The Galactic Gourmet sg-9

by James White

  “I know that you are not a trained psychologist, friend Gurronsevas,” Prilicla continued, “but do you think that you could spend the next two days talking to Creethar? Talk about safe generalities while listening, as we all will be, for the specific items of information which, in my own experience, many beings suffering emotional distress of this kind are secretly wanting to reveal. If, during the course of the dialogue there is anything that the team should do or refrain from doing, or an idea that might be helpful occurs to you, tell us. You will be in effective charge of the non-medical treatment.

  “Creethar trusts you,” Prilicla ended. “It is more likely to tell its troubles to you than to any of us. Friend Gurronsevas, will you do this for me?”

  “Haven’t I already been doing that,” said Gurronsevas, “unofficially?”

  “And now,” the empath replied, “it is an official request by Rhabwar’s medical team leader for specialist assistance in a crucial stage of the Wem contact. This must be done because, if you are unsuccessful, the responsibility will be entirely mine. You must not blame yourself for anything that may go wrong and, in this very unusual situation, neither will the rest of the medical team. You are not an easy person to like, friend Gurronsevas. You too closely resemble some of your recent Wem dishes in that you are an acquired taste. But you have gained our respect and gratitude for your assistance with Creethar, and none of us will blame you if you fail to resolve a problem that has already baffled us. How do you feel about this, friend Gurronsevas?”

  For a moment Gurronsevas was silent, then he said, “I feel complimented, encouraged, reassured, and anxious to do everything that I can possibly do to help. But, being an empath, you already know my feelings, and I think it was your intention to make me feel this way.”

  “You are right,” said Prilicla, and gave a short trilling, untranslatable sound that might have been Cinrusskin laughter. “But I have not been tinkering with your emotional radiation. The feeling of wanting to help was already there. Now I feel you wanting to say more.”

  “A few suggestions, yes,” said Gurronsevas. “I think you should decide on the exact time and place of Creethar’s return and inform Remrath and the others, in case there are preparations they may want to make. We know they are anxious to have Creethar back, and telling them when would be a politeness that might reduce their hostility towards us. The best time would be in the early forenoon, I think, when the working parties and teachers are returning for their midday meal. That would ensure a large number of spectators and maximum effect, but whether the effect will be good or bad I cannot say.”

  “Nor I,” said Prilicla. Quickly it gave the time and circumstances of Creethar’s discharge, then went on, “But how will you tell them, when they close their ears whenever we try to speak? Have you forgotten that problem? Because I cannot feel you worrying about it.”

  Gurronsevas had always tried to avoid waste, whether of time, material, or breath. Instead of answering the question he stopped, rotated his massive body slightly so as to bring his speaking mouth to bear on the Wem work-party which was less than two hundred yards away, and filled his lungs.

  “This is an announcement from the preservers on the off-world ship,” he said, slowly and distinctly and very loudly. “The hunter Creethar will be delivered to the mine entrance at one hour before noon on the day after tomorrow.”

  He could see the Wem teacher’s ear flaps close at the first words, and hear the anger in its voice as it tried to make the students do the same while Gurronsevas repeated the announcement. But it was not succeeding because the young ones were hopping around their instructor in small circles and shouting excitedly to each other. He knew that the Wem adults had closed their ears to the off-worlders, but there was no way that they could stop listening to their own children.

  The news about Creethar’s return would be all over the mine by nightfall.

  “Well done,” said Prilicla, making a graceful, banking turn so that it again faced the ship. “But now you have a lot more talking to do. Let us return to our patient.”

  It was almost as if Creethar had become Gurronsevas’s patient. They were left alone on the casualty deck for long periods while the medical team stayed in their quarters or on Rhabwar’s tiny dining and recreation deck. He knew that Williamson on Tremaar was recording everything that was said, but the other Captain’s comments or criticisms were withheld so that he could talk to the patient without distractions.

