James White - Final Diagnosis

“I can see that it isn’t one of your body parasites,” said OneNinety-Three. “What does it want to talk about? The stupid reason we are still here?”

Before Hewlitt could reply, Two-Twenty-One said, “Please excuse our friend, small air-breather. A combination of impatience, boredom, and homesickness has eroded its manners. Usually its behavior is much better, well, a little better, than this. But its question remains-why are you here and what do you want to say to us?”

Hewlitt waited while the three of them changed position until they hung side by side facing him. The sight of one Chalder jaw and triple set of teeth had almost unnerved him, but three of the enormous mouths gaping open within a few meters of his head was ridiculous rather than frightening, and he felt himself begin to relax. He decided that this was another time to be sparing and perhaps a little inventive with the truth.

“I don’t know what I want to talk about,” he replied. “The subject doesn’t matter, I just want a few minutes’ conversation. I am neither a medic nor a psychologist, just a former patient helping with some follow-up research. Until I am allowed to leave the hospital there is nothing interesting for me to do, so I asked, and was given permission, to spend the time meeting and talking to as many patients and members of the staff as possible.

“Practically every member species of the Federation is represented here,” he went on, “while on Earth I would be lucky to meet five off-worlders in a lifetime. The opportunity was too good to miss.”

“But there are over a hundred Chalders on Earth,” said TwoEleven. “They are advising on the repopulation and education of the semisapient ocean mammals which your ancestors nearly rendered extinct.”

“Most of them are Chalder scientists and their families,” said Hewlitt. “Only a few Earth-human marine biologists are given permission to meet or work with them. Nonspecialist visitors like myself were forbidden, but here visits between fellow patients are allowed.”

“Even so,” said One-Ninety-Three, “it seems to me that a lifeform as physically fragile as yours is taking a serious risk simply to avoid the boredom of waiting to go home. The Chalder environment is friendly compared with some that you will find here. Was there a psychological component to your former illness?”

“Most of the medics at home thought there was,” said Hewlitt, knowing that the irony was lost on them, “but in Sector General the cause of the trouble was removed and the Earth doctors were proved wrong. There is no serious risk, because Padre Lioren has agreed to be my guide and guardian.”

“The hospital must feel an obligation to you,” said the other, “to grant such an unusual request. What was wrong with you?”

He was still trying to think of a suitably unrevealing reply when One-Ninety-Three said, “Probably it was one of those disgusting reproductive problems that these non-egg-layers are prone to. You can see that it doesn’t want to tell us, and anyway, I don’t think I want to know.”

Hewlitt wanted to protest at the implication that he was a non-egg-laying female, but if he did not know whether he was talking to male or female Chalders he could hardly object to them making the same mistake with him.

“Usually,” he said, “the juiciest gossip is associated with some physical or emotional aspect of the reproductive process. You will find me less reticent when telling you about other people’s embarrassments.”

“We understand,” said One-Ninety-Three, “but right now we would prefer to know when we are likely to be sent home. Have you heard anything on that subject?”

“Sorry, no,” said Hewlitt. “But I will try to find out.”

That much is true, he thought, remembering the warning to Rhabwar and the emergency drills that had been held in his former ward. Whether or not he would be allowed to pass on his findings was another matter, because he was beginning to suspect that the explanation was neither simple nor pleasant. But it soon became clear that all the Chalders really wanted to talk about was home.

At first he had expected that their attempts to explain the water world of Chalderescol to him would be like trying to describe a sunset to a person who was color-blind, but he was wrong. Within a few minutes he was experiencing the freedom of an ocean that, apart from two small areas at the poles, covered the planetary surface in places to a depth of over a hundred miles.

The Chalders had battled their way to the top of their evolutionary underwater tree, learned to survive and later to control and utilize the power from their undersea volcanic activity while husbanding the living, nonsapient resources of the most beautiful world in the Federation, although the small-eyed air-breathers like himself required pressure vessels and visual enhancement to appreciate it. They were already a highly civilized species before their discovery of fire and the beginnings of the technology that enabled the very few of their number to fly through the near-vacuum above their ocean and into the space beyond. But no matter how far or often they traveled or their reasons for doing so, they remained a part of Chalderescol’s mother ocean and needed periodically to return to it.

Considering their enormous body mass, the size and complexity of life-support required, and the extreme danger and discomfort involved in traveling in space, Hewlitt wondered why they did not stay at home.

“Why does any otherwise sane person want to travel in space?” said Two-Eleven, making him realize that he had been wondering aloud. “That is a very large philosophical question, and much too complex for debate if you still want to speak to the other patients before the lunch hunt begins. Hold on to my fin again…

His experience with the first three Chalders meant that he was able to speak briefly to the other patients with some understanding of their feelings, or at least without making a complete fool of himself. He stopped beside but did not speak to the gravely ill patient Lioren was visiting, because they were already having a conversation and he thought it better not to intrude. But from his moment of floating beside its treatment frame he was able to establish that it, along with the rest of the ward’s other patients and medical staff, had never been hosts of the virus creature.

He returned to find the food-dispenser outlet beside the nurses’ station open and, drifting horizontally in the water before it, what seemed like more than a hundred flattened, ovoid shapes just under a meter in diameter. Their upper surfaces were covered by irregular patches of dull color while the underside was pale grey. A long, low dorsal fin ran fore and aft, and the rim at the stern was pierced by three circular openings. While he was moving forward for a closer look his hand touched the object, sending it into a slow roll. Suddenly Charge Nurse Hredlichli was beside him.

“What…?“began Hewlitt, and broke off as a shapeless, Illensan limb shot forward, grasped the object, and pulled it level again.

“Do not alter the trajectory,” it said in its usual impatient voice. “For your information, if you do not already have the knowledge, that is a container of concentrated food enclosed in an edible shell and propelled by concealed capsules of high-pressure, nontoxic gas which simulates the movement through water of a fleeing, nonsapient native crustacean. It has been found that mobile food increases the patients’ appetite and has beneficial psychological effects. If the food vehicle were to crash edge-on into a wall or deck and burst, it would leave a mess that my nurses would have to filter out and remove when there are more important duties requiring their attention. Please reenter the nurses’ station and stay out of my head fronds. Patients, your attention please…