I was embarrassed. To be examined by a female, and an apostate at that, was bad enough, but to hear the diagnosis spoken so plainly was unbearable.
I retched violently—and it wasn't entirely a ritual spasm.
Wolverton chuckled as he turned to the doctor. "This one's a real hardshell," he said. "Better check for psi potential when you get back to the infirmary—we don't want to get caught with our pants down like we did last time." He laughed—a high-pitched cackle that grated on my nerves and turned to face me. "Don't worry," he went on. "You will get used to doc. You'll have to. She's the only medic we have."
The doctor looked at me with complete distaste.
"Do your worst," I said bitterly. "After your unclean hands have touched me, I can stand anything."
"I'll do my best—even for you!" the doctor said. She looked into my eyes until her own slid aside from the force of my superior will. "You probably can stand anything—and possibly even more," she admitted grudgingly. She gestured to the Halsite who picked me up as though I were a child and carried me into the building down corridors, past courtyards and fountains to a small white room where he laid me on a table and held me while the doctor set my leg—ignoring my flinching revulsion to her touch.
So that was how I came to be seated in a wheelchair with a Halsite at my back, listening to Wolverton's voice—the Voice of Evil. The Halsite who attended me scratched idly at an insect bite on one massive arm and eyed me speculatively. But I had seen quite a few Halsites these past two weeks and so I didn't feel particularly disturbed. My itching leg occupied most of my attention.
Wolverton looked at me, sighed and shrugged his lean shoulders. "I wonder if you're worth it," he speculated audibly. "Possibly it'd be better to wait until you've married and try again with your children." He rose to his feet. "But I can't take the chance," he said. "Already it's getting too late—in another generation there might be no opportunity to salvage the race. Can't work with material like your society. There has to be some balance—and the old civilizations are going downhill. There just doesn't seem to be anything now but nut cults and decadence. There's no middle ground except for a few places—and those are damn near Maximum Survival Density." He capitalized the last three words verbally.
I don't think he was really conscious of my presence at the moment, which was oddly annoying. For an instant he was miles away in a world of his own—a world which I did not understand. And for an equally brief instant I wished I could.