James White - The Genocidal Healer

The Diagnostician’s words were lost in the bedlam of the outer ward, where the tractor and pressor units were emitting audible and visible signals of overload as their operators struggled to keep Hellishomar’s heaving body motionless. The Groalterri’s enormous head was jerking from side to side against its immaterial restraints, and the ends of the incision were tearing and bleeding again. Prilicla’s body was being shaken by an emotional gale, and everyone seemed to be shouting questions, instruction, or warnings at each other.

But it was Hellishomar who succeeded in making itself heard above the din, suddenly and with one word.

“Lioren!”

I am here,” Lioren said, switching quickly to the secure channel, but the sounds that the patient was making did not translate.

“Hellishomar, please stop moving,” Lioren said urgently. “You could seriously injure, perhaps kill yourself. And others. What is troubling you? Please tell me. Is there pain?”

“No, “Hellishomar said.

Telling the patient that it might kill itself would be a waste of time, Lioren thought, because the Groalterri’s presence in the hospital was due to it trying to do just that. But the reminder that it was endangering others must have penetrated the frenzy in its mind, because the violence of its struggles was gradually diminishing.

“Please,” Lioren asked again. “What is troubling you?”

The reply came slowly at first, as if each and every word had to break through a great, individual wall of fear, shame and self-loathing; then suddenly the words rushed out in a near-incoherent flood that swept away all such barriers. As he listened to Hellishomar pouring out everything that was in its mind, Lioren’s confusion changed slowly to anger and then to sadness. This was utterly ridiculous, he told himself. Had he been an Earth-human he might have been barking with laughter by now at this display of ignorance from a member of a species that was the most highly intelligent of any race known to the Federation. But if Lioren had learned anything since joining O’Mara’s department it was that emotional distress was the most subjective of all phenomena, and the most difficult to relieve.

But this was an entity trained in the Groalterri concepts of healing. It was a young and perhaps mentally retarded Cutter whose experience was restricted to peripheral surgery performed on aged members of its own race, and it was viewing an intercranial procedure, on itself, for the first time. In those circumstances ignorance was excusable, he told himself, provided it remained a temporary condition.

“Listen,” Lioren said quickly into the first, brief pause in the tirade. “Please listen carefully to what I am saying, ease your mind, and above all, be still. The blackness inside your head is not the physical manifestation of your guilt, nor did it grow because of evil thoughts or any sin committed by you. It is likely that it is a bad and a dangerous thing, but it is not your spirit or soul or any part of—”

“It is,” Hellishomar broke in. “It is the place where I am. The thinking, feeling, and grievously sinning me who tried to destroy myself lives in that place, and it has a blackness that is beyond hope.”

“No,” Lioren said firmly. “Every intelligent entity I know of believes that its personality, its soul lives in the brain, usually a short distance behind the visual receptors. They believe this because, even when there has been gross trauma and physical dismemberment, it remains intact. Sometimes there is physical damage or disease that causes the personality to change. But this change does not come about because of an act of will, so the entity concerned cannot be held responsible for subsequent behavior. ”

Hellishomar remained silent and its body movements had reduced to the point where the overload lights were no longer showing on the tractor-beam installations.

Lioren went on quickly. “It is possible that the inability of your brain to mature to the stage where direct mind-to-mind contact can be achieved with the Parents is due to a genetic defect. But it is also possible that the crimes you blame yourself for committing were the result of a disease or injury to the brain, and the reason for these wrongful thoughts and actions may now have been found. You must know that the black mass that Con-way and Seldal have uncovered is not your personality, because you have told me yourself that the soul is immaterial, that when the Parents die and their bodies decay and return their substance to the world, their souls leave Groalterri to begin their never-ending exploration of the universe—”

“While my own soul,” Hellishomar said, beginning to struggle against the restraints again, “sinks like a stone into the mud of the ocean floor, to fester in darkness forever.”

Lioren felt that he would lose what little control he had gained over the situation if he did not speak quickly, and move the argument from metaphysics to medicine. Focusing one of his eyes on the side screen where the results of Conway’s analysis were being displayed, he went on. “It may well rot at the bottom of your ocean if that is where you want it placed, but more likely it will end in a waste-disposal furnace at Sector General. I do not know what it is exactly, but it is not your soul or, for that matter, any other part of you. It is completely foreign material, a vegetable form of life, an invader of some kind. I ask you to be calm and to think, to think as a Groalterri Cutter and healer, and to remember if there was anything in your past experience that resembles this black growth. Please think carefully.”

For several moments Hellishomar was silent and absolutely still. The ward was quiet again and he could hear the voice of Conway saying that it was about to resume the operation.

“Please wait, Doctors,” Lioren said, switching briefly to the public channel. “I may have important clinical data for you.” On the main screen one of the Diagnostician’s hands waved acknowledgment, and he returned to the private channel.

“Hellishomar,” Lioren said again, “please try to recall anything resembling this black growth, whether the memory is from recent experience, the less certain recollections of infancy, or even the hearsay experiences of others. Can you remember having contact with such a growth, or having suffered an injury, not necessarily to the cranium, which would have allowed it to enter the bloodstream?”

“No,” Hellishomar said.

Lioren thought for a moment. “If you do not remember, is it possible that you contracted the disease as a very small infant, before you were capable of forming memories? Can you recall any later reference to something like this happening to you by an older Small charged with your care? This person may not have considered it important at the time, or mentioned it until you were grown and—”

“No, Lioren,” Hellishomar broke in. “You are trying to make me believe that this foul thing in my brain is not the result of wrong thinking, and what you are doing is a great kindness. But I have already told you, it is only the very aged Parents who are afflicted with diseases, the Small never. We are strong and healthy and immune. The invisible attackers you have told me about are ignored, and those large enough to be visible are treated as a nuisance and simply brushed away.”

Lioren had been hoping that he would discover something useful to Conway and Seldal by questioning the patient, but he was making no progress at all. He was about to signal them to proceed when another thought occurred to him.

“These pests that you brush away,” he said. “Please tell me all that you can remember about them.”

Hellishomar’s replies sounded polite but very impatient, as if it had guessed that the other’s only intention was to keep its mind on other things and the answers were unimportant. But gradually its answers became very important indeed and Lioren’s questions more precise. Slowly his earlier feeling of hopelessness was changing to one of excitement and mounting anxiety.