"What did you expect?" rumbled the creature in the pool. Wavelets of acid danced across the surface, stirred by her voice.
"I didn't expect that."
"You don't know the Medicouncil very well."
"I guess I don't." He stared sullenly at the fluid. It was faintly blue. "I have the feeling they didn't consider it, that they held the request for a time and then answered no without looking at it."
"Now you're beginning to learn. Wait till you've been here as long as I have."
Morosely he kicked an anemic tuft of grass. Plants didn't do well here either. They too were exiled, far from the sun, removed from the soil they originated in. The conditions they grew in were artificial. "Why did they turn us down?" said Docchi.
"Answer it yourself. Remember what the Medicouncil is like. Different things are important to them. The main thing is that we don't have to follow their example. There's no need to be irrational even though they are."
"I wish I knew what to do," said Docchi. "It meant so much to us."
"We can wait, outlast the attitude," said Anti, moving slowly. It was the only way she could move. Most of her bulk was beneath the surface.
"Cameron suggested waiting." Reflectively Docchi added: "It's true we are biocompensators."