James White - Final Diagnosis

“Any what?” said Hewlitt.

“Table manners,” said the Padre. “Nobody will care about your method of ingestion, nor will they mind if you deliberately avoid looking at a table companion to whom you are talking in order to avoid seeing the disgusting messes some of us push into our mouths.

“And now, Patient Hewlitt,” it ended, “we have work to do as well as food to eat.

On Rhabwar he had watched Prilicla weave strands of Earth spaghetti, its favorite non-Cinrusskin dish, into lengths of slim, yellow cable that it had drawn into its tiny mouth while hovering above its platter; and Naydrad, who did not use its hands while eating but buried half of its narrow, conical head in the shredded, oily green stuff it preferred until the bowl was empty; and even the shape-changer, Danalta, who sat on top of or leaned against anything it wished to digest until only the desiccated, inedible remains were left. And earlier he had shared Ward Seven’s dining table with Bowab, Horrantor, and Morredeth. The result, he was pleased to discover, was that he was able to watch the Padre refueling without the slightest trace of abdominal discomfort.

Lioren ate using the fingers of two of its upper, manipulatory appendages, with the tiny hands encased in a pair of silvered, disposable gloves that had arrived, like Hewlitt’s knife and fork, in the utensils pack on its food dispenser tray. The Padre was precise and almost dainty in its movements as the food was lifted to its eating orifice, and the lumps of brown and yellow spongy material being consumed were too strange for Hewlitt to imagine what they might be or to feel repelled by them.

He hoped that the reverse also held true, because his synthesized steak was very good. There was no way of knowing; Lioren had not spoken since they had entered the dining hall.

“We’ve eaten,” said Hewlitt with a glance toward the nearby entrance, where a group of Kelgians intending to dine was dividing around the massive form of a Tralthan who was just leaving, “but so far we haven’t been working. Or did you feel something from somebody that I missed?”

“No,” Lioren replied, and resumed eating.

It sounded irritated and impatient. More than two hundred staff members had walked, slithered, wriggled, or lumbered past their table since they had begun the meal. Like himself, the other might have been beginning to wonder if their ability to detect former virus hosts was mostly imagination or self-delusion.

“Perhaps the feeling, immaterial bond, or whatever it is works only between Tarlans, Earth-humans, and cats who are already well acquainted with each other,” he said, when the silence lengthened, “and we don’t know any of these people well enough for the beforeand-after difference to register. Do you think we’re wasting our time here?”

“No,” said Lioren again. It took a moment to clear its plate, then went on, “The staff duty rosters are arranged so that the dining hail will not, in spite of what your eyes and ears are telling you, be overcrowded. But at any given time there is less than five percent of the warm-blooded oxygen-breathing staff using it. The Illensan chlorine-breathers, the Hudiars, the ultra-low-temperature methane life-forms, and the other exotic types have their own arrangements, as also have the patients. You are mistaking an early absence of results for failure.”

“I understand,” said Hewlitt. “You are telling me, tactfully, that I must be a more patient ex-patient and we should continue as we are doing.”

“No,” said Lioren once again. “We are not…

There was an interruption from the menu-selection unit, which was displaying a red, flashing screen while its speaker began repeating a translated message in a brisk, officious voice.

“Diners who have completed their meal should vacate the table without delay so as to free it for use by subsequent diners. Your time is up. Any unfinished professional or social conversations should be continued elsewhere. Diners who have completed…

“We are not allowed to stay here without eating,” Lioren went on, raising its voice. “The sound output will increase in volume the longer we delay our departure, and contacting Maintenance to disable the audio circuit would waste too much time. We could always change tables and order another meal, but speaking personally I no longer feel hungry enough to attempt that…”

“Nor I,” said Hewlitt.

“… so I suggest that we begin the calls on my suspect patients,” the Padre continued. “The first one is in your old ward. It was admitted after you left, and Charge Nurse Leethveeschi is expecting me. Unless you are one of those beings who become comatose after eating a large meal and need to sleep?”

This time it was Hewlitt’s turn to say no.

The recorded message ceased as soon as they rose from the table, which was immediately taken by two hairy Orligians wearing senior physicians’ insignia, but neither of them had the indefinable feel of having been former hosts of the virus.

As they were leaving, Prilicla flew in to hover gracefully inside the entrance. The empath spoke to them but did not ask how they had fared because it was already aware of their disappointment. They stood watching it for several minutes as it drifted across to the group of mixed-species diners around the nearest table, ostensibly to talk to friends but in reality to try to discover a mind or minds that contained two sources of emotional radiation instead of one. It was likely that the fragile little empath had friends at every table in the vast room. Remembering the Cinrusskin’s lack of stamina, Hewlitt wished it luck and hoped that it would find what it was looking for before it crash-landed from sheer fatigue.

Prilicla broke off its conversation to call out, “Thank you, friend Hewlitt.”

A few minutes later they were in one of the crowded main corridors, but only a part of Hewlitt’s mind was on collision avoidance.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “and worrying.”

Lioren’s reply did not translate.

“And wondering about this strange ability we have to recognize each other as past hosts,” he went on. “A few minutes ago, when I felt concern for Prilicla and wished it good luck without speaking, it responded to the feeling even though it was distant and its attention elsewhere. There was nothing strange in that, because the Cinrusskin empathic faculty is very sensitive even at that range. But what about our own ability? Is it, too, a low order of empathy that is enough to allow simple recognition and nothing more? And if so, how close do previous hosts have to be to recognize each other? Do they have to be in line of sight? Does a physical barrier have any effect? Would you mind helping me conduct an experiment?”

“I don’t know, six times,” the Padre replied, “and what kind of experiment?”

“But this is not an experiment,” Lioren protested when he finished explaining what he wanted, “it is a game for very young children! It would, however, provide useful data. 1ff agree to cooperate you must never reveal to another person that I, a mature adult who is qualified to wear the Blue Cloak, played this game with you.

“Ease your mind, Padre,” said Hewlitt. “At my age I wouldn’t want people to know I played hide-and-seek, either. I suppose you should be ‘it’ since you know where the best hiding places are…

The long corridor they were in ended with a T-junction that housed the complex of ramps, stairs, and lifts leading to upper and lower levels. Along each wall there were many doors, which opened into wards, storage compartments, equipment bays, and the maintenance tunnel network. The idea was that Hewlitt would turn his back for ten minutes so that Lioren would have time to conceal itself, either close by or a a distance along the corridor. The only rules were that the Padre would hide itself in an empty compartment rather than in a ward, which would have caused comment and risked disrupting the medical routine, and that he would seek out its hiding place by the use of the instinct, empathy, or whatever it was that he had inherited from the virus creature and not by looking behind doors.