by James White
“Those,” said Hewlitt, “would have been my questions as well.”
Prilicla drifted to the deck, perhaps in preparation for a surge of emotional radiation that would make it difficult to fly, and said, “There are similarities, specifically in the manner of the early negative response and subsequent acceptance of medical treatment, in the cases of Patients Lonvellin and Hewlitt. There is a possibility that I am wrong and the similarities are coincidental, but either way I must know before we reach the hospital. Friend Hewlitt is available for investigation but, regrettably, Lonvellin is not.”
Murchison shook her head. “Maybe not in person,” she said. “But if you need a close comparison, why not call up its case history from Records?”
“Lonvellin’s records were wiped during the Etlan bombardment,” Prilicla said, “when the main computer was knocked out along with the entire other-species translator system.
“I remember that,” said Murchison in a voice that suggested that it was not a pleasant memory, “but I remember nothing about a patient called Lonvellin.”
so that the only records of the case remaining to us,” it went on, “are held in the fading memories of Diagnosticians Conway and Thornnastor and myself, who were the people directly concerned with the patient’s treatment. Since it was discharged cured and its subsequent death was in no way due to our treatment, no effort was made to replace the case history from our recollections. Do not blame yourself for not remembering Patient Lonvelun. At the time you were a final-year trainee, not yet specialized in other-species pathology, and still to become the then Senior Physician Conway’s life-mate, although I remember that your emotional radiation when your duties brought the two of you together was quite…
“Doctor,” said Murchison, “surely our emotional radiation in that situation was privileged.”
“Hardly,” said Prilicla, “since your emotional involvement at the time was common knowledge to everyone in the hospital. Besides, every Earth-human male DBDG on the staff produced similar emotional radiation in your presence, although the feelings were diluted by envy when the two of you were formally mated. While you were alone together I should have thought it unlikely that you would have spent your time in detailed clinical discussions of your current patients.”
“You are right,” said Murchison. The softness in her voice suggested that her mind was distant in time and space and that the place was a very pleasant one.
Prilicla allowed a moment for her to return to the here and now before going on. “This is the same information I taped for Shech-Rar and friend Stillman, and you may scan the original record at any time. But the proceedings of a Meeting of Diagnosticians might be difficult for a layperson to comprehend, so I will summarize and simplify it for friend Hewlitt’s benefit…
Lonvellin had been discovered alone and unconscious inside an undamaged ship following the release of its distress beacon. Originally it was thought that the being was a criminal guilty of murder and possibly cannibalism, because the translation of the ship’s log indicated the presence on board of another entity, a personal medic of some kind who had apparently been guilty of mistreating its employer and of whom there had been no physical trace. For this reason, and because the patient was a physically massive being who was well armed with natural weapons, it had been admitted and treated under Monitor Corps guard until the truth became known.
Lonvellin had been a warm-blooded oxygen-breather of physiological classification EPLH. Its cranium was protected by an immobile, osseous dome, pierced at regular intervals for visual, aural, and olfactory sensors, set atop a pear-shaped, scaly body possessing five shoulder-level tentacles, four of which terminated in clusters of specialized digits and the other in a heavy, osseous club with which it had, presumably, battered its way to the top of its evolutionary tree. Its method of locomotion was snail-like, but not slow, using a wide apron of muscle around the lower body.
The EPLH presented what appeared to be a widespread and well-developed epithelioma covering the entire body, although a cancerous skin condition of that type did not normally render a patient deeply unconscious. A fast-acting specific suited to the patient’s metabolism was administered subdermally and the early results were good. But within a few minutes the patient became physically disturbed and somehow managed to neutralize the effect of the medication so that the area under treatment returned to its previous condition. During this episode the biosensors reported that the patient had remained deeply unconscious, anesthetized and supposedly incapable of all physical movement. Since the indicated medication was ineffective, the surgical removal of the affected scales was begun but this, too, was resisted. Following the excision of the first few scales, the remainder grew deep root systems which penetrated underlying organs so that their removal was impossible without the risk of inflicting life-threatening damage.
In the hope of finding an explanation for this clinically inexplicable situation, including the fact that it reacted physically while supposedly unconscious and incapable of movement, Conway requested an examination of the patient’s emotional radiation.
“That was where I came in,” Prilicla went on. “We discovered that there was another thinking entity inside Lonvellin, a separate and distinct and fully conscious person who was not being affected by the medication given to the patient and whose presence did not register on their diagnostic instrumentation. Friend Conway, making one of the intuitive leaps that are the mark of future diagnosticians, said that the reason might be that it was both all-pervasive and too small for normal scanner detection. It had formulated a hypothesis based on what little was known or deduced from the examination of the patient, the references to a personal physician in the ship’s log, and the psychological and behavior patterns that were common to the very aged…
Lonvellin was an aging member of an extremely long-lived species. In common with all beings of advanced age it was subject to increasing physiological deterioration in spite of its efforts to maintain itself in optimum physical and mental condition so that it could continue with the planetwide sociological projects which had become its only interest and reason for living. It would have foreseen the time when it would require the services of a skilled medic on a continuous basis, and that quality of medical assistance was unlikely to be available on the type of backward world where Lonvellin was accustomed to doing its work of healing sick planetary cultures.