  He found it easy to talk to Creethar but difficult to remain on a topic which would not quickly cause it to stop talking back. Prilicla reported that its silences were invariably accompanied by severe emotional distress in which fear, anger and despair predominated. And still Gurronsevas and the listening empath could find no reason for these sudden bouts of reticence.

  Talking about the Wem and their centuries-long fight for survival on a world brought close to death by the uncontrolled pollution of the distant past was a safe if not a pleasant subject, except when they disagreed about the importance of meat-eating for successful procreation. In the Old Times, Creethar said, the grasslands and forests were filled with tremendous herds of animals. The herds and teeming jungle creatures had long since vanished, but the eating of meat, even the small and infrequent morsels available after an unsuccessful hunt, had become a kind of non-spiritual religion.

  In answer Gurronsevas agreed that the hunters were worthy of the meat they ate, since it was obtained after long periods of travel and hardship and great personal risk. But the growers of vegetation who stayed at home produced more food with fewer risks and none of the respect accorded the brave hunters. It was thus on Wemar now, just as it had been on countless worlds for many centuries.

  Prompted by Prilicla, he told it that meat-eating in the far past had been a matter of availability, convenience and choice rather than a physiological necessity. He reminded it that as a general rule the vegetable-eating young and the very old Wem were healthier and better fed than the meat-eaters, who often starved themselves into unnecessary sickness because of their hunters’ pride. The result was an angry silence that lasted for nearly an hour.

  Still Creethar was not fully convinced that meat was unnecessary for sexual potency, but after a few days of eating Gurronsevas’ Wem vegetable dishes its conditioning, he felt sure, was beginning to crumble.

  Food was a fairly safe topic, especially the preparation and presentation of Gurronsevas’s most recent Wem dishes, but when he tried to veer off the subject to talk about Creethar’s hunter friends, or about Remrath or the good work that the young cook apprentices were doing in the mine, it stopped talking. Once it said angrily that the kitchen was not a suitable place nor was cooking proper work for a young Wem. When Gurronsevas asked why not, Creethar accused him of stupidity and lack of feeling.

  Remrath had accused him of insensitivity, also without giving an explanation, just before Gurronsevas had been sent away from the mine. Feeling puzzled and intensely frustrated, he returned to the subject of food.

  That was the one topic that he was able to discuss with complete authority. Gurronsevas could talk about food in all its multitudinous forms and flavors, and with it the weird and even more wonderful variety of beings who had been served his culinary creations. Of necessity this led into a discussion about off-worlders, their beliefs and philosophies and social practices, including the individual preferences and eating habits of the sixty-odd different species which together made up the Galactic Federation.

  He was trying very hard to plant the idea in Creethar’s mind that Wemar was one inhabited planet of many hundreds, while hoping that among the other intelligent species he was describing there might be one society whose behavior was similar enough to that of the Wem for the other to react, emotionally or verbally, in a manner that would enable Prilicla or himself to put a crack in this wall of Wem silence.

  But Creethar’s emotional and verbal responses were unchanged.

  Prilicla said, “I, too, feel and share your d
isappointment, friend Gurronsevas. Creethar feels a deep interest and curiosity about the things you are telling it, and there is an even stronger feeling of gratitude towards you because your conversation is taking its mind off some serious personal trouble. But its despair and anger and fear are still present and have been reduced but not changed by anything you have said to it.

  “The patient’s strongest feeling at present is of friendship towards you,” Prilicla went on. “You may not be consciously aware of it, but you have developed the same feeling towards it, just as you did following prolonged contact with its parent, Remrath. But I feel increasing weariness in both the patient and yourself. With rest a new approach to the problem may suggest itself.”

  “Creethar is due for discharge in less than seven hours,” said Gurronsevas. “I think we have been overcautious in concealing the news of its imminent release. Now is the time to tell it. We have little to lose.”

  In a gentle, reproving voice Prilicla said, “I can feel your frustration, Gurronsevas, and I sympathize. But every time you even hinted at the subject of its return to the mine, there was an adverse emotional response followed by a long, angry silence. There is much to lose.”

