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spending an increasing proportion of each visit talking about itself.
"With respect, Doctor," Lioren said after one particularly argumentative self-
diagnosis, "I am not in possession of an Earth-human Educator tape which would
enable me to give an opinion in your case nor, as a member of the Psychology
Department, am I allowed to practice medicine. Seldal is your physician-in-
charge and it "
"Talks to me as if ... I was a drooling infant," Mannen broke in. "Or a
frightened, terminal patient. At least you don't ... try to administer ... a
lethal overdose ... of sympathy.
You are here to ... obtain information about Seldal and, in return, to satisfy
my curiosity . . . about you. No, I am not so much afraid of dying ... as
having too much time to think about it."
"Is there pain, Doctor?" Lioren asked.
"You know there is no pain, dammit," Mannen replied in a voice made stronger
by its anger. "In the bad old days there might have been pain, and inefficient
painkilling medication that so depressed the functioning of the involuntary
muscle systems that ... the major organs went into failure and the medication
killed the patient as well as its pain ... so that its medic escaped with the
minimum of ethical self-criticism and ... its patient was spared a lingering
death. But now we have learned how to negate pain without harmful side effects
.
. . and there is nothing I can do but wait to see which of my vital organs . .
.
will be the first to expire from old age.
"I should not," Mannen ended, its voice dropping to a whisper again, "have
allowed Seldal loose in my intestines. But that blockage was . . . really
uncomfortable."
"I sympathize," Lioren said, "because I, too, wish for death. But you can look
back with pride and without pain to your past and to an ending that will not
be long delayed. In my past and future lies only guilt and desolation that I
must suffer until "
"Do you really feel sympathy, Lioren?" Mannen broke in. "You impress me as
being nothing but a proud and unfeeling ... but very efficient organic healing
machine. The Cromsag Incident . . . showed that the machine had a flaw. You
want to destroy the machine . . . while O'Mara wants to repair it. I don't
know which of you will succeed."
"I would never," Lioren said harshly, "destroy myself to avoid just
punishment."
"To an ordinary member of the staff," Mannen went on, "I would not say such .
.
. personally hurtful things. I know you feel you deserve them . . . and worse
.
. . and you expect no apology from me. But I do apologize . . . because I am
hurting in a way that I did not believe possible . . . and am striking out at
you . . . and I ignore my friends when they visit me in case they discover . .
.
that I am nothing but a vindictive old man."
Before Lioren could think of a reply, Mannen said weakly, "I have been hurtful
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to a being who has not hurt me. The only recompense I can make is by helping
you
. . . with information on Seldal. When it visits me tomorrow morning ... I
shall ask it specific and very personal questions. I shall not mention . . .
nor will it suspect your connection."
"Thank you," Lioren said. "But I do not understand how you can ask "
"It is very simple," Mannen said, its voice strengthening again. "Seldal is a
Senior Physician and I was, until my summary demotion to the status of
patient, a Diagnostician. It will be pleased to answer all my questions for
three reasons. Out of respect for my former rank, because it will want to
humor a terminal patient who wants to talk shop for what might well be the
last time, and especially because I have not spoken a word to it since three
days before the operation. If I cannot discover any helpful information for
you after that exercise, the information does not exist."
This terminally ill entity, in what might well be the last constructive act of
its life, was going to help him with the Seldal assignment as no other person
was capable of doing, simply because it had used a few impolite words to him.
Lioren had always considered it wrong to become emotionally involved in a
case, however slightly, because the patient's interests were best served by
the
impersonal, clinical approach and Mannen was not even his patient. But somehow
it seemed that the investigation into the Nallajim Senior's behavior was no
longer his only concern.
"Thank you again," Lioren said. "But I had been about to say that I cannot
understand why you are hurting in ways that you did not believe possible when
your medication should render you pain-free. Is it a nonmedical problem?"
Mannen stared up at him unblinkingly for what seemed a very long time in
silence, and Lioren wished that he was able to read the expression on its
wasted and deeply wrinkled features. He tried again.
"If it is nonmedical, would you prefer I send for O'Mara?"
"No!" Mannen said, weakly but very firmly. "I do not want to talk to the Chief
Psychologist. He has been here many times, until he stopped trying to talk to
a person who pretended to be asleep all the time and, like my other friends,
stayed away."
It was becoming clear that Mannen wanted to talk to someone, but had not yet
made the decision to do so. Silence, Lioren thought, might be the safest form
of questioning.
"In your mind," Mannen said finally, in a voice which had found strength from
somewhere, "there is too much that you want to forget. In mine there is even
more that I cannot remember."
"Still I do not understand you," Lioren said.
"Must I explain it as if you were a first-day trainee?" the patient said. "For
the greater part of my professional life I have been a Diagnostician. As such
I
have had to accommodate in my mind, often for periods of several years, the
knowledge, personalities, and medical experience of anything up to ten
entities at a time. The experience is of many alien personalities occupying
and because these tape donors were rarely timid or self-effacing
people fighting for control of the host mind. This is a subjective mental
phenomenon which must be overcome if one is to continue as a Diagnostician,
but initially it seems that the host mind is a battleground with too many
combatants warring with each other until "
"That I do understand," Lioren said. "During my time here as a Senior I was
once required to carry three tapes simultaneously."
"The host is able to impose peace and order," Mannen continued slowly,
"usually by learning to understand and adapt to and make friends with these
alien personalities without surrendering any part of his own mind, until the
necessary accommodation can be made. It is the only way to avoid serious
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mental trauma and removal from the roster of Diagnosticians."
Mannen closed its eyes for a moment, then went on. "But now the mental
battlefield is deserted, emptied of the onetime warriors who became friends. I
am all alone with the entity called Mannen, and with only Mannen's memories,
which includes the memory of having many other memories that were taken from
me.
I am told that this is as it should be because a man's mind should be his own
for a time before termination. But I am lonely, lonely and empty and cared for
and completely pain-free while I spend a subjective eternity waiting for the
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