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on your condition and that of the others, but without speaking to you..."
"Good," said Naydrad, rippling its fur. "I hate being called a liar,
especially when my people don't even know what a lie is."
"... until, that is," he ended, "you ask to speak to us. All other members of
the medical staff including myself will leave you now."
Irisik was radiating surprise, confusion, and uncertainty. It said, "I know
you aren't telling the truth, but your lies are inter-esting and I want to
listen to more of them before I am killed. Please stay."
"No," said Prilicla firmly. "Until you believe that you are being told the
truth, including the truth that we mean no harm to you, your people, or your
world and the animal life here, we will not speak again. And remember, I know
exactly how you are feeling about everything from moment to moment, and it is
im-possible to lie with the emotions. When I feel that you are ready to
believe me, I shall speak with you again."
He led Murchison and Danalta into the communications room where Fletcher,
displaying the symptoms of Earth-human elevated blood pressure, was glaring at
them from the viewscreen. His two assistants were bursting to speak, but the
captain got its question in first.
"Doctor," it said, "this is an unnecessary waste of time. I know the feelings
of a person of your medical seniority and emo-tional sensitivity must be hurt
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at being treated as a liar. You wouldn't be human I'm sorry, I mean
Cinrusskin if you didn't feel angry about that six-legged doubting Thomas. But
I'm sure that with a little more patience and forbearance on your part you
will be able to convince it that..."
"I know its present feelings, friend Fletcher," Prilicla broke in, "well
enough to know that I won't be able to change them. It is a strong-minded,
stubborn entity who considers itself to be one of the many victims around it
who are shortly to be termi-nated and eaten. It won't believe us, but
hopefully our other so-called victims will be able to disabuse it and the
other spider patients of that idea."
"Very quickly, I hope," Fletcher said, its features losing some of their high
color. "If there is a sustained attack lasting more than thirty-six hours, the
screen will go down. Before then we will have to make a main-drive takeoff and
crisp a few hundred spiders. That is not the Federation's idea of making
friendly contact with another intelligent, if temporarily mis-guided, species.
All our careers are on the line here, apart from the psychological trauma
we'll suffer if things go that badly wrong."
"Yes, friend Fletcher," said Prilicla, feeling the other's tor-tured,
emotional radiation all the way from the ship and trying to do something about
it. "But there is a precedent. This is on a smaller, less bloody scale, but
remember what happened when Sector General was caught in the middle of the
Federation-Etlan
War. Due to massive overcrowding the casualties from both sides were treated
in
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file:///F|/rah/James%20White/White,%20James%20-%20Sector%20General%2012%20-%20
Double%20Contact.txt the same ward. There is a close similarity to our present
situation."
"Is there," said the captain, its mind obviously contemplat-ing a future where
all was desolation. Irritably it added, "I wasn't there, Doctor, and it wasn't
a war. It was a large-scale police action."
Prilicla well remembered that vicious and incredibly violent battle which had
been waged around Sector General, when six of the Federation's sector
subfleets including three of its capital ships had opposed a much heavier
force from the
Etlan Empire, whose ruler had fed his people totally wrong information about
the other side. He didn't want to argue with the captain who, like the rest of
its
Monitor Corps colleagues, were touchy about the fact that their organization
comprised the greatest assemblage of military might that the galaxy had ever
known. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]