornly. “But, sir, that isn’t the profile of Cerdal as it is now. That’s why I need Prilicla to do an emotional-radiation reading on everyone concerned, beginfling with Cerdal and Tunneckis. And I want to know the details of what was done to the patient and, if there was any chance that the procedure was likely to cause more than the simple post-op depression, why we weren’t told about it. I’ve learned that the procedure involved some very delicate work and that Thornnastor and Conway insisted on doing it themselves. I feel sure something is badly wrong here, but I don’t know what exactly. Our two top diagnosticians are in the habit of coming up with answers to some very strange questions and maybe they’ll do it again, if only it is to tell me that I’m making a fool of myself…

He hesitated and for a moment the old, self-effacing Braithwaite returned as he added,”… which I probably am?

“Possibly you are, Lieutenant, not probably,” said O’Mara. He swung the screen around to face him again, hit the communications key for the outer office, and went on briskly, “Get Thornnastor, Conway, and Priicla up here at once… No, hold while I rephrase that…? In an undertone to Braithwaite he said, “Dammit, Lieutenant, I keep forgetting my new eminence and the need for politeness and fake humility that is supposed to go with the job.” In a conversational tone he resumed, “Please locate and contact Diagnosticians Thornnastor and Conway and Senior Physician Prilicla, give them my compliments and tell them that their presence is required urgently in Administrator O’Mara’s office?

Braithwaite smiled. “Sir,” he said, “I couldn’t have worded that better myself.”

O’Mara ignored the compliment and added, “You stay where you are, Lieutenant. I don’t want to sound bike a fool to those three by relaying your suspicions to them secondhand. I know you don’t know what is going on, but before they arrive I want you to tell me what the hell you think is going on.”

The world was known as Kerm in the language of its inhabitants, which was their spoken and written word for “world”. They didn’t often use those forms of communication, but their telepathic range was restricted to their own-planet species and did not extend to joining with the minds of the members of the startraveling other-worlders who made contact with them, including those of the Monitor Corps who asked and were granted permission to establish a cultural-study facility on their planet. While agreeing to its presence, they insisted that it be sited in an uninhabited area because, regardless of the species concerned, they received the closer-range thoughts of its personnel as a constant and distressing barrage of mental static. As a result the base was maintained in a state of voluntary mental quarantine and all messages between them were exchanged via sound or vision communicators.

Physiologically the Kermi were classification VBGM, the V prefix indicating the telepathic faculty in an otherwise unexceptional warm-blooded oxygen-breathing life-form. Their body mass was similar to that of an average Earth-human but that, apart from a high degree of intelligence, was all that they had in common. Visually they resembled large, dark-brown slugs whose means of locomotion was a wide apron of muscle attached to the underside rather than legs. A cluster of three short tentacles, each terminating in four digits, grew from the tops of their heads. They were totally lacking in natural weapons of attack or defense.

The species had climbed to the top of the evolutionary tree by using their telepathic faculty alone, either to avoid danger or to cause the danger, in the shape of natural enemies, to avoid them. Too weak to fight and too slow to run, they learned how to control the minds of any predators who posed an imminent threat to either turn the predators against one another or to disappear from the attackers’ mental and sensory map. In time they widened the process by making use of these lesser life-forms to work for them and to maintain a balanced planetary ecology of flora and fauna and, ultimately, to give their nonsapient brothers who had helped them to develop their present civilization the protection they had earned and deserved.

There was a moment’s silence in the room while Diagnostician Conway, who had been giving the potted history of the Kerma culture, paused to look around at O’Mara, Braithwaite, Thornnastor, Prilicla, and back to O’Mara. When he went on there was a hint of embarrassment in his tone.

“Medical science on Kerm is pretty basic” he said, “and when a life-threatening condition arises with no possibility of a cure, there is nothing much that their doctors can do beyond giving mental solace. In a telepathic culture, remember, there can be no secrets between doctor and patient and this includes not only the bad news but the complete sharing of the associated pain. In this they are like the Telfi VTXMs and, like them, the being who is terminating will voluntarily withdraw itself and its mental and physical pain beyond the telepathic range of its friends so that they will not share its dying anguish.