Stranger in a Strange Land

back! back beyond his first sight of these others who were now his own. Back even before the healing which had followed his first grokking of the fact that he was not as his nestling brothers . . . back to the nest itself.
                None of his thinkings had been in Earth symbols. Simple English he had freshly learned to speak, but much less easily than a Hindu uses it to trade with a Turk. Smith used English as one might use a code book, with tedious and imperfect translation for each symbol. Now his thoughts, pure Martian abstractions from half a million years of wildly alien culture, traveled so far from any human experience as to be utterly untranslatable.
                In the adjoining room an intern, Dr. "Tad" Thaddeus, was playing cribbage with Tom Meechum, Smith's special nurse. Thaddeus had one eye on his dials and meters and both eyes on his cards; nevertheless he noted every heart beat of his patient. When a flickering light changed from ninety-two pulsations per minute to less than twenty, he pushed the cards aside, jumped to his feet, and hurried into Smith's room with Meechum at his heels.
                The patient floated in the flexible skin of the hydraulic bed. He appeared to be dead. Thaddeus swore briefly and snapped, "Get Doctor Nelson!"
                Meechum said, "Yessir!" and added, "How about the shock gear, Doc? He's far gone." 
                "Get Doctor Nelson!"
                The nurse rushed out. The interne examined the patient as closely as possible but refrained from touching him. He was still doing so when an older doctor came in, walking with the labored awkwardness of a man long in space and not yet adjusted to high gravity. "Well, Doctor?"
                "Patient's respiration, temperature, and pulse dropped suddenly, uh, about two minutes ago, sir."
                "What have you done for him, or to him?"
                "Nothing, sir. Your instructions-"
                "Good." Nelson looked Smith over briefly, then studied the instruments back of the bed, twins of those in the watch room. "Let me know if there is any change." He started to leave.
                Thaddeus looked startled. "But, Doctor-" He broke off.
                Nelson said grimly, "Go ahead, Doctor. What is your diagnosis?"
                "Uh, I don't wish to sound off about your patient, sir."
                "Never mind. I asked for your diagnosis."
                "Very well, sir. Shock-atypical, perhaps," he hedged, "but shock, leading to termination."
                Nelson nodded. "Reasonable enough. But this isn't a reasonable case. Relax, son. I've seen this patient in this condition half a dozen times during the trip back. It doesn't mean a thing. Watch." Nelson lifted the patient's right arm, let it go. It stayed where he had left it.
                "Catalepsy?" asked Thaddeus.
                "Call it that if you like. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Don't worry about it, Doctor. There is nothing typical about this case. Just keep him from being bothered and call me if there is any change." He replaced Smith's arm.
                When Nelson had left, Thaddeus took one more look at the patient, shook his head and joined Meechum in the watch room. Meechum picked up his cards and said, "Crib?"
                "No."
                Meechuin waited, then added, "Doc, if you ask me, that one in there is a case for the basket before morning."
                "No one asked you."
                "My mistake."
                "Go out and have a cigarette with the guards. I want to think."
                Meechum shrugged and left. Thaddeus opened a bottom drawer, took out a bottle and poured himself a dose intended to help his thinking. Meechum joined the guards in the corridor; they straightened up, then saw who it was and relaxed. The taller marine said, "Howdy, pal. What was the excitement just now?"
                "Nothing much. The patient just had quintuplets and we were arguing about what to name them. Which one of you monkeys has got a butt? And a light?"
                The other marine dug a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket. "How're you fixed for Suction?" he asked bleakly.
                "Just middlin'. Thanks." Meechum stuck the cigarette in