  For a moment Gurronsevas was silent, then he said, “You tell me that Creethar and myself feel friendship for each other. But tell me, are we good enough friends to be able to excuse each other’s bad behavior, insults or unintended hurtful words?”

  Without hesitation the empath replied, “I feel your determination. You will tell Creethar the news whatever answer I give. Good luck, friend Gurronsevas.”

  For a moment Gurronsevas said nothing as he tried to choose words that were right and at the same time would excuse him in advance for any hurt they might cause this strange being who had become his friend, then he said, “There is much I want to say to you, Creethar the First Hunter, and many questions I would like to ask. I have not asked them before now because, whenever I tried to do so, you grew angry and would not speak to me. Remrath will not speak to me either and, for reasons we do not understand, has forbidden the off-worlders to return to the mine. But now we have only a few hours left to talk together, and exchange questions and answers …”

  “Be careful,” said Prilicla. “Creethar’s emotional radiation is changing, and not for the better.”“… Your wounds and infections are healed and clean,” he went on carefully, “and your physical condition is as good as we can make it. You will be returned to the mine before noon.”

  Creethar’s body jerked suddenly against its restraints, something it had not done for many days, then became still. Its face turned suddenly towards Gurronsevas, but the eyes were tightly closed. What stupid piece of xenophobia or cultural conditioning, he wondered angrily, could cause such a severe reaction in a mind that he knew to be intelligent, civilized and in many ways admirable? He was not an empath, but Prilicla’s next words told him only what he already knew.

  “The patient is becoming seriously disturbed,” said Prilicla urgently. “The feelings of friendship towards you are being negated by an upsurge of the background fear-anger-despair emotions that troubled it earlier. But it is fighting very hard to subdue those adverse feelings towards you. Can you say something that will help? Its distress is increasing.”

  Gurronsevas sub-vocalized a word that he had been forbidden to speak as a child and had only rarely used as an adult. The patient’s reaction to what should have been good news was all wrong, and suddenly he felt both unsure of himself and angry that he was causing anguish to a friend without knowing how or why. In all other respects Creethar’s thought processes and conversation were normal, but in this one respect the Wem was totally alien. Or was it the medical team, or even Gurronsevas himself who in this single respect were alien, and if so how?

  He was missing something, Gurronsevas felt sure, some essential difference that was both simple and vitally important. An idea was beginning to stir in the depths of his mind, but trying to coax it out into the light seemed only to drive it deeper. He wanted to ask Prilicla for advice, but he knew that if he bypassed the translator to do so, Creethar would think that he was keeping secrets from it, and that would not be the right thing to do just now.

  He did not know what to say, so he said what he felt.

  “Creethar,” he went on, “I feel confused, and guilty, and very, very sorry for the mental pain I am causing you. Somehow I have failed to understand you. But please believe me, it is not now and has never been my intention or that of the others on the ship to hurt you. Nevertheless we, and especially I through ignorance and insensitivity, have caused you past and present mental anguish. Is there any apology I can make, or anything else that I can say or do that will ease it?”

  Creethar’s body grew tense but it was not fighting the restraints. It said, “For such a fearsome creature you can be sensitive at times and grossly insensitive at others. There is something that you might do for me, Gurronsevas, but I am ashamed to speak the words. It is not the kind of favor that one ever asks of a relative or a close friend, or even a new, off-worlder friend like yourself, because it would be distressing for them.”

  “Ask it, friend Creethar,” said Gurronsevas firmly, “and I shall do it, whatever it is.”

  “When, when my time comes,” said Creethar in a voice that was barely audible, “will you go on talking to me about the wonders you have seen on other worlds, and stay close to me until the end?”

  The brief silence that followed was broken by Prilicla, who said, “Gurronsevas, why are you feeling so happy?”

