James White - Final Diagnosis

Hewlitt had yet to meet the dying Cherxic, but already he was feeling a little ashamed that his sympathy for the other was being outweighed by his own selfish fear.

“What do they look like?” he asked. “And when you said close contact, how close did you mean?”

“We’ll go in now,” said Lioren. “Follow me and don’t worry, the radiation where we are going is all in the visible spectrum.”

The airlock seal swung open to reveal a boarding tunnel whose other end blazed like a square sun. By the time they had traversed it, his eyes had grown accustomed to the intense light, but in spite of his glare shield he still had to look through slitted eyes to see the details of the compartment beyond. The equipment projecting from the walls and ceiling was a blur to him, both visually and intellectually, but in the center of the deck there was a tethered gravity litter with two long, opened metal boxes resting on it. He followed as the Padre moved across the room to stand beside them, thinking that a coffin looked much the same on any world, although putting them in their last resting place before they were clinically dead showed a certain lack of sensitivity.

“These two are dead,” said Lioren in a quiet, disapproving voice, making Hewlitt realize that he had been thinking aloud. “Both of them died within a few minutes of my arrival. They were left in the lock chamber close to the boarding tube so that the physical presence of their bodies would not cause distress to the living members of their gestalt, and for the convenience of Pathology, which will be sending someone to collect them. Since the Telfi do not reverence their dead other than in memory, the bodies have been donated to the hospital for research purposes on the understanding that the remains will ultimately be consigned to the surface of a sun, any sun. It is a custom among the members of their space-traveling gestalts that this be done. Excuse me, I must ask whether it is possible to meet Cherxic again. It may already have died, but please remember that death must never be mentioned in conversation with a Telfi.”

“Right,” said Hewlitt. “But earlier you mentioned making contact…

“Padre Lioren and Patient Hewlett, an Earth-human DBDG, wish contact with the damaged part Cherxic,” it said into the communicator. “Is this possible, and convenient?”

The sound in his earpiece resembled a long, modulated burst of static which the translator reproduced as, “You are welcome, Lioren, as is the stranger Hewlitt. A short visit is possible. Please wait.”

The Padre moved closer to Hewlitt and joined him in looking down at one of the dead Telfi. When Lioren spoke there was sadness in its voice as it said, “The suffering and loneliness is long and there is little we can do to ease either, but the part Cherxic still lives.~~

After all that he had heard about this exotic, radiation-eating species, Hewlitt had not expected them to look so ordinary.

Apart from the extra set of forelimbs growing from the base of the neck, the Telfi resembled nothing so much as a large terrestrial lizard just under five feet long from bulbous head to vestigial tail. The body was lying on its stomach so that the two tiny, lidless eyes and the mouth, which was closed, were the only features visible. All four of the stubby walking limbs were bent double to lie flat against the body while the two, longer forward manipulators were stretched forward and crossed so as to allow the chin to rest on the crossover point. The skin was pale grey with a mottled and veined effect all over that made the body resemble a sculpture in unpolished marble.

Hewlitt felt the need to comment, and remembering that one should never speak ill of the dead, he said, “The, ah, skin color is interesting. Beautiful, in fact.”

“You must not say that to Cherxic when you meet it,” said the Padre sharply. “To a Telfi the pale skin is neither interesting nor beautiful, it is a symptom of advanced radiation starvation and a lethal failure of the absorption mechanism. You may touch it if the act is not repugnant to you. Rest your bare hand anywhere on the body surface.”

After putting his foot in his mouth with the remark about the cadaver’s beautiful skin, Hewlitt felt obliged to touch the body. Surprised, he said, “It’s very warm.

“It is no longer absorbing energy,” said the Padre, “and has risen to room temperature. Touching the top of the head with a slow, stroking motion worked best with Cherxic. Physical and verbal contact is a poor substitute for gestalt telepathy, but the patient appeared to derive some comfort from both.”

Hewlitt stopped with his hand still resting on the pale marble, lizard skull. “Wait right there,” he said. “I tried to ask this question earlier but you… Are you telling me that you actually laid your bare hand on Cherxic in the same way as you did when you felt Morredeth’s fur?”

“Yes,” said the Padre. “But there is no need to feel so excited about it. Physiologically the Telfi are not suitable hosts for the virus creature. It would be like trying to infect a nuclear reactor.”

A great light was beginning to dawn. Hewlitt said, “I told you already that the virus survived a close encounter with a nuclear detonation and, and the hospital’s reactor has been, well, very sick.”

The great light, he realized, was external as well as internal because the big, inner seal of the lock was swinging open to reveal the shape of a Telfi. Behind it there was another closed, transparent door that gave a view of the ship’s interior. He decided that it must be a very healthy Telfi, because in spite of the high level of illumination, it reflected no light at all. It and the others that he could see beyond the transparent seal were like so many mobile, lizardshaped black holes.

And every single Telfi that Hewlitt could see he recognized at once as being past, and one present, hosts of the virus creature.

There was a burst of modulated static as the one in the open lock moved closer and spoke.

“I am the part Cherxic,” it said. “Please touch me, my offworld brothers and benefactors, one at a time. Our ship will be returning to Telf very soon and there is important information that must be passed to you.”

He watched as Cherxic moved between them and as the Padre, whose curiosity was greater or its cowardice less than Hewlitt’s, placed one uncovered medial hand on the Telfi’s head. Lioren’s body trembled for a moment although it did not seem to be in any distress. No words were spoken and he had still to learn how to read a Tarlan’s facial expression, so he had no idea what was going on. A few more minutes passed before the Padre lifted its hand away and it was his turn.

Unlike the body of the dead Telfi he had touched, the dense black skin of Cherxic felt cold, and there was a faint, warm tingling in his palm similar to the sensation he had felt when he had pressed his hand against Patient Morredeth’s damaged fur. But this time the tingling was moving up his arm, across his shoulder and into his head. For a moment his sensorium went wild as tiny, random sensations of warmth, cold, pressure, pleasure, and pain occurred all over his body, while bursts of color that were beyond his previous experience or imagination and odors familiar and utterly strange were flooding his senses.

For some odd reason the memory picture of his cat came into his mind, and the way it had circled and stamped gently with each paw in turn as it had tried to push his lap into a more comfortable shape before it curled up to sleep. Now something was pushing and probing at his mind, trying to make itself fit more comfortably, and it was both gentle and persistent.

Suddenly there was a great, soft explosion of knowledge.