“I know that,” Dal said.
Doctor Arnquist looked up at Dal for a long moment. “Why do you want to be a doctor in the first place, Dal? This isn’t the calling of your people. You must be the one Garvian out of millions with the patience and peculiar mental make-up to permit you to master the scientific disciplines involved in studying medicine. Either you are different from the rest of your people—which I doubt—or else you are driven to force yourself into a pattern foreign to your nature for very compelling reasons. What are they? Why do you want medicine?”
It was the hardest question of all, the question Dal had dreaded. He knew the answer, just as he had known for most of his life that he wanted to be a doctor above all else. But he had never found a way to put the reasons into words. “I can’t say,” he said slowly. “I know, but I can’t express it, and whenever I try, it just sounds silly.”
“Maybe your reasons don’t make reasonable sense,” the old man said gently.
“But they do! At least to me, they do,” Dal said. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. There’s nothing else I want to do. To work at home, among my people.”
“There was a plague on Garv II, wasn’t there?” Doctor Arnquist said. “A cyclic thing that came back again and again. The cycle was broken just a few years ago, when the virus that caused it was finally isolated and destroyed.”
“By the physicians of Hospital Earth,” Dal said.
“It’s happened again and again,” the Black Doctor said. “We’ve seen the same pattern repeated a thousand times across the galaxy, and it has always puzzled us, just a little.” He smiled. “You see, our knowledge and understanding of the life sciences here on Earth have always grown hand in hand with the physical sciences. We had always assumed that the same thing would happen on any planet where a race has developed intelligence and scientific methods of study. We were wrong, of course, which is the reason for the existence of Hospital Earth and her physicians today, but it still amazes us that with all the technology and civilization in the galaxy, we Earthmen are the only people yet discovered who have developed a broad knowledge of the processes of life and illness and death.”
The old man looked up at his visitor, and Dal felt his pale blue eyes searching his face. “How badly do you want to be a doctor, Dal?”
“More than anything else I know,” Dal said.
“Badly enough to do anything to achieve your goal?”
Dal hesitated, and stroked Fuzzy’s head gently. “Well ... almost anything.”
The Black Doctor nodded. “And that, of course, is the reason I had to see you before this interview, my friend. I know you’ve played the game straight right from the beginning, up to this point. Now I beg of you not to do the thing that you are thinking of doing.”
For a moment Dal just stared at the little old man in black, and felt the fur on his arms and back rise up. A wave of panic flooded his mind. He knows! he thought frantically. He must be able to read minds! But he thrust the idea away. There was no way that the Black Doctor could know. No race of creatures in the galaxy had that power. And yet there was no doubt that Black Doctor Arnquist knew what Dal had been thinking, just as surely as if he had said it aloud.
Dal shook his head helplessly. “I ... I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do,” Doctor Arnquist said. “Please, Dal. Trust me. This is not the time to lie. The thing that you were planning to do at the interview would be disastrous, even if it won you an assignment. It would be dishonest and unworthy.”
Then he does know! Dal thought. But how? I couldn’t have told him, or given him any hint. He felt Fuzzy give a frightened shiver on his arm, and then words were tumbling out of his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, there wasn’t anything I was thinking of. I mean, what could I do? If the council wants to assign me to a ship, they will, and if they don’t, they won’t. I don’t know what you’re thinking of.”
“Please.” Black Doctor Arnquist held up his hand. “Naturally you defend yourself,” he said. “I can’t blame you for that, and I suppose this is an unforgivable breach of diplomacy even to mention it to you, but I think it must be done. Remember that we have been studying and observing your people very carefully over the past two hundred years, Dal. It is no accident that you have such a warm attachment to your little pink friend here, and it is no accident that wherever a Garvian is found, his Fuzzy is with him, isn’t that so? And it is no accident that your people are such excellent tradesmen, that you are so remarkably skillful in driving bargains favorable to yourselves ... that you are in fact the most powerful single race of creatures in the whole Galactic Confederation.”
The old man walked to the bookshelves behind him and brought down a thick, bound manuscript. He handed it across the desk as Dal watched him. “You may read this if you like, at your leisure. Don’t worry, it’s not for publication, just a private study which I have never mentioned before to anyone, but the pattern is unmistakable. This peculiar talent of your people is difficult to describe: not really telepathy, but an ability to create the emotional responses in others that will be most favorable to you. Just what part your Fuzzies play in this ability of your people I am not sure, but I’m quite certain that without them you would not have it.”
He smiled at Dal’s stricken face. “A forbidden topic, eh? And yet perfectly true. You know right now that if you wanted to you could virtually paralyze me with fright, render me helpless to do anything but stand here and shiver, couldn’t you? Or if I were hostile to your wishes, you could suddenly force me to sympathize with you and like you enormously, until I was ready to agree to anything you wanted—”
“No,” Dal broke in. “Please, you don’t understand! I’ve never done it, not once since I came to Hospital Earth.”
“I know that. I’ve been watching you.”
“And I wouldn’t think of doing it.”
“Not even at the council interview?”
“Never!”
“Then let me have Fuzzy now. He is the key to this special talent of your people. Give him to me now, and go to the interview without him.”
Dal drew back, trembling, trying to fight down panic. He brought his hand around to the soft fur of the little pink fuzz-ball. “I ... can’t do that,” he said weakly.
“Not even if it meant your assignment to a patrol ship?”
Dal hesitated, then shook his head. “Not even then. But I won’t do what you’re saying, I promise you.”
For a long moment Black Doctor Arnquist stared at him. Then he smiled. “Will you give me your word?
“Yes, I promise.”
“Then I wish you good luck. I will do what I can at the interview. But now there is a bed for you here. You will need sleep if you are to present your best appearance.”
The Inquisition
The interview was held in the main council chambers of Hospital Seattle, and Dal could feel the tension the moment he stepped into the room. He looked at the long semicircular table, and studied the impassive faces of the four-star Physicians across the table from him.
Each of the major medical services was represented this morning. In the center, presiding