The Lani People

  CHAPTER XII

  Kennon wondered if his colleagues in human medicine felt toward theirpatients as he did toward the Lani, or if they ultimately lost theirindividuality and became mere hosts for diseases, parasites,and tumors--vehicles for the practice of surgical and medicalskills--economic units whose well-being meant a certain amount ofcredits. Probably not, he decided. They were human and their veryhumanity made them persons rather than things.

  But the possession of individuality was not an asset in the practice ofanimal medicine where economics was the main factor and the satisfactionof the owner the principal personality problem. The normal farm animals,the shrakes, cattle, sheep, morks, and swine were no problem. They weremerely a job. But the Lani were different. They weren't human, but theywere intelligent and they did have personality even though they didn'tpossess that indefinable quality that separated man from the beasts. Itwas hard to treat them with dispassionate objectivity. In fact, it wasimpossible.

  And this lack of objectivity annoyed him. Should he be this way? Was heright to identify them as individuals and treat them as personsrather than things? The passing months had failed to rob them of theirpersonalities: they had not become the faceless mass of a herd of cattleor a flock of sheep. They were still not essentially differentfrom humans--and wouldn't men themselves lose many of their humancharacteristics if they were herded into barracks and treated asproperty for forty generations? Wouldn't men, too, approach the animalcondition if they were bred and treated as beasts, their pedigreesrecorded, their types winnowed and selected? The thought was annoying.

  It would be better, Kennon reflected, if he didn't have time to think,if he were so busy he could drop to his bed exhausted each night andsleep without dreaming, if he could keep on the run so fast that hewouldn't have time to sit and reflect. But he had done his work toowell. He had trained his staff too thoroughly. They could handle thepetty routines of minor treatment and laboratory tests as well as he. Hehad only the intellectual stimulation of atypical cases and these wereall too rare. The routine inspections were boring, yet he forced himselfto make them because they filled the time. The hospital wards werevirtually empty of patients, the work was up to date, the whole islandwas enjoying a carnival of health, and Kennon was still impaled uponthe horns of his dilemma. It wasn't so bad now that the first shock wasover, but it was bad enough--and showed no signs of getting better. Nowthat Copper realized he wanted her, she did nothing to make his lifeeasier. Instead she did her best to get underfoot, usually in someprovocative position. It was enough to try the patience of a marblestatue Kennon reflected grimly. But it did have its humorous sideand were it not for the fact that Copper wasn't human could havebeen thoroughly enjoyable. That, however, was the real hell of it. Hecouldn't relax and enjoy the contest--his feet were on too slipperyground. And Copper with her unerring female instinct knew just what todo to make the footing slipperier. Sooner or later, she was certain thathe would fall. It was only a question of applying sufficient pressure atthe right spot and the right time. Now that she knew he desired her,she was content to wait. The only thing that had bothered her was theuncertainty whether he cared or not. For Copper the future was a simplething and she was lighthearted about it. But not so Kennon. Even afterthe initial shock had passed there still remained the moral customs, theconditioning, and the prohibitions. But Copper--was Copper--and somehowthe conditioning lost its force in her presence. Perhaps, he thoughtwryly, it was a symptom of the gradual erosion of his moral character inthis abnormal environment.

  "I'm getting stale," he confided to Copper as he sat in his office idlyturning the pages of the Kardon Journal of Allied Medical Sciences."There's nothing to do that's interesting."

  "You could help me," Copper said as she looked up from the pile of cardsshe was sorting. He had given her the thankless task of reorganizing thefiles, and she was barely half through the project.

  "There's nothing to do that's interesting," he repeated. He cocked hishead to one side. From this angle Copper looked decidedly intriguing asshe bent over the file drawer and replaced a stack of cards.

  "I could suggest something," Copper said demurely.

  "Yes, I know," he said. "You're full of suggestions."

  "I was thinking that we could go on a picnic."

  "A what?"

  "A picnic. Take a lunch and go somewhere in the jeep. Maybe up into thehills. I think it might be fun."

  "Why not?" Kennon agreed. "At least it would break the monotony. Tellyou what. You run up to the house and tell Kara to pack a lunch andwe'll take the day off."

  "Good! I hoped you'd say that. I'm getting tired of these dirty oldcards." She stood up and sidled past the desk. Kennon resisted theimpulse to slap as she went past, and congratulated himself on hisself-control as she looked at him with a half-disappointed expressionon her face. She had expected it, he thought gleefully. Score one formorality.