But somewhere in the recent past-recent because the creature was new to the job and had made mistakes-Lonvellin discovered and Conway had deduced the presence of the ultimate healer.
It was nothing less than an intelligent, organized collection of viruses living within its host and maintaining the body it occupied in perfect health while protecting it against invading pathogens as well as stimulating and directing the natural mechanisms of healing to repair physical injury. But it was a thinking creature inside a body that was deeply unconscious and therefore incapable of thought, and its emotional radiation could not be hidden from an empath like Prilicla. Conway tested his theory by mounting a crude, physical attack on Lonvellin that its natural defenses could not cope with, a spike driven very slowly into the body where there was an underlying vital organ. This tricked the virus creature into collecting itself under the puncture to defend the area with a small, dense, organic plate composed of its own and a small amount of Lonvellin’s body material.
As soon as the process was complete, Conway excised the creature, discovering that its body mass was little more than that of an Earth-human’s closed fist, and placed it in a sealed container for later investigation. The patient’s epithelioma and the newly inflicted surgical wound were treated routinely without any further interference from Lonvellin’s resident physician.
The original problem had been caused by the ignorance of the virus creature, who had been attempting to maintain the host’s physical condition by retaining the dying body scales, which, in Lonvellin’s species, were shed periodically so that new ones could grow. The mi
stake could be excused by the fact that, in spite of the intelligence of both entities, there was no direct communication between host and symbiote, merely a weak, empathic bond which allowed the transmission of feelings rather than thought.
In spite of the mistake, Lonvellin forgave its personal physician and insisted on having it returned to its former place. Sector General would dearly have loved to investigate this unique lifeform, but ethically the virus creature fell into a grey area between sapient being and disease, so the hospital acquiesced. Lonvellin and its resident physician moved to Etla the Sick, where it and its ship were vaporized. At the time everyone was sure that the virus entity had perished with its patient. That was the state of knowledge when the Meeting of Diagnosticians sent Rhabwar to Etla in the hope of finding an explanation for the Hewlitt-Morredeth incidents. They did not expect the medical team to succeed.
“But now we know that Lonvellin foresaw the possibility of a lethal attack,” Prilicla went on, “and made preparations that would enable its intelligent symbiote to survive. There was limited communication between the two, but I should think that the warning of an imminent nuclear strike furnished by the ship’s sensors, and the terrible knowledge that its immensely long life was about to end, was enough of an emotional shock to drive the virus creature out of its host’s body and into the survival container carried by the escape vehicle. The container was fitted with a time-release delay of one hundred standard years in the hope that, when the contents were released, both the war and the population’s xenophobia would have been long forgotten. But the nuclear strike must have occurred seconds after launch, the escape vehicle was damaged, and the virus creature was released prematurely by an Earth-human child falling out of a tree and smashing the container.”
“So that’s what happened to me,” said Hewlitt. Sheer relief that an explanation, no matter how incredible, had been found for his lifetime of apparent hypochondria made him laugh out loud. “Are you telling me that it wasn’t a disease that ailed me, it was a bloody doctor?”
CHAPTER 23
I was fairly sure that is what happened to you,” Prilicla replied, “when I made the connection between the incident of your childhood teeth and Lonvellin’s scales, which also grew rootlets and refused to come loose. If we now accept that everything you have told us was true, let us fit the facts to our new theory. Consider.
“When you climbed that tree, ate the toxic fruit, and fell into the ravine,” Prilicla said, “you should have died. Probably as the result of trauma associated with a fall from that height, and certainly from the quantity of poison you ingested. Instead, the virus creature’s survival pod was ruptured and it invaded your damaged body. Discovering that you were a suitable host who was terminating, it sustained you while it repaired the physical damage and stimulated the natural detoxification mechanism of your body to neutralize the poison. It was able to do so quickly, I assume, because at the time your body mass was about one-twentieth that of its previous host. How and why this was done we cannot know until we devise a method of communication more precise than empathy.
“My own feeling,” it continued, “is that the virus entity cannot exist for long on its own, that its continued survival depends on it occupying the largest and potentially the most long-lived creature it can find and, by abstracting the necessary data from the genetic cell material, extending both their lifetimes by maintaining the host in optimum physical health. But the creature is not infallible. It did not realize that there are times when a host body should not be maintained without change because some of the changes are normal and healthy. Lonvellin’s problem with the aging scales it could not discard and your teeth that refused to loosen, plus your long history of allergic reactions to all forms of medication, are proof of this.
“But there is also evidence that the virus creature is under the partial control of its host,” said Prilicla, and paused.