  “Give me a few minutes to talk to it,” he replied, “and Creethar and the rest of you will feel happy, too.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The litter bearing Creethar had its sun canopy fully deployed so that the patient was hidden from sight. When Prilicla had said that it was only fitting that Gurronsevas and no one else should accompany it to the mine entrance, the only objection had come from Naydrad who was worried by the thought of an inexperienced driver being in charge of an anti-gravity vehicle.

  Tawsar, the returned hunters, and all of the teachers with the exception of Remrath had been joined by the young working parties, so that the slope outside the mine entrance was covered by tightly-packed Wem bodies, except for a small area at the front of the crowd that contained three small handcarts. Slowly and silently Gurronsevas guided the litter to within a few yards of the carts, then reduced power to the anti-gravity grids. While the litter was settling to the ground he opened the canopy to reveal Creethar.

  The assembled Wem were hushed and respectful as befitted the occasion, their feelings towards the off-worlders remaining hidden. Even the youngest of the children were silent as the crowd stared at the still figure of their former First Hunter whose body was clean and undamaged except for its right hind-limb, which was encased in a transparent cast. But when Creethar raised its head suddenly and stepped onto the ground the reaction, the sudden outburst of shouting and screaming, and the milling about of Wem bodies, was beyond anything in Gurronsevas’ experience. He wondered how this storm of emotional radiation was affecting Prilicla on Rhabwar.

  But the empath had been gently insistent that, following their lengthy pre-discharge conversation with Creethar, there would be no risk. The expected emotional storm, it felt, would be comprised of shock, surprise and uncertainty, with minimum hostility. After all, it had been Creethar’s own idea to hide the facts from its own people until the last possible moment so that its homecoming would have the maximum effect.

  Limping only slightly, Creethar moved close to the hand-carts and stopped to look down at them. The noise from the crowd made it difficult to think, but rather than inarticulate screaming and shouting, the sound was changing to that of many conversations that were being shouted only because everyone else was shouting. And the movements within the crowd had almost ceased, but one eye showed him a young adult who looked like Druuth disappearing into the mine entrance, hopefully on the way to fetch Remrath. The others brought him
the picture of Creethar looking up from the carts and raising its arms for silence.

  “My family, friends and fellow hunters,” it said slowly and clearly when silence finally came, “you have made a serious mistake regarding the intentions and the abilities of the off-worlders on the ship. It is the same mistake that I was making until a few hours ago. But now you can see for yourselves that I am not a dismembered collection of dead meat ready to be loaded onto these carts and taken to the kitchen. I am alive, and strong, and healthy. This is because our off-world friends are not and have never been preservers of meat.

  “They are preservers of life.”

  Creethar paused. From the crowd there came a sighing sound, like a wind blowing gently over grass, as they all seemed to inhale as one in surprise and wonder. But silence returned as it resumed talking, describing all the things that had been said and done to it by the off-worlders. Only once did it stop, when its parent and its mate appeared suddenly in the mine entrance and began pushing their way to the front of the crowd. But Remrath gestured for Creethar to go on speaking and walked past it to stand beside Gurronsevas.

  In a voice that carried only to him, it said, “We grievously misjudged your friends on the ship and, after all that you have done for us, you most of all. I was thinking too much like an ignorant and backward Wem, and I am sorry. You, and your preserver friends, are again welcome in our home.”

  “Thank you,” said Gurronsevas in matching voice. “I, too, am deeply sorry, for being so stupid and insensitive, and for not listening with more care to the words you were saying to me. It was a misunderstanding.”

  A misunderstanding …

  Gurronsevas cringed inwardly with shame and embarrassment at the memory of some of the things he had said to Remrath. At the time he had thought it strange and rather charming, but not important, that the arts of cooking and healing were practiced by the same person, and that among the Wem these individuals were also known as preservers. If he had been thinking properly he would have realized that in a society that had come to regard the eating of their increasingly scarce food animals as their only long-term hope of survival, meat from any source would not have been wasted. The clues had been plain for him to see. And when he had used the word “preservers” while referring to the medical team, believing that “healer” and “preserver” were synonymous so far as the Wem language was concerned, he had not been thinking at all.