Beastchild

nothing.
        "You should be going."
        Again: "There is nowhere for me to go."
        Hulann stood, watching the child for a long while. At last, he turned and unstrung the glow bulbs, pulled up the poles he had planted, rewound the wire and took everything into the outer cellar. He came back and put his handlamp with the boy.
        "It will give you light tonight."
        "Thank you," Leo said.
        "I have undone my work."
        Leo nodded.
        "Perhaps, tomorrow, I can fill up the crevice in the wall of ruins, seal this at the last cellar and try to keep the continuation from being discovered. Then, you would not be bothered." 'I'll help you," Leo said.
        "You know," Hulann said, his heavy face strained so even the boy could see the anguish in the alien features, "you are… you are… crucifying me?"
        And he went away. Leaving the boy with light.
        "Come in, Hulann," the traumatist Banalog said, smiling and friendly as all traumatists are with their patients. He exuded a fatherliness, an exaggerated sense of well-being that could not help but infect his charges.
        Hulann took the seat to the right of Banalog's desk while the older naoli went behind and sat down in his customary chair, leaned back and feigned relaxation.
        "I am sorry I forgot to arrange an appointment yesterday," Hulann said.
        "Nothing damaged," Banalog assured him gently, quietly. "Just shows that this guilt is not so bad as the Phasersystem computer thinks. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to continue working as you did." Banalog wondered if his lie was transparent. Hulann seemed to perk up, and he thought that he had told it with conviction. But now he was certain that the archaeologist was consciously aware of his guilt and trying to hide it."
        "I didn't know I had a guilt complex until the Phasersystem told me about it."
        Banalog waved his hands to indicate the unimportance of the situation Hulann now found himself in. The point was to, a little at least, put the patient at ease. He pulled his chair in closer to the desk, rested his arms on the top and began to punch a series of buttons on his multicolored control console.
        There was a stirring above Hulann's head. As he looked up to see the cause of the noise and movement, the hood of the monitoring robot, gray and dully burnished, descended like a landing shuttlecraft. It stopped two feet above where he sat, the four-foot diameter of the hood radiating, to all sides of him.
        Banalog worked other controls, calling forth a post which consisted of lenses and sensors of various types, all of high receptivity. It rose from the floor, half a dozen feet before Hulann, stopped when it was at his eye level.
        "I thought this equipment was for severe cases," he said to Banalog, losing the sense of ease he had entered this room with, a hard edge of terror in his voice.
        "Misconception," Banalog said as if he were quite bored, really, with this whole affair. "We have much more sophisticated equipment for a severe case."
        "But are you afraid that I would lie to you?"
        "No, no. I do not insult you, Hulann. Such a thing is opposite of my purpose. But remember that the mind is strange. Your overmind may lie to you. You would sit there telling me what you thought was the truth about your guilt complex-but it would still be festering inside you. We are all creatures strange to our own selves."
        The machines vibrated slightly as they came to life out of oiled slumber. Some of the sensors glowed green, like a naoli's eyes. Others were yellow and purple. Hulann's skin crawled as the probing waves penetrated him without sensation and began collecting data for the traumatist.
        "Then it is necessary?" he asked.
        "Not necessary, Hulann. That makes it sound as if you are in a bad way. You do not feel ill, do you? I should hope not. Believe me, I think your problem is a minor one. Not necessary, just standard procedure in such a case."
        Hulann nodded, resigned to it. He would have to be extremely cautious and hedge his answers, try to be as honest as possible-but also try to phrase his responses so that they were literally true while not giving away the exact situation.
        The questioning began gently.
        "You like your work, Hulann?"
        "Very much."
        "How many years have you been an