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On their way to the place they had decided to call an institute, let the Heechee call it whatever they liked,
Stan hadn't forgotten any of those depressing thoughts, but he at least pushed them to the back of his
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mind.
Getting there was no real problem. Achiever had chosen to walk over when he paid his calls, but then
Achiever was pretty loopy anyway. Salt had told them a quicker way. One of those whirring
three-wheeled carts carried them a kilometer or two underground, and a ramp brought them to a large
suite of rooms furnished pretty much like the lounge on the spacecraft that had brought them here. The
rooms were fitted with plenty of perches and screens and desks, but with nothing that looked at all like
any part of a hospital at least, not any hospital as either Stan or Estrella understood a hospital to be. It
was low-ceilinged and windowless, but comfortably lit by glowing walls. Fifteen or twenty Heechee were
there, coming and going, talking, eating, nibbling on little mushroomy things in polished silvery bowls,
working at the lookplates or simply dozing.
There was one human.
He was in a conversation with the Heechee female Stan recognized as Salt, but he looked up with what
seemed like real pleasure when Stan and Estrella came in. "My dear friends," Sigfrid von Shrink
exclaimed, coming toward them not offering his hand to be shaken, because how could you shake the
hands of a virtual image?, but welcoming in every other way. "I promise that this won't take long at all.
Estrella, you can go right in with Catenary here " indicating an elderly female hovering nearby. "I will be
in in a moment."
Estrella sighed, put up her face to Stan to be kissed, and obeyed. As Stan watched her go von Shrink
added, "You could have come along inside if you wanted to, Stan, but there's no real need for you to be
there. Nothing serious will be done, just a few rather embarrassing questions I need to ask. Salt" who
was silently waiting beside him "can get you anything you need. Are you hungry?"
Stan was shaking his head. "No, thanks. I've had about all the weird Heechee food I want for a while."
Von Shrink tarried on the verge of turning away. "Is that a problem, Stan? Well, look, I'm needed inside
right now, but we'll talk when I get back. Meanwhile, here's Salt."
Who, of course, took efficient charge of things. Conducted Stan to a perch, between the tines of which
someone had already placed a pillow, commanded a table to rise up before him, placed on the table a
silvery bowl of what looked like broken-up bits of the kind of mold you sometimes found growing wild in
your bathroom in Istanbul. "Cannot offer other conversational partners than self here," Salt said, "because
none of others present speak you tongue, though some will no doubt come to speak for me to translate.
Meanwhile" gesturing toward the bowl "try."
Stan looked at the mushroomy bits again and shook his head. "I don't think so."
"No harm will come," she urged. "Have already confirmed this with Dr. von Shrink, who caused tests to
be made." Then, glancing up at some Heechee, diffidently approaching, "Ah. Others now here to condole
you on terrible tragedy recently happening on your home planet."
Condole him they did, oneafter another and at considerable length, Salt doing her best to translate.
Sometimes what they say was a simple expression of sympathy "most very deeply wish had never
happened unfortunate incident your species experiencing." More often, and queerly, they seemed to be
apologizing for their own inadequacies in the matter: "Regret quite altogether sincerely our people's
inability to prevent or otherwise minimize stated event" and "at first were made to feel stated event was
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typical barbaric act of long-gone wicked Assassins, misconception which unfortunately was in error
conveyed to you." And though out of politeness Stan endured it as long as he could, the time came when
he had to beg Salt to make them stop.
"Is too much quantity of same thing?" she ventured, looking thoughtful. "Yes. Perhaps this is so. Wait,
please." And, holding her skinny arms above her head for attention, she rose and addressed the room in
the familiar hisses, groans and whines of one or another of the Heechee tongues. It seemed to do the
trick. The assembled well-wishers milled about for a moment, then went back to their own affairs. "Better
now?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," he said gratefully. "It's kind of all these patients to take an interest I mean, that's what they
are, aren't they? Or doctors?"
"Not neither one," she said firmly. "These persons here for improvement simply reside at this place until
again regain " she paused, then with some pride took the word out and delivered it to
him" concinnity."
If she had intended to impress Stan with her vocabulary, she succeeded. "You got me," he confessed.
"What's that?"
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