For a moment Hewlitt thought that it might be a pause to allow one of the others to comment, but there was no response. He wondered whether the empath was taking time to choose the right words or simply needed to rest its speaking organ.
“For example,” Priicla resumed, “there is the incident with the injured cat. You had a strong, emotional attachment to this entity, so much so that you took it to bed with you in the childish hope of nursing it back to health. So intense was your need to make it well again that the feeling caused the virus creature to invade the kitten, repair the multiple trauma, and restore it overnight to full health before returning to what it must have known was a more long-lived host.
“And many years later,” it continued, “when you became friendly with Patient Morredeth and were affected by the distress it was suffering and would continue to suffer for the rest of its life because of its damaged fur, you made close physical contact with it and the same thing happened.”
“But I wasn’t expecting anything to happen,” Hewlitt protested. “It was accidental-I just pushed my hands against its fur.”
“Even though the injury was not life-threatening,” Prilicla went on, “Morredeth was restored to nominal physical condition, its disfigurement cured as completely and thoroughly as were the injuries to your cat. Unlike the case of your household pet, the virus creature did not return to your body after completing its work. Why not?”
Hewlitt took the question to be rhetorical and remained silent, as did the others.
“It is natural for any organism to evolve,” Prilicla went on, “and for one with intelligence to learn and seek new experience. I feel sure now that Lonvellin’s former personal physician has evolved over the past quarter of a century. Perhaps the change came about as the result of proximity to a nuclear detonation, although normally that would inhibit organic growth, or it could be a normal process of evolution, whatever that may be in a collection of viruses. Either way there is evidence of increasing sensitivity both to empathic direction and reaction to external events. It was only three child-teeth that refused to loosen. Subsequent teeth behaved normally, and many of the later conditions were temporary and did not recur. This caused your symptoms to be attributed, wrongly as we now know, to an overactive imagination. Quite rightly, none of your medics on Earth or in Ward Seven would risk readministering medication that had already produced an allergic reaction. If they had, and your symbiote had learned enough about your metabolism by then to realize that the foreign material was harmless, your response to a second dose might have been normal.
“The behavior of the virus creature during your stay in Sector General shows a distinct change,” the empath continued. “Unlike the creature I remember, whose emotional radiation was composed primarily of fear and anxiety to return to Lonvellin as quickly as possible, it now seems more willing to transfer to other bodies. Perhaps it is no longer satisfied with you as a host.”
“In the circumstances,” said Hewlitt dryly, “I feel grateful rather than offended.”
Prilicla ignored the interruption and went on, “It may be that, after a quarter of a century of occupancy, the virus creature was growing bored with the DBDG life-form and wanted to find one that was more interesting, and Sector General was the ideal place to find interesting life-forms. But I prefer to think that, for its own continued long-term survival, it needed to seek out one with an extended life span like that of its former host, Lonvellin. That is why it vacated a short-lived, nonsapient life-form like your cat and returned to you as soon as its work was done. It did not return to you, or perhaps in the ensuing confusion it did not have the opportunity to return, after it entered Morredeth and regrew the Kelgian’s fur. But neither did it remain with Morredeth. I know this because it was not in occupancy when I scanned Morredeth before leaving the hospital. The past four days of testing and my monitoring of your emotional radiation since you joined Rhabwar show that it is not in you. Nor was it in your aged, onetime pet.
“The most serious and urgent question facing us now,” it ended, “is who it is occupying at present and what is it going
to do next?”
Hewlitt was still feeling relieved and happy that he was free of the creature at last, but there was a nagging doubt in his mind about his good fortune. Everyone was watching him. Danalta had no expression that anyone could read, Murchison’s smile had stopped short of her eyes, Naydrad’s fur was being pulled into small, tight ripples, and Prilicla had been trembling since it had begun talking. He felt the need of further reassurance.
“Is it possible,” he said, “that the virus learned how to hide its emotions from you?”
“No, friend Hewlitt,” the empath replied without hesitation. “Whether or not an organic entity is sapient it has feelings, and often the smallest and least intelligent beings have the strongest and most disturbing emotions. I remember that the feelings of Lonvellin’s personal physician were characteristic of a highly intelligent mind. No thinking and, therefore, feeling entity can hide its emotional radiation from me. Only a nonorganic computer could do that, because it doesn’t have any.
“Try not to worry, friend Hewlitt,” it went on. “In the past it has made unintentional mistakes, but otherwise it maintained and left Lonvellin, your pet, and yourself a legacy of perfect health. The cat, who is extremely aged for one of its short-lived species, is proof of that. I would say that, barring accidents, you also will have a proportionately long and healthy life.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Hewlitt, and laughed. “But am I missing something? Why is the creature a serious and urgent problem when you said yourself that it means no harm and is doing good work? So you have another weird, other-species doctor loose in the hospital. What else is new?”
Murchison did not smile, Danalta’s body wobbled, and Naydrad’s fur twitched into even stranger patterns, and it was clear that Prilicla was not appreciating his attempt at humor either.