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from the patients in the ward and the beings watching from the Nurses'
Station. As the
AUGL loomed closer she could see that its eyes had theferal, manic look of a
wounded predator, and slowly it was opening its mouth.
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"Use its name, dammit!" O'Mara said urgently. "Mu-Muromeshomon," she
stammered. "My my friend, we are here to help you.
The anger in its eyes seemed to dim a little so that they reflected more of
its pain. The mouth closed slowly and opened again, but only to speak.
"Friend, you are in great and immediate danger," the AUGL said. "You have
spoken my name and told me that the hospital cannot cure me with its medicines
and machines, and it no longer tries, and you will not help me even though you
have said that a cure is possible. If our positions were reversed I would not
act, or refuse to act, as you have done. You are an unequal friend, without
honor, and I
am disappointed and angry with you. Go away, quickly, and protect your life. I
am beyond help.
"No!" Cha Thrat said fiercely. The mouth was opening wider, the eyes were
showing a manic gleam once more, and she realized that when the AUGL attacked,
she would be its first victim. Desperately she went on. "It is true that I
cannot help you. Your sickness does not respond to the healer's herbs or the
surgeon's knife, because it is a ruler's disease that requires the spells of a
wizard. A Sommaradvan wizard might cure you but, since you are not yourself a
Sommaradvan, there is no certainty. Here there is the Earth-human, O'Mara, a
wizard with experience of treating rulers of many different life-forms. I
would have approached it about your case at once but, being a trainee and
unsure of the procedure, I was about to request a meeting for another, an
unimportant, reason during which I would have spoken of you in detail...
The AUGL had closed its mouth but was moving its jaws in a way that could be
indicating anger or impatience. She went on quickly. "In the hospital I have
heard many people speak of O'Mara and his great powers of wizardry
"I'm the Chief Psychologist, dammit," O'Mara broke in, "not a wizard. Let's
try to be factual about this and not make more promises we can't possibly
keep!
"You are not a psychologist!" Cha Thrat said. She was so angry with this
Earth-human who would not accept the obvious that for a moment she almost
forgot about the threat from One Sixteen. Not for the first time she wondered
what obscure and undefined ruler's disease it was that made beings who
possessed high intelligence, and The Power in great measure, behave so
stupidly at times. Less vehemently, she went on. "On Sommaradva a psychologist
is a being, neither servile-healer nor warrior-surgeon, who tries to be a
scientist by measuring brain impulses or bodily changes caused by physical and
mental stress, or by making detailed observations of behavior. A psychologist
tries to impose immutable laws in an area of spells and nightmares and
changing realities, and tries to make a science of what has always been an
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art, an art practiced only by wizards.
They were both watching her, eyes unblinking, motionless. The patient's
expression had not changed but the Earth-human's face had gone a much deeper
shade of pink.
"A wizard will use or ignore the instruments and tabulations of the
psychologist," she continued, "to cast spells that influence the complex,
insubstantial structures of the mind. A wizard uses words, silences, minute
observation, and intuition to compare and graduallychange the sick, internal
reality of the patient to the external reality of the world. That is the
difference between a psychologist and a wizard.
The Earth-human's face was still unnaturally dark. In a voice that was both
quiet and harsh it said, "Thank you for reminding me.
Formally Cha Thrat said, "No thanks are required for that which needs to be
done. Please, may I remain here to watch? Before now I have never had the
chance to see £ wizard at work.
"What," the AUGL asked suddenly, "will the wizard do to me?
It sounded curious and anxious rather than angry, and for the first time since
entering the ward she began to feel safe.
"Nothing," O'Mara said surprisingly. "I shall do nothing at all...
Even on Sommaradva the wizards were full of surprises, unpredictable behavior
and words that began by sounding irrelevant, ill chosen, or stupid. What
little of the literature that was available to one of the warrior-surgeon
level, she
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Code%20Blue%20Emergency.txt had read and reread. So she composed herself and,
with great anticipation, watched and listened while the Earth-human wizard did
nothing at all.
The spell began very subtly with words, spoken in a manner that was anything
but subtle, describing the arrival of AUGL-One Sixteen at the hospital as the
commanding officer and sole survivor of its ship. The vessels of
water-breathing species, and especially those of the outsize denizens of
Chalderescol, were notoriously unwieldy and unsafe, and it had been exonerated
of all blame for the accident both by the Monitor Corps investigators and the
authorities on
Chalderescol but not by itself. This was realized when the patient's physical
inju-ries had healed and it continued to complain of severe psychosomatic
discomfort whenever the subject of returning home was discussed.
Many attempts were made to make the patient realize that it was punishing
itself, cutting itself off from its home and friends, for a crime that was
very probably imaginary, but without success it would not con-, sciously admit
that it had committed a crime, so telling it that it was not guilty had no
effect. A
Chalder's most prized possession was its personal integrity, and as an
authority that integrity was unassailable. AUGL-One Sixteen was a sensitive,
intelligent, and highly qualified being who, outwardly, was a submissive and
cooperative patient. But where its particular delusion was concerned it was as
susceptible to influence as the orbit of a major planet.
And so Sector General had acquired a permanent patient, an AUGL specimen in
perfect health and a continuing and strictly unofficial challenge to its
Department of Psychology, because only in the hospital could it be pain-free
and relatively happy.
Silently Cha Thrat apologized to the Earth-human for thinking that it had been
negligent, and listened in admiration as the speil took positive form.
"And now," O'Mara went on, "due to a combination of circumstances, a
significant change has occurred. The talks with transient AUGL patients have
made you increasingly homesick. Your anger over your neglect by the medical
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staff has been growing because, subconsciously, you yourself were beginning